Profit-Hungry Middlemen Are Restricting Vital Medicaid to Children in Florida
Florida has outsourced Medicaid decisions on children’s therapy to a private company, depriving kids from low-income families of vital care. The company, Health Network One, could now expand to other states.
Families are saying Florida’s Medicaid scheme puts upper limits on their children’s coverage. (Getty Images)
B. T., a nine-year-old Florida child diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, had a vocabulary of just thirty words, and would get so frustrated trying to communicate she would bite herself.
As a Medicaid patient, she was entitled to receive ongoing treatment under federal law, and for the last six-and-a-half years, she had received an hour of speech therapy three times a week to master two-word commands.
Suddenly last year, B. T.’s care was cut in half, even though her condition had not improved.
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