The Florida Roundup - Sports betting; Medicaid unwinding; Florida’s wildlife 

Episode Date: November 17, 2023

This week on The Florida Roundup, Seminole Hard Rock Casino has relaunched its sports betting app after a court fight over bringing sports betting to the state. We talk about the stakes with sports betting attorney Daniel Wallach (3:48), the head of No Casinos John Sowinski (11:20), and Jessica Cattelino, author of “High Stakes: Florida Seminole Gaming and Sovereignty” (15:29). Plus, we look at how the Medicaid unwinding process is going with WMFE’s Joe Mario Pedersen and WUSF & Health News Florida’s Stephanie Colombini (24:57), and later KFF’s Jennifer Tolbert (33:23). And later, we catch up on some of the wildlife stories from across the state (37:10).

This is the Florida Roundup. I'm Tom Hudson. Thanks for being along with us this week. Florida is far from the first state to have legal sports betting, but it will be the biggest state so far. The Seminole Tribe relaunched its sports betting app to a limited group of people this month. It plans to offer in-person sports betting at its six Florida casinos in early December. Now, the journey to online sports betting here in Florida has taken years. The Tribe had a sports betting app public back in 2021 after signing a new contract with the state, giving it the exclusive right to take bets on sports. The Tribe unplugged that app, though, after legal challenges. But the story of legal sports betting doesn't start there. It started in 2018, when the United States Supreme Court

threw out a law that banned states from allowing gambling on sports. One state had been exempted from that law in Nevada, but after 2018, other states could join in. New Jersey was first, and a couple dozen states have since followed. And now, Florida. Welcome back. And we'd like to now welcome Jimmy the Greek. Of course, betting has been part of sports culture probably for as long as there have been athletic contests. What were the odds that the Patriots would be here in Super Bowl XX?

About 35 to 50 to 1, that they wouldn't make it. It was implicit when Jimmy the Greek Snyder made his NFL predictions back in the 1970s and 1980s. But today, what was once quiet is said out loud. The SportsBetting Network. VSIN is the first and only 24-7 national media network dedicated to sports betting. national media network dedicated to sports betting. And whether you're a novice... Just this week, ESPN, the so-called worldwide leader in sports, launched its own sports betting app in 17 states, but not here. This Dolphins team has not beaten an opponent that's above 500 since week three of last year.

You can get the Jets right now at 15 to 1. 15 to 1. Because in Florida, the Seminole tribe has the state monopoly on sports betting. It's something the state agreed to a few years ago in exchange for billions of dollars. There's been a legal back and forth in the courts over the past few years. There's still a lawsuit pending in front of the state Supreme Court. But in the meantime, some gamblers can place their bets. Hello there, Florida Roundup. My name is Brian. I'm calling you guys from Auburndale, Florida. That's in between Lakeland and Orlando. I'm just letting you guys know about the Hard Rock Bet app.

I've been using it since it came back out. I had a really good Friday and I had a really not so good Saturday and Sunday was pretty even. So, so far I'm up $349. I deposited $150. So I guess I'm really not up $349. I'm up about $200. Yeah, so far I'm really happy with it. I'm glad to have it here in Florida. It's helping our tax dollars instead of sending it on down to Illinois or Tennessee where I have friends that would put in a few bets for me. So, all right, have a good one. Before Brian and others place their bets, it has been a long winding legal road for sports gambling. The final bell is yet to ring and the stakes are much higher than sports betting. Two companies that operate poker rooms and highlight betting have asked the state Supreme Court to stop the Seminole Tribe's

sports betting app as they challenge part of the gambling contract between the state and the tribe. That contract gave the Seminoles the monopoly on sports betting here in Florida. The deal has been scrutinized for two years over whether sports betting is covered by a state constitutional amendment passed by voters in 2018. Daniel Wallach is the founder of Wallach Legal, a law firm based in Hallandale Beach focused on gambling laws. The voter approved amendment in 2018 was commonly referred to as Amendment 3 at the time, and it prohibited the authorization of casino gambling other than through a citizen initiative. So it really provided the citizens and the people with the sole right to authorize casino gambling. And it took that power away from the state legislature.

