Florida Governor Crist Touts Plan That Would Insure More Residents, Senate Likely To Pass Plan This Week

Main Category: Health Insurance / Medical Insurance
Article Date: 11 Apr 2008 - 9:00 PDT

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Florida Gov. Charlie Crist (R) is traveling through the state touting his proposal that seeks to provide health coverage to up to 3.8 million uninsured residents, the Miami Herald reports. According to the Herald, Crist's plan would remove mandates that require insurance plans to include coverage of up to 50 services, which would allow insurers to offer stripped-down plans with premiums as low as $150 a month. The plan would include coverage of office visits, outpatient surgery, medical equipment, inpatient hospital stays and emergency care services. Under the proposal, two tiers of coverage for catastrophic and noncatastrophic illnesses would be available for residents who were uninsured for the previous six months.

The state Senate is expected to approve Crist's proposal this week. The state House Healthcare Council on Tuesday approved legislation that includes some provisions of Crist's plan and that would establish a public-private not-for-profit corporation to administer stripped-down plans for small businesses (Hatcher/Caputo, Miami Herald, 4/9). Under Crist's plan, state regulators would oversee the program (Bousquet, St. Petersburg Times, 4/9).

Both of the plans are voluntary, but they would require employers to automatically enroll workers in health plans, and employees could opt out. Both plans also would require insurers to provide coverage to dependent children up to age 30 and loosen eligibility requirements for certain plans, including Health Flex Plans and KidCare, the state's version of SCHIP (Miami Herald, 4/9).

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