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Reader concerned about children’s health care


Posted

In 2015, the Rick Scott administration removed 13,000 children from the Children’s Medical Services program.

CMS is a collection of programs that serve children with special health care needs. These children were referred to different Medicaid plans and many suffered because these new plans did not cover necessary surgeries or specialists vital to their care.

Pediatricians and parents claimed the reason for the switch was to funnel taxpayer money into the coffers of major donors to the Republican Party of Florida. In fact, nine of the eleven insurance plans the children were switched to were owned by insurance companies that donated a combined $8.6 million to the Florida GOP in the five years leading up to the removal of the children from CMS to Medicaid HMOs.

Upon learning of this abhorrence, Sen. Bill Nelson immediately appealed to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to protect these children. Nelson urged HHS to exercise its oversight and enforcement authority to ensure children in Florida were appropriately enrolled in the plan that best fits their needs.

Please consider this when deciding who should represent Floridians in the U.S. Senate. Do you want a representative who rewarded his political donors at the expense of our state’s children or do you want someone who has a track record of protecting our children? The choice for Florida’s future is clear.

Shiela Kerr

Orange Park