So now the legislature can't include legislation to expand casino gambling or even have casinos. 71 percent of voters okayed adding the language to the Florida Constitution five years ago, and that amendment defines what is meant by casino gambling. It has a very specific definition. Casino gambling is defined as the type of games typically found in a casino upon the adoption of the amendment, which was in 2018. in a casino upon the adoption of the amendment, which was in 2018. And then it also has to be a form of class three gaming under IGRA, which is the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act. And that's the federal law that is in play here. So it's a two part definition. The second part is the easy one, because sports betting is clearly a class three game. It's mentioned as such in the IGRA regulations. But in 2018, Florida did not have sports betting at casinos.

Well, Florida didn't even have casinos, if you really think about it. The only casinos that exist in Florida are on tribal land. And geography matters here, right? Because the state contract that is in focus here allows the Seminole tribe to operate what it calls a hub-and-spoke method of sports gambling, defining that the sports gambling transaction is not happening on the couch in Jacksonville by the Jaguars fan, but rather on the computer server that is on tribal land. Yeah, well, that's the heart of the argument. We should note that Wallach does not represent any parties involved in these lawsuits.

The argument on one side is that sports betting is a form of casino gambling. The counter argument is that, well, sports wagering isn't the kind of game endemic to a casino environment. And it wasn't the type of game typically found in a casino back in 2018. And we have to widen the lens beyond Florida because Florida didn't even have casinos.

If you're really going to analyze. Well, Florida didn't have casinos. There were casinos on tribal land that happened to be surrounded by the state of Florida. That's right. That's right. So you could take the view. This is a very important legal argument because maybe it isn't a settled question. If the court takes a narrow view on sort of the comparators for casino gambling under Amendment 3 and just looks to tribal land, clearly sports betting wasn't an amenity at any casino in the state of Florida.

And it would mean that sports betting is not casino gambling. But even if you widen the lens and include all the states, back in 2018, there were close to 40 states that had commercial casinos lawfully authorized under state law. And in only five of those states, could you find a sports book in a casino? So whether you look at it under a narrow lens or a wider lens, I think there's a very compelling argument that sports betting isn't the kind of game typically found in a casino back in 2018. Now, that constitutional amendment, which requires any gambling expansion in Florida to be decided by voters, still allows lawmakers to negotiate gambling contracts with Native American tribes for, quote, casino gambling on tribal lands. And geography is important in this debate over sports betting in Florida.

And I think this is where the rubber meets the road. I think the key question is whether sports wagering, even if it is a casino game, falls within the exception to Amendment 3 for casino gambling on tribal lands. This is the question of where is the bet placed online? Is it placed where the person who's placing the bet is physically in the world? Or is it placed where the computer server accepts that transaction and where that's physically placed? And the supporters of sports betting, the supporters of the Seminole Tribe and the state compact contend that the compact itself has defined, has carved out a new definition of where this bet takes place, that it's where the technology is physically located in terms of the computer servers that accept the transaction. located in terms of the computer servers that accept the transaction.

Yeah, but that's somewhat divorced from the reality of the situation. I mean, the Seminole tribe and the state of Florida can agree that, you know, white is black, red is blue. It doesn't make it so. And we have precedent to fall back on, United States Supreme Court precedent that has evaluated the term of what gaming activity means in the context of IGRA. And the gaming activity as defined by a U.S. Supreme Court decision known as Michigan versus Bay Mills Indian Community, a 2014 case, Justice Elena Kagan defined gaming activity to mean the actions of the gambler, the spin of the roulette wheel, the roll of the dice. So the application here would be the couch in Jacksonville of Jags fan who's betting on the outcome of that NFL game, not the server at the Hard Rock Casino on the

tribal land that's surrounded by Broward County. That's right. That's right. And if the Florida Supreme Court were to, you know, consider this U.S. Supreme Court precedent, as well as the, you know, sort of the common sense and logic that a that gaming or the activity around gaming is sort of the actions associated with the gambler rather than the sort of technical processing of the bet at an off-site or downstream location, it wouldn't make any sense for that to be the location or the exclusive location of the wager. It can be both, by the way. You could have gaming activity. Well, it could be both, but not as it applies to the current contract between the state of Florida and the Seminole Tribe. That gaming activity needs to happen on tribal land, not on the couch in Jacksonville. That's right. It has

to be exclusively on tribal land. And I guess the question is whether the actions of the better, the patron, count as gaming activity. Because if the answer to that question is yes, then this is not casino gambling on tribal lands anymore. This is casino gambling outside of tribal lands with certainly a connection to the receipt of the wager on tribal lands. But the main activity, the gaming activity itself takes place outside of tribal lands. Remember, the contract between the state of Florida and the Seminole tribe that gives the tribe the sports betting monopoly says sports bets made by someone

anywhere in Florida using a mobile or electronic device, quote, shall be deemed to take place exclusively where received at the location of the servers used to conduct such wagering. In other words, if the computers processing the bet are on tribal lands, then the gambling is taking place on tribal lands. Legislators can make laws, but they can't make up truth. They don't have magic wands that teleport us onto tribal lands. John Sawinski heads up the group No Casinos. That's the organization that led the way for the constitutional amendment requiring a state vote to expand gambling in Florida.

