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KidCare Insurance To Be Extended For Immigrant Children

Rene Garcia
Florida Senate
/
FLSenate.gov

More children could soon be allowed to sign up for the low-income health insurance program, KidCare.

SB 282 will eliminate a five-year waiting period for legal immigrant children to get healthcare.  It will allow nearly 30,000 low-income, legally residing children to participate in the KidCare insurance program.  Bill sponsor, Sen. Rene Garcia of Miami, says the proposal is long overdue and will not cost the state much money.

"When we started this process, it was scored over a $100 million," Garcia says. "We’ve been able to get it down working with the agency so this little over $4 million will go a long way to take care a lot of the children in the state."

Supporters of the bill, like the Florida Hospital Association and the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops, say the bill promotes healthier children and families. 

Vanity Duran is a Broadcast Journalism senior at Florida A&M University. She currently writes for The Famuan, the school newspaper, serves as a reporter for Brand Newz, an online multimedia portal, is founder of UNIDOS (Uniting Nations to Inspire Diverse Opportunities in Society) and serves as an aspiring motivational speaker through her brand LIFE5TYLEZ. Vanity is excited to be interning with WFSU while preparing to graduate with a bachelor's degree in May 2015.