Still no answers from DeSantis administration on KidCare disenrollments, challenges

Florida lawmakers pressed the DeSantis administration's Agency for Health Care Administration on Friday for a timeline on expanding KidCare eligibility, a change the Legislature approved in 2023 under then-House Speaker Paul Renner. AHCA officials, citing ongoing litigation with the federal government, could not say when the expansion might happen or whether it would happen at all.

The dispute centers on a federal requirement that Medicaid-eligible children stay continuously enrolled for a year; Florida has sued the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services at least three times over it. Meanwhile the state has continued disenrolling children for missed premium payments, the very practice at issue in the litigation.

AHCA's own numbers have been unreliable: an official initially told senators he didn't know how many children had been disenrolled, a subsequent figure from Florida Healthy Kids Corp. put it at over 17,000, and the real number turned out to be more than 43,000 over twelve months. Bipartisan lawmakers, including Republican Sen. Gayle Harrell, noted it's been more than three years since the expansion was approved.

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