National Headlines
Upcoming EventsFlorida Board of Medicine Public MeetingJuly 19-20, 2008, 9:00 a.m., Jacksonville Board of Hearing Aid Specialists Public MeetingJuly 26, 9 a.m., Miami 2008 FACHC & AHEC Meeting and Educational SummitJuly 28-30, Bonita Springs, FL Cover Florida: The Unregulated Health Insurance MarketJuly 30, from 9 a.m. - 12 Noon, Miami Peace Education Foundation RSVP/Details: Roxannep@hscdade.org or 305-576-5001 x12Sexual Violence Prevention Program Public MeetingJuly 31- August 1, Orlando Empowering Healthcare: A Look at Key ComponentsAugust 13, Ft. Lauderdale |
Top StoryHouse combines plans from governor, Bean By Christine Jordan Sexton
Now the couple, who are real estate agents, are paying off a bill negotiated down to $30,000. “God forbid it was a heart attack or something like that,” Jeff Adams told Gov. Charlie Crist at the Governor’s Mansion on Tuesday. “It could be hundreds of thousands.”
Crist, who hosted the Adamses and seven others who wrote him about access to health care, told them they’ll be able to buy an affordable policy if the Legislature passes his “Cover Florida” proposal. It would require insurers to stop turning people like the Adamses away.
In difficult economic times, he said, “I don’t want our people to worry about getting health coverage.”
But a few blocks away at the Capitol, a House health care panel approved a bill that combines Crist’s plan with a quite different one pushed by Rep. Aaron Bean, R-Fernandina Beach. Bean’s plan, Florida Health Choices, would not require that insurers take all comers.
Essentially, Crist’s proposal would have the state take bids from and negotiate with insurers on behalf of consumers. His goal: Floridians could buy a catastrophic plan that includes hospital coverage for $150 a month or a more pared-back plan without hospitalization for $100 per month.
Bean’s plan also aims at providing low-cost coverage, but employers have to sign up before workers can buy it.
There are stark differences between the Crist and Bean proposals. While both provide coverage that omits the 50-odd “mandates” now required by state law, Crist’s plan still names some services that must be provided. The Bean plan has no minimum required coverage.
Another difference: Bean’s plan allows companies to require workers to buy health insurance as a condition of employment. Crist’s plan would not require insurers to bid nor uninsured citizens to buy coverage.
Mary Beth Senkewicz, Florida’s deputy insurance commissioner for life and health, warned members of the House Healthcare Council that the Bean plan is “very consumer unfriendly.” Differences between the two programs are so great that passing them both “can lead to confusion in the marketplace.”
Bean’s Florida Health Choices initiative would allow a “laundry list of eligible vendors” to sell products and services without having to meet solvency requirements required of HMOs and insurance companies. There would be no guarantee that these companies could pay the bills when the claims came in, she said.
The Senate has moved the governor’s Cover Florida Plan through committee. The full Senate could vote on the plan, SB 2534, as early as this week.
Florida Health News Tallahassee correspondent Christine Jordan Sexton can be reached at cjordansexton@hotmail.com. |
Related Articles |
||
 |
 |
 |