If you look at the Federal Wire Act, any transaction that takes place by wire electronically takes place in two places. One is where it originates and the other is where it is received. And it has to be legal in both jurisdictions for it to be a legal transaction. And so I don't know of any body of law that exists that attempts sort of this legal fiction. And how the question of where the sports gambling is happening, if you bet on the Jags while in Jacksonville, the Bucks while in Tampa, the Gators in Gainesville, or the Seminoles while in Tallahassee, answering that question, where is the gambling taking place, could mean significant changes to gambling in Florida. This is not just a technicality of some sort, but to allow e-betting statewide governed by the tribe and the way the compact sets it up is it falls under no regulation. Remember, the Seminole tribe is a sovereign nation. It describes itself as the unconquered Seminole tribe of Florida.

Tribe members escaped the U.S. military in the 1800s during the Seminole Wars and never surrendered. While the contract with the state of Florida lays out its gambling relationship with the Seminoles, the tribe has the right to police itself. The thing about tribal wagering is it cannot be regulated by the state. It's regulated by the tribe. And there's a federal law that delineates kind of what the parties can do within reason. Correct, correct. And so, you know, if someone goes on to tribal lands to wager, to go to a tribal betting facility, they understand, presumably, that they fall under tribal law at that moment, not under the laws of the state of Florida, and that enforcement is done at the tribal level on their sovereign lands. When you extend that anywhere in Florida, it essentially means that there's no regulation. What are those potential implications if the lawsuit fails to stop sports betting as it is

designed with this hub and spoke method in the current contract between the state of Florida and the Seminole tribe? Yeah, I mean, it's wide open. If the Supreme Court of Florida were to allow this egregious violation of Amendment 3 and deprive the voters of their right to vote on this, then the legislature is going to open the barn doors and we'll have more and more and more of this over time with the voters not being consulted. Tribes in other states are watching this case very carefully. This is gambling lawyer Daniel Wallach again. Because if the U.S. Supreme Court and the Florida Supreme Court ultimately side with the Seminole tribe and uphold this compact and this structure under the compact,

it would have far-reaching implications and would allow or empower tribes in other states to seek the same kind of blueprint for their gaming relationships with their states and potentially have monopolies over online sports betting betting the real downstream you know consequence here is that we could be on the verge of digital gaming not only with sports betting but with online casino games and all of it would be controlled by the Seminole tribe that's the big battle looming down the road why wouldn't they do that because at point, there would be no legal risk whatsoever. And and the economic upside would be, you know, in the billions. Gambling has been huge for the Seminole tribe in Florida. It runs a half dozen casinos,

including Hard Rock Casinos in Broward County in Tampa and the Seminole Casinos in Central and Southwest Florida. The tribe first got into the gambling business in 1979 with the Bingo Hall. Today, it makes hundreds of millions of dollars a year. And the difference was casinos. Jessica Catalino wrote a book about the tribe and gambling called High Stakes, Florida Seminole Gaming and Sovereignty. And so it has allowed the Seminole tribe as a government to do what it wants to do as a government to ensure some financial security for its citizens. But it has also really placed Seminoles on the leading edge of litigation, but also a kind of broader understanding of tribal sovereignty and the political authority

of American Indian tribal nations. It spent $700,000 last year on lobbying, according to Open Secrets. It made about $350,000 in political contributions to both Republicans and Democrats in the 2022 election cycle. Revenue and profits are in the billions of dollars each year. So how does the tribe use its economic power politically? Having the revenues from gaming has been indeed, sorry about the pun, but a game changer for Seminole politics. American Indian nations are nations, and that means that they have tribal sovereignty. Historically, it's been hard for tribes to academics that having resources strengthens a nation's sovereignty. And it's no different for the Seminole tribe.

