Community Groups in Florida and Washington State Form Health Care Partnerships

Not-for-profit groups in Jacksonville, Fla., and Spokane, Wash., have been partnering with local governments and health care providers to offer health care to uninsured, low-income residents. The following summaries detail their efforts:

• City officials in Jacksonville, Fla., may approve a health care pilot program based on an executive summary of a plan called JaxCare submitted to the city by the not-for-profit Communities in Charge of Jacksonville, the Florida Times-Union reports. The two-year test could provide coverage to as many as 1,500 people and would cost more than $8 million, according to the Times-Union. Under the proposal, working adults ages 18 to 64 who earn between 150% and 200% of the federal poverty level, who are not eligible for any other health service or insurance and who have been without health coverage for a year could enroll. In addition, applicants would be screened to ensure that applicants are not eligible for other health care programs, the Times-Union reports. JaxCare enrollees would be able to seek "basic health care" within a network of physicians, specialists, hospitals and case managers. Rhonda Poirier, director of Communities in Charge, said, "The uninsured are not a problem of the government. The uninsured are not a problem of hospitals. They are the community's problem, and this is a community project" (Skidmore, Florida Times-Union, 12/9).
  
• Spokane, Wash., Mayor John Powers and the city council have approved a plan to spend $100,000 in city funds for a new program to provide health coverage to low-income uninsured residents, the Spokane Spokesman-Review reports. Under the program, called Project Access, primary- and secondary-care physicians would volunteer to take a number of new patients each year for no fee, hospitals would treat a certain number of low-income patients referred, corporations would pay administrative costs and the city government would pay for prescription drugs, according to the Statesman-Review. The program, which was presented to the city council last week, would be administered by the Spokane County Medical Society (Cannata, Spokane Spokesman-Review, 12/7).