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Health care bills may help children

By Steve Bousquet, Times Staff Writer
In print: Saturday, May 3, 2008

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TALLAHASSEE – Florida's autistic children and its uninsured are among those who may see help under a handful of health care bills passed Friday in the final hours of the Legislature's session.

Lawmakers passed a bill requiring insurance policies to offer $36,000 worth of annual medical coverage for autism to children age 5 and under, with a lifetime cap of $200,000 worth of benefits.

The bill (SB2654) was named for its most ardent champion, Senate Minority Leader Steve Geller, D-Cooper City, who has pushed for it for several years. The term-limited legislator is leaving after 20 years.

With one-fifth of Florida's 19-million residents lacking health insurance, lawmakers approved a bill (SB 2534) that invites private insurers to sell scaled-down policies with premiums at about $150 month starting next year.

A priority of Gov. Charlie Crist, his "Cover Florida" plan was merged with a House "Florida Health Choices" plan that also creates a state-funded $1.5-million corporation to manage the program.

"We made a giant step," said Sen. Durell Peaden, R-Crestview, after 14 years of what he called "baby steps" in expanding access to health care.

To enroll in the voluntary program, a person must have been uninsured for six months.

Talks between the governor's aides and the House bogged down on Crist's insistence that the corporation's 12 political appointees comply with ethics and public meeting laws, and that health insurers not be allowed to serve because of possible conflicts of interest.

Still unclear, however, is how well Crist's plan will work and what exactly consumers will be able to buy for $150 a month. In the next couple of months, the state will invite insurance companies to submit proposals.

Another bill headed to Crist's desk (SB 2636) streamlines the regulation process for hospital expansion, and a third bill (SB 2760) makes it easier for retired or out-of-state dentists to be licensed in Florida so they can treat more Medicaid patients.

Florida has one dentist for every 10,000 kids on Medicaid, and 16 counties, many of them small and rural, have no more than a single dentist to see children on Medicaid.