So how has that played out for the sovereignty of the tribe here in Florida? Well, for one thing, they've been able to litigate major issues. So way back in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Seminole Tribe was the tribe that litigated the question of whether Indigenous nations could run high-stakes casinos. And in the early 1980s, one federal case that really opened up a kind of revolution in tribal gaming across the United States. So from the beginning with gaming, it was also all about politics and the determination of whether a tribal government could run, could manage its own economic enterprises on its own land. How does the business of gambling mix with the Seminole culture? The cultural impact has been significant, and that's because Seminoles have chosen,

it was a choice, they have chosen to use casino revenues in ways that strengthen the social fabric and to a large extent, the cultural distinctiveness of their own communities. Let me just give a simple example. Back in the 1970s, if you had a job, and it was hard to get jobs as Seminoles in Florida, if you had a job and you had a relative pass away, it was unlikely you would be able to get the leave time to observe the mourning requirements that you have. But now if you work for the tribe, the tribe now employs a lot of its citizens. Others don't have to work anymore. You can do the things you need to do, like mourn the people you've lost, celebrate events. The casinos have funded museums, educational programs, cultural programs. That kind of money just gives people a little flexibility to do things the way they want to

do them. I'm often asked whether becoming wealthier and having new businesses undermines seminal culture. And I guess my question in return would be, why would wealth undermine culture more than decades of grinding poverty? That's Jessica Catalino, the author of High Stakes, Florida Seminal Gaming and Sovereignty. Coming up, why thousands of Floridians could be losing their health insurance. I'm Tom Hudson, and you're listening to the Florida Roundup from your Florida Public Radio station. This is the Florida Roundup. Thanks for being along. I'm Tom Hudson.

Next week on our program, we'll talk about a Biden administration effort that was launched a year ago. The idea was to help alleviate the immigration crisis on the southern border. It promised an alternative to the dangerous journeys many migrants make, including those coming to Florida. The program is the best hope we've had in years, she told me. But she said the waiting hurts. The plan is to have migrants sign up for humanitarian parole and get a sponsor in the United States before coming. So what's the state of the program for those it is supposed to help one year later? Well, join us on our program next week.

Today, as the COVID-19 pandemic was taking hold in the spring of 2020, the federal government sent billions of dollars to states to help keep people enrolled in Medicaid. That's the program that provides health care for low-income adults and children. The pandemic money allowed people to stay enrolled even as they no longer met the income requirements. About 5.5 million Floridians got their health care through Medicaid as recently as a year ago. That was an increase of almost 50% compared to the month COVID-19 hit. It meant one out of every four people in the state received health care from Medicaid. But with the public health emergency over and the approved federal government's budget last year,

the rule requiring states to keep people enrolled in the program ended. It's a process that goes by the word redetermination. Nearly a quarter of a million children were ineligible for Medicaid as the state's Department of Children and Family Services, DCF, is about halfway through its redetermination process. Joe Mario Patterson reports from our partner station in Orlando, WMFE. So far, DCF has disenrolled around 260,000 children from Medicaid across the state. And of that number, it is unknown whether 235,000 of those kids are now without health care coverage. Kids like eight-year-old Landon Booth.

They didn't even show me a port scar. Whoa, what happened? They took my port. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. Right now, he's showing me where the port for his chemotherapy previously was. Earlier this year, Landon completed chemo after being diagnosed with leukemia two years ago. Landon's mother, Erin Booth, says the treatment has left him with several complex medical issues. So he's going to the bone clinic. We see a urologist. We see a lot of specialists.

And he's going through therapies like OT, PT, and speech, and soon probably going through mental, like, you know, psychologist for PTSD. Medicaid pays for Landon's doctors. He qualified in 2021 due to a continuous enrollment provision where states couldn't drop people regardless of eligibility. Earlier this year, states were allowed to redetermine Medicaid eligibility. To Booth's surprise, Landon was at risk of losing coverage even though kids with complex medical conditions were supposed to be able to remain on Medicaid until next year. Oh no, he won't be kicked off because he has a cancer diagnosis and blah, blah, blah.

