Florida AHCA again refused to set timeline for legislature-approved KidCare eligibility expansion

At a September 12, 2026 meeting of Florida's Joint Legislative Budget Commission, a top official with the state's Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) again declined to say when -- or whether -- the state would implement a 2023 law expanding income eligibility for Florida KidCare, the state's children's health-insurance program. The law, championed by then-House Speaker Paul Renner, raised the eligibility ceiling to families earning up to 300% of the federal poverty level (about $99,000 for a family of four in 2026); more than three years later, AHCA has not carried it out.

Senate Democratic Leader Lori Berman and Sen. Gayle Harrell, a Stuart Republican, pressed AHCA deputy secretary Jon Manalo for a timeline during the hearing, which the agency had called to seek approval to shift KidCare funding to match current spending. "What are you doing? What is AHCA doing to resolve this issue?" Berman asked. Harrell noted it had "been more than three years" since the legislature acted. Manalo, citing ongoing litigation, said only that the agency was "working through that process" with its attorneys, and could not say whether the state was still disenrolling children from KidCare for missed premium payments -- the specific practice at the center of the underlying dispute. Several Democrats on the panel voted against AHCA's funding request.

The eligibility expansion has been contested since the Biden administration and has continued unimplemented through the Trump administration's tenure, with Florida filing at least three lawsuits against the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services over the underlying requirement that Medicaid-eligible children, including those served by KidCare, remain continuously enrolled for a full year. One suit remains pending in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida in Pensacola.