House: Medicaid managed care plans will be paid $143 billion over the next six years

The state could pay Medicaid managed care plans $143 billion during the next six years to provide care to the state’s poor, elderly, and disabled, a leading House Republican said Tuesday.

Rep. Josie Tomkow, a Polk County Republican and chair of the House Health and Human Services Committee for the 2025 session, announced the value of the coveted six-year contracts during a “Legislator University” briefing on the state’s Medicaid program.

The Agency for Health Care Administration, which houses Florida’s Medicaid program, has announced its plan to sign six-year contracts with managed care plans following a massive procurement for the program.

The state is contracting with Aetna Better Health of Florida, Florida Community Care, Humana Medical Plan, Molina Healthcare of Florida, Simply Healthcare Plans, South Florida Community Care Network (which does business as Community Care Plan), Sunshine State Health Plan, and United Healthcare of Florida.

The goal was to roll out the new contracts and have them effective by the new year. Tomkow, though, indicated the new contracts won’t be fully in effect until “early 2025.”

Florida requires most, but not all, Medicaid eligible people to enroll in managed care plans. There are exceptions for people with developmental or intellectual disabilities and for women who qualify only for family planning services.

There were 4,307,965 people enrolled in Medicaid as of Oct. 31, the latest available data. Of those, 3,063,777 were enrolled in managed care plans. Sunshine Health has 1,186,200 enrollees.

Legislator University consists of briefings on procedures and background in preparation for next year’s legislative session.