With 800,000 uninsured Floridians stuck in the “coverage gap” - too much money to qualify for Medicaid, but not enough for subsidies under the Affordable Care Act - the focus is turning on what can be done to help.
The Florida Legislature turned down the option of accepting $51 billion in federal funds that would have provided them health coverage last year. With only one week left in this year's session, those in the gap - 20 percent of Florida’s uninsured - will most likely be left hanging.
The Orlando Sentinel reports about one of them: Kathleen Voss Woolrich, 47. She works two or three jobs at a time, mostly in sales and as a notary, to support her two children, the Sentinel writes. She also has a chronic autoimmune disease, and she gets most of her medical care from emergency rooms.
As the Sentinel reports, Voss Woolrich's income for her family of three is about $12,000 a year, which was not enough to qualify for subsidized coverage through Healthcare.gov during open enrollment. But it's about twice as much as the income for a family of three to qualify for Florida Medicaid.