But then I come to find out March of this year, they were like, send me a letter saying he's going to have to be redetermined. And I'm like, that's not right. He's still in cancer treatment. Booth called DCF numerous times, but wasn't able to get a 2024 redetermination rescheduling for at least two weeks. Many families struggle even more to get a resolution. We keep hearing I'm on I'm on wait with DCF for hours at a time. My call is dropped and I don't have time to get back and get back to help. That's Erica Monet Lee with the Florida Policy Institute, which has been tracking the redetermination process. State data shows in July, over 2 million calls were received

by DCF. 42% of them were abandoned. The average call wait time was 41 minutes before being pushed to another helpline. At a recent hearing with state senators, DCF said it was experiencing five-minute wait calls on a specially designated hotline. After numerous requests, DCF has not confirmed that this number exists. Families who cannot get in touch with DCF could be kicked off for that very reason and not because of ineligibility. Joan Alker is the co-founder of the Center for Children and Families, which tracks the national Medicaid unwinding process. Federal researchers projected that three out of four children who would lose Medicaid would remain eligible. Alker says income margins were increased, allowing more children to keep care. While some disenrolled families will move to options offered by their employer, Alker

says that's often cost prohibitive for low-income families. Back at Erin Booth's house, she's now concerned about next year and whether Landon will lose Medicaid due to her and her husband's income being slightly over the limit. I'm just asking for my child, sick child to have health care that is reasonable where I can afford it and I'm not not gonna have to declare bankruptcy or lose my house because I can't afford my mortgage. DCF does have the option to pause its redetermination process, reevaluate and even make use of $3.3 million allocated in the state budget to improve call centers and staff performance. DCF did not respond to multiple requests for interviews for this story, but during a hearing last month said the process is going

well. Joe Mario joins us now. Before we talk about the whole process of redetermination and Landon, how is Landon's health? How's he doing? Well, if you ask him, he'll probably tell you he's doing okay. You know, he's a typical eight-year-old. He's got that kind of energy. He just got to go to the theme parks over the weekend as part of Give Kids the World. But truth be told, chemotherapy has left Landon with a lot of lingering issues. He has osteoporosis, which of course has left him with weakened bones. He's in multiple kinds of therapies, PT, OT, speech

therapy. He's working with a neuropsychologist who's examining a brain abnormality, which appears to be affecting his motor skills and other cognitive functions. On the process that you detailed in his journey regarding Medicaid, was there an explanation why Landon was going to be redetermined even though he is a child with this complex medical case? complex medical case? No, there really wasn't. Landon's mom, Erin, she received a letter informing her that Landon's redetermination has been rescheduled. I think that was about like a two-week process that she had to navigate different channels with DCF before she got that. She also received a phone call to confirm that that was indeed the case, but there was never an explanation as to why it happened in the first place. And especially with the phone call, Aaron felt as though it was rather unapologetic,

which has kind of left her believing that the whole ordeal was an error on DCF's part. So what's the status of Landon's redetermination? Well, like you said, because he is a complex medical case, he will be redetermined sometime next year toward the end of the process, closer to April. Stephanie Colombini joins us now. Stephanie, a colleague of ours covering health care for WUSF in Tampa and the statewide journalism collaborative Health News Florida. Stephanie, you've been covering this redetermination process. We're about seven months into it. How's it playing out statewide? Well, we've seen over 600,000 people disenrolled from Medicaid so far. You know, Florida is definitely experiencing some challenges, like many states are. We're not the only ones. But, you know but there have been concerns that not everybody who has lost Medicaid coverage should have lost Medicaid coverage. An issue is what's known as procedural terminations. These

are when people lose Medicaid, not because they earn too much money now or have had a demographic change, but because of an administrative error. You got a letter like Landon's family did and didn't respond to it. And it wasn't a mistake. And they really are redetermining your Medicaid eligibility at that moment. And, you know, if you fail to submit documents properly, you could lose coverage, even if you still qualify. And so about half of terminations in Florida so far are procedural. So those are the people we're most worried about because we don't know if they should still have Medicaid. So we're talking over 500,000 Floridians with that kind of result. Is there an appeals process

for those folks if they do meet the income eligibility requirements? There are ways to appeal. The challenge is whether you can navigate that. Medicaid is an incredibly complex system. And so some families are successfully appealing and getting their coverage restored. Others are having a tough time. There are families that are suing the state right now because they argue that the state did not provide adequate information, not only that they were going to lose their Medicaid coverage, but also inadequate information about how to appeal. There are attempts to make that a class action lawsuit and to call for Florida to not only pause

its redetermination process, but also to reinstate coverage for people who have lost it since April, since this began. So, you know, there is an appeal process, but whether it's easy for the average family to navigate, I think is where we're hearing debate. How is the process supposed to work? Some folks, first of all, could have their Medicaid redetermined automatically. And that just depends on what data they have on you. Other folks, the state advises to look out for a letter with a yellow stripe, an envelope with a yellow stripe. And when you get that letter in the mail, that is a sign that you, the age of your kids, things like that. And so you have to update all of that information. This is the first time that most families are doing this in like three years because this pause was in place during the COVID-19 pandemic.

