Lawsuit: Florida is illegally kicking Medicaid-eligible people off health insurance
JACKSONVILLE — Clayton Harrell, an 18-year-old adopted out of the state’s foster-care system, has pituitary dwarfism, pseudotumor cerebri, fetal alcohol syndrome and an anxiety disorder. For years, the state has ensured he could see specialists and take the medication he needs.
But on Aug. 1, the state ended his Medicaid without informing him or his mother, according to a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday that argues Harrell, along with dozens of other clients, have been illegally removed from the state’s Medicaid coverage.
The class-action lawsuit filed in Jacksonville highlights specific cases like Harrell’s where Medicaid recipients were kicked off the coverage even when they shouldn’t have been. In Harrell’s case, he aged out of one category of Medicaid eligibility, but the state should have known he was still eligible under other categories. His lawsuit seeks to force the state to reinstate Medicaid coverage to everyone whose coverage ended illegally.
Attorney Katy Debriere of the Florida Health Justice Project said the number of people who have been kicked off Medicaid inappropriately could reach into the thousands. When she started her current job in 2015, she almost immediately faced clients like Harrell, she said. Over the last four years, she’s represented 10 different people who were improperly removed from Medicaid.
Read more: https://www.gainesville.com/news/20190809/lawsuit-florida-is-illegally-kicking-medicaid-eligible-people-off-health-insurance
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