Cover Florida is a partnership between the State of Florida and 6 private Florida health insurance companies. No tax dollars were required to create the Cover Florida health insurance plans, so i would expect the eligibility requirements will be as stringent as state sponsored like Florida Kidcare. The objective is to make affordable health insurance available to the 3.8 million uninsured Floridians.
Cover Florida preventative and catastropic health insurance plans will be available to Floridians who:
- have been without insurance for at least six months
- are recently unemployed
- lost COBRA benefits
- death of, or divorce from, a spouse with and employer sponsored plan
These plans are supposed to be affordable and guaranteed issue so pre-existing conditions shouldn't be a problem. Employers may voluntarily share in the cost of the plans for their employees.
Availability of the plans will be based on the county of residence. United Healthcare and Blue Cross Blue Shield, will be offering plans in all 67 counties in Florida. Broward residents will also have plans from Medica Health Plan and Total Health Choice. Miami-Dade residents will also be able to choose plans from Medica, Total Health Choice, and JMH. Flagler and Volusia residents will also have Florida Health Care plans. This is not the same as the new Miami Dade Blue health insurance plans from Blue Cross Blue Shield.
Coverage for the different plans varies as much as the price does and they are supposed tobe available as January 5, 2009. I will update this page with each company's contact information as soon as it becomes available.
Bottom line is that these are limited benefit plans with LOW annual maximums. If you have pre-existing conditions and you can not get anything else then this will have to do. If you are healthy enough to get through underwriting with an individual or family health insurance plan then you do NOT want a Cover Florida health plan. Remember small business health insurance plans in Florida(1-50 employees) are guaranteed issue.
You can get more information including prices and benefit summaries at the Cover Florida website.