If it all goes smoothly, you get your letter, you understand what to do, you update your information and you either get your Medicaid redetermined and you're renewed, your coverage renewed, or if you're no longer eligible for Medicaid, the state's supposed to connect you with resources about your other options, whether that's the marketplace, the Obamacare marketplace, or the Children's Health Insurance Program chip. That's how it should go. What we're hearing is that, you know, people are getting really confusing notices in the mail. They're not understanding what their next steps are and how to make sense of it, or they're calling DCF for help, but they're waiting a long

time on the phone or they're getting their calls dropped. And it's a really frustrating process for some families. So, you know, some might just give up and go uninsured because they, you know, if you're working a job all day, you can't necessarily spend hours, you know, hunting down help from DCF on the phone. Joe Mario, for Landon and his family, as they've had their redetermination pushed back to the end of the line, what options will they have when it ultimately does come up for redetermination? Well, not a lot. His mother is hoping that Landon will remain eligible, but she's not hopeful because of income margins being slightly over. Stephanie mentioned CHIP, the Children's Health

Insurance Program. It's not a great option for the family due to CHIP's costly premiums, but it may be the best option for the Booth family as the marketplace doesn't really have any great family options for them either. So we'll really see as we get to that point. So right now, the family's really just keeping their fingers crossed. Stephanie, we heard about that children's health insurance program, the CHIP program, state lawmakers increased income eligibility from 200% of poverty to 300% of poverty level here in Florida. What impact could that have for families going through this Medicaid redetermination process?

Well, it could definitely help their kids. It could mean that a lot more people will be able to smoothly transition, or at least somewhat smoothly from, you know, Medicaid to CHIP if that's what they have to do and their kids will still have access to affordable health care, low cost health care, isn't a perfect solution for everybody. CHIP does charge premiums. And so, you know, sometimes even a small, what might sound small to one family, you know, $20 a month or something, is really not affordable for another family. You know, it is a barrier. So that's something we do have to be mindful of. Finally, Joe Mario, back to Landon and his family. What costs do they face if it is ultimately determined that they are not eligible

for Landon's coverage to be covered by Medicaid? Yeah, a lot. As we've spoken about, he's got a lot of collective medical issues he's facing over the next several years due to chemo treatments. Luckily, he's cancer free now, but that is a journey that would have cost the family over $2 million without coverage, according to his mother, Erin. So with recovery from treatment, bills are likely to increase, putting a huge strain on the family. Erin shared with me that she's specifically afraid of losing their Orlando home and not being able to afford mortgage if they don't receive coverage. Joe Mario Pedersen reports for our partner station on healthcare, WMFE in Orlando. Stephanie Columbini does the same with our partner station in Tampa, WUSF. Joe Mario and Stephanie, thanks so much. Thank you. Thank you.

I'm Tom Hudson, and you're listening to the Florida Roundup from your Florida Public Radio station. While federal rules dictate how Medicaid renewals are conducted, there are still some differences between how states are managing this process. Joining us to look at how Florida compares to the rest of the country is Jennifer Tolbert, Associate Director of KFF's Program on Medicaid and the Uninsured. KFF is a nonprofit focusing on health policy research and has been tracking the monthly data reported by each state during this redetermination process of Medicaid. Jennifer, thanks for your time today here on the Florida Roundup.

How does our state's redetermination process compare with what other states are doing? Well, Florida is right there in the mix. And so far, their numbers look okay. They have renewed coverage for 1.7 million people and have disenrolled over 800,000 people. So their disenrollment rate is about 32%, which is actually lower than the overall disenrollment rate of 35% across all states. So that means proportionally fewer Floridians are being forced to leave Medicaid than in other states. Is that accurate? That is correct. Yes. The state of Florida talks about the general strength of the Florida economy,

the low unemployment rate when it talks about its process of redetermination. Is there anything to be read into that? I think that's potentially used as an explanation for why some people are losing coverage, are being disenrolled, certainly. So if there's a strong economy, people are gaining jobs, making more money, they are less likely to continue to qualify for Medicaid. And particularly in Florida, which has not adopted the Medicaid expansion, eligibility limits for parents are very low. But I do think we want to be careful because there are problems that have been identified with the renewal process, certainly across all states as well as in Florida.

