CNN just published an in-depth, horrifying investigative story on the state of Florida's 2014-15 to systematically remove sick and disabled children from "a highly respected program called Children's Medical Services, or CMS, a part of Florida Medicaid" and onto private plans with companies who happen to be big donors to the state Republican party. The story highlights pediatricians who are outraged that their young patients have been endangered, and that decision-making process that got them here was entirely corrupted, with physicians left voiceless.
First, the data analysis the state used to justify switching the children is "inaccurate" and "bizarre," according to the researcher who wrote the software used in that analysis.
Second, the screening tool the state used to select which children would be kicked off the program has been called "completely invalid" and "a perversion of science" by top experts in children with special health care needs.
Third, in fall 2015, a state administrative law judge ruled that the Department of Health should stop using the screening tool because it was unlawful. However, even after the judge issued his decision, the department didn't automatically re-enroll the children or even reach out to the families directly to let them know that re-enrollment was a possibility.
Finally, parents and Florida pediatricians raise questions about the true reasons why Florida's Republican administration switched the children's health plans. They question whether it was to financially reward insurance companies that had donated millions of dollars to the Republican Party of Florida.
"This was a way for the politicians to repay the entities that had contributed to their political campaigns and their political success, and it's the children who suffered," said Dr. Louis St. Petery, former executive vice president of the Florida chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
It's an astounding story of an administration—Gov. Rick Scott's Republican administration—so corrupt that it was willing to risk the lives of children—more than 13,000 of them. Many of the children were switched to plans that had doctors who simply wouldn't treat them, like LJ Stroud who was born with a cleft lip and palate, and who had a tooth emerge in the roof of his mouth when he was eleven. He suffered from near constant pain and ear aches that couldn't be treated. The surgeon scheduled to operate on Stroud to fix these issues in the CMS program called to cancel just days before the surgery, because he didn't participate in the network the state moved the child to. No provider in that network would do the surgery. It took a lawsuit to restore LJ's insurance, and seven months for him to finally get the surgery—seven months of constant pain, a 10-pound weight loss, and his inability to do the things a kid does. A number of other children's families did successfully sue the state to have their CMS reinstated, but doctors are speaking out now for the thousands of sick and disabled children who got kicked off.
The entire story is a must-read, because it demonstrates just how low Republicans are willing to go to undermine public health care, to inject every bit of public policy-making with pure partisanship. They didn't even try that hard to pretend they were doing otherwise, all but telling the physicians who are supposed to be advising on these decisions that they were irrelevant. In fact, they literally did so, including kicking Dr. Louis St. Petery, former executive vice president of the Florida chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics and a former CMS director out of a Department of Health meeting with the regional medical directors of CMS, the group of pediatricians who help run the program. He was a critic, so he was barred from attending. Since the state implemented its process for kicking kids out of the program, physicians say they have been completely ignored.
The long story is very much worth the time it takes to read. But there's a take-away that isn't in the story that has to be highlighted—this is what congressional Republicans—with House Speaker Paul Ryan leading the charge—want to do to Medicaid across the country. Should their plans for decimating it come to fruition, Florida will provide the blueprint for every Republican governor and legislature for how to kick kids out of health care. Probably not every state will be so blatantly corrupt and evil as Rick Scott's because how in the hell do you match that?