- April 26, 2024
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If you could help your neighbor, would you? If you could help 1 million of your neighbors in Florida, would you?
The state of Florida has the opportunity to help 1 million neighbors throughout Florida. These people are the working poor, defined as making about $32,000 a year in total household income for a family of four, or around $15,860 as an individual. These hard-working Floridians do not have health insurance because they cannot afford it. The businesses they work for likewise cannot afford to provide health insurance coverage for these low-wage workers.
The state of Florida has the opportunity to use federal tax dollars that we, as a state, have already sent to Washington and that would reimburse us to help pay the cost of health insurance for those who cannot afford it.
In this past legislative session, the Florida Senate, led by Joe Negron, passed a bill that would have allowed this federal money to be used to purchase health insurance through competitive exchanges beginning in 2014. The Florida House of Representatives rejected this proposal, stating they did not want to take any federal money for the expansion of healthcare coverage — even though they accept federal tax dollars for education, transportation and the Medicaid program. As a result 1 million Floridians — our neighbors — will continue to be without health insurance.
This will mean that they will continue to have to rely upon emergency rooms for their care and have their cost borne by those of you who have insurance. This also means that many businesses in our state and our community will find themselves saddled with fines from $2,000 to $3,000 per employee because they are not able to provide health insurance, and their employees will seek subsidized health insurance from the exchanges.
The continuation of the working poor being uninsured and the penalties that would be paid by business could all be avoided if both houses of the Florida Legislature would agree to set up a plan where Florida would take back the monies our citizens have already sent to Washington. For the first three years of this program, the state government will not have to put in one dime to support it. Over the following seven years, the state would gradually pay for up to 10% of the cost of the program.
This is a small price for the state to pay to have health insurance extended to our neighbors and to be able to have our businesses which are struggling in this economy to avoid paying potentially ruinous penalties.
It is in the best interest of our community and our state to implement this one portion of health care reform. It is the one aspect of reform that most clearly will benefit individuals and small businesses.
You likely want to help your neighbors, and I want to help our neighbors. We need the Florida Legislature on our side.
Ken Mattison is the new CEO of Florida Hospital Flagler.
