Florida Health Insurance Efforts Get A Boost

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TALLAHASSEE (CBSMiami/NSF) - A Florida organization will get a $250,000 infusion to help uninsured residents find health-care coverage over the next 10 weeks.

The Biden administration selected Florida Covering Kids & Families as one of 30 "navigators" nationwide to receive additional funding for a 2021 special enrollment period, which began February 15th and will end May 15th. It was only one of two navigators to receive $250,000, the highest amount awarded.

Before Monday's announcement, Florida Covering Kids & Families had spearheaded the state's navigator efforts with a $1.6 million budget.

In all, the Biden administration announced Monday that roughly $2.3 million in additional funds were being made available to navigators. By the end of last year's enrollment period, 2,120,350 Floridians got coverage through a health-insurance exchange that is part of the federal Affordable Care Act. That's more than any other state, with Texas second at 1,291,972 enrollees.

Nationwide, more than 8.2 million people enrolled in the federal health exchange for what is known as "Obamacare" coverage.

Biden in January announced that he was reopening enrollment as part of COVID-19 recovery efforts. Meanwhile, federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Acting Deputy Administrator Jeff Wu said in a statement Monday the federal government plans to "significantly increase" the amount of funding for navigators for 2022 enrollment efforts and that it will publish a notice with the funding details in the spring.