Florida Medicaid Recipients File Lawsuit Alleging State Improperly "Trapping" People in Medical Coverage; Representation Provided by Legal Aid Service of Broward County
Legal Services E-lert
Date of E-Lert – 01/18/08
Bibliographic Info:
Author: Bob Mendola
Source: South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Date: 01/12/2008
The South
Florida Sun-Sentinel states: “Three
Medicaid recipients from Broward County filed a federal class-action lawsuit Friday
[January 11, 2008] alleging that the state is improperly trapping people in
unsuitable medical coverage, in the latest slap against Florida’s Medicaid reform experiment. The reform has forced about 200,000
low-income recipients into HMO-style plans in an attempt to save money and
improve care, but federal law allows recipients to change plans at will within
the first 90 days and after that if they have ‘good cause,’ the lawsuit
says. Materials sent to recipients do
not fully explain their rights to change plans, the lawsuit said, and
state-hired counselors wrongly have told recipients they are locked in for a
full a year . . . . ‘The Medicaid reform
program has been imposed on poor and disabled people, and they are not getting
the medical care and rights the law promised them,’ said C. Shaw Boehringer, an
attorney at Legal Aid Service of Broward County.’”
Tags: Health, Legal Services Activities and Achievements
