- Atecia Robinson
- Members from Florida PIRG, Organize Now, and the Florida Consumer Action Network in front of WellCare headquarters
This year lawmakers in Florida passed House Bill 7107 and House Bill 7109 that would change Medicaid Services or (CMS).
Florida PIRG, Organize Now, and the Florida Consumer Action Network are calling on federal agencies to deny Florida’s request to privatize services and push over two million Floridians into managed care plans.
Controversial Medicaid experiments where conducted over the last year in five pilot counties; Duval, Nassau, Baker, Clay and Broward. Some say the efforts were not proven to be effective. The new house bill would expand the concept implemented in the test counties to all 67 counties in Florida.
Over 100 advocacy groups and providers protest that companies are making a profit at the expense of the poor. One such company that has been accused of HMO Medicaid Fraud was Wellcare.
In March five Well Care executives were indicted according to the U.S attorney’s office. Well Care was found to have produced false documents to insurance companies from July 2003 through October 2007. These documents inflated the costs of behavioral health care they provided to patients.