Dec 11, 2008 5:35 pm US/Eastern
Florida To "Cover" All With Affordable Insurance
Click Here For Cover Florida Health Care Web Site
Cover Florida Health Care Available Starting Jan. 5, 2009
TALLAHASSEE (CBS4) ―
Nearly 4 million uninsured Floridians can start applying for low-cost health coverage through a new state program starting next month.
If health coverage is part of the brick and mortar of a secure life, then Jeff White has simply learned to do without it. People like him are one serious illness or injury away from financial disaster, if they are not there already. He's a construction worker on jobs in Broward and Miami-Dade.
White said, "Anything that happens on the job, we are covered, but anything that creeps up on you, you go play basketball with the guys and get hurt, then you have to figure out how to pay for it."
He's an example of a growing crisis—widespread lack of health insurance, even among working Floridians. Now, though, some help is on the way. It's a plan called "Cover Florida". On Wednesday Governor Charlie Crist signed agreements with six insurance companies to provide basic, no frills, low cost coverage plans to uninsured Floridians.
Crist said, "Many of them, maybe for the first time..it will give (those) Floridians peace of mind."
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida and United Health Care will offer policies statewide under the plan. Smaller insurers will offer plans only in South Florida. More information about the Cover Florida benefit options is available at www.CoverFloridaHealthCare.com.
Blue Cross Blue Shield, for instance, will offer: a catastrophic coverage plan that will cost the typical 40-year-old $150 per month, or a non-catastrophic plan for $50 per month.
Dr. Frank Astor is the corporate medical director for Blue Cross Blue Shield. He told us, "The non-catastrophic plan covers basic health care needs such as physician payments, pharmacy, lab work, diagnostics and some dental."
They're basic plans, to be sure, but they offer hope to people living on the edge every single day.
Vicky Cortes used to be one of them. She's a contract administrator at a Miami construction site on Brickell Avenue. Her job provides her with health coverage, but she remembers going for a long while without it. Cortes told CBS4's Michael Williams, "I have been in that boat and you pray nothing happens to your children, and you could get a job and be able to attain health insurance."
The Cover Florida Health Care Access Program, which makes coverage available to people ages 19 to 64, who have been uninsured for at least six months, will be available Jan. 5. No tax dollars were required to make the plans available, Gov. Charlie Crist's office said. Four of the six carriers insure children of applicants. Consumers can save 50 percent or more over similar polices available on the open market, but the state plans typically have less comprehensive coverage.
Under the Cover Florida plan more people will now have that chance. More information about the Cover Florida benefit options is available at www.CoverFloridaHealthCare.com.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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