October 13, 2003
60,000 Children left behind
Tammey Amodea's baby needs a heart valve replacement. So the Cape Coral real estate agent is busy organizing fundraisers to pay for the operations her child is going to need.Posted by Norwood at October 13, 2003 08:08 AMAmodea has to scramble because she doesn't have health coverage from her employer and state lawmakers froze enrollment to Florida KidCare, the state's programs for children in poor and working families that can't afford health insurance.
The enrollment caps took effect in July. By the end of September, the waiting list had grown to nearly 60,000 children. And there are a lot of children in front of Amodea's 14-month-old son Dakota - about 13,000, she said.
Florida KidCare consists of four different programs. Enrollment in Medicaid, the oldest and largest program under the KidCare umbrella, remains open. Federal law requires that Medicaid serve everyone who is eligible and signs up.
Nearly 1.7-million children - more than a quarter of the children in Florida - get their health care from Medicaid.
But the state has the power to limit services in the other three programs that make up Florida KidCare, and lawmakers took that step this spring to save money as they struggled to balance a $53-billion budget.
