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'Moral Monday,' Other Events Loom

Leon County Judge John Cooper on June 30, 2022, in a screen grab from The Florida Channel.
Tom Carlock
/
The Florida Channel
An enrollment event in January at Gasparilla Pirate Festival in Tampa.

With just one month left before the deadline to sign up for a 2014 health plan, enrollment events are popping up all over the state.  Health Care for Florida Now, an advocacy group for health-care access, has pulled togetheran events calendarto help.

Monday's listing is topped by "Moral Monday," described as a mass rally at the Capitol in Tallahassee organized by groups seeking "social justice." They include the NAACP and a number of clergy from both  black and white churches.

Organizers hope to emulate the success of Moral Monday rallies in North Carolina, which have drawn thousands and made national news

In other events, the calendar shows three listed for Saturday, March 1: in Orlando, Tampa and Miami. But next week, there are events listed for small towns, too, including Clermont and Mount Dora.

On Thursday, March 6, the USF Health computer lab in Tampa will be open and staffed with navigators from 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. It will be able to accommodate 40 people an hour, a news release from the university said.

The Affordable Care Act requires that those who don't already have health insurance sign up for a plan by March 31, when open-enrollment season for 2014 is over.  Florida chose not to operate its own marketplace and is relying on the federal exchange, Healthcare.gov.

According to data released in mid-February, Florida had enrolled almost 300,000 by the end of January -- more than any other state relying on the federal exchange. But then, at the beginning of enrollment, Florida had nearly 4 million uninsured, more than any state except California and Texas.  

Originally founded in December 2006 as an independent grassroots publication dedicated to coverage of health issues in Florida, Health News Florida was acquired by WUSF Public Media in September 2012.