Talk a little bit more about that, Jennifer. One of the issues that we're seeing across all states is that a number of people are losing coverage for paperwork or procedural reasons. So this is an area of concern. Now, in Florida, the procedural disenrollment rate, so among people who have been disenrolled, just over 50% have been disenrolled for these paperwork reasons. And that's actually quite a bit lower than the average across all states, which is 71%. What are some of the signs that you will be looking for of those people and families that are removed from Medicaid and enter the marketplace, a marketplace for health insurance here in the next calendar year, for instance? You know, what happens to people when they are disenrolled from Medicaid? So we do know that

some people are moving from Medicaid to the marketplace in Florida. However, because Florida has not expanded Medicaid, there is what we refer to as a coverage gap in the state. Some people who lose Medicaid don't actually qualify for subsidies in the marketplace. So they really don't have anywhere to go. Jennifer Tolbert, an associate director at KFF with the program on Medicaid and the uninsured. Jennifer, thanks so much. Thank you. Still to come, a river, sea turtles, and Disney. It's a roundup of environment stories from around the state. I'm Tom Hudson. You're listening to the Florida Roundup from your Florida Public Radio station. This is the Florida Roundup. Thanks for being along with us

this week. I'm Tom Hudson. We've got some stories now about the environment from around our state. Let's start between the Panhandle and the Gulf of Mexico. That's where Apalachicola River meets the ocean, creating a bay known for oysters. It's also a story of heartbreak through the years. Once the source of a livelihood for families throughout the community, the bay collapsed in 2020, and with it, the wild oyster industry. But as Margie Menzel reports from our Tallahassee partner station, WFSU, a group of kayakers found hope on a recent trip down the length of the river. The Riverkeeper Noise Committee bangs pots and pans, rings cowbells, and drums on overturned buckets to welcome the kayakers to Ten Mile Hole in Apalachicola. The kayakers have just paddled 107 miles, from Chattahoochee down the entire Apalachicola River to the Gulf of Mexico.

Paula Carroll is a registered nurse from Tallahassee who has long fished and camped at the river, but this was her first time on river track. The water, to me, looked better than it has looked in many, many years. It's a little cleaner. After years of struggling from both natural and man-made disasters, the bay is beginning to show signs of recovery. Cameron Baxley has been the newest Apalachicola Riverkeeper for about six months. That's the most public advocacy role in the organization. She says those signs were even more visible during River Trek, when the kayakers heard from experts who met them along the way. They're already seeing some of the natural formations

and features starting to recover and show themselves again. And that's not all. Baxley says the world-famous Apalachicola Bay oysters are showing signs of a comeback too. The bay once produced 90 percent of Florida's oysters and 10 percent nationally, but it collapsed in 2020 and state wildlife officials suspended all wild oyster harvesting through the end of 2025. I'm happy to say it's in recovery mode. The river is starting to recover now that the dredging has stopped and the extensive snagging. It's the same with some of the oyster reefs. It's about 2,000 acres of oyster reefs that used to be in good shape. We're starting

to see about 56 of those acres recovering. Baxley says some of the oysters are making it to market size, about two and a half to three inches. But if the bay opened up tomorrow, she adds, it probably wouldn't be sustainable as a fishery. The collapse of the bay has been blamed on drought, overfishing, impacts from the Deep Water Horizon Gulf oil spill, debris from Hurricane Michael, and, some say, too much water use in Georgia. Florida's infamous water wars with Georgia and Alabama went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, where a special master ruled in Georgia's favor. Now Riverkeeper Emeritus Dan Tonsmeier, who led the organization for 14 years, says they're still monitoring Georgia's water use

closely. He also says the river system has improved due to good rain after years of drought. What we're doing now is trying to clear the sand and things blocking the sloughs so that when the droughts do return that the water will be able to continue to nourish the backwater swamps. And so we have to first remove a lot of debris out of there. Mary Elder Balthrop went on River Trek in 2017. Now she's the chair of what's known as the Noise Committee. She hopes to recruit enough people in the future to cheer the kayakers from farther away when they arrive. Because in 2017, some of my friends who I used to teach with at SAIL happened to be at Riverfront Park when I was coming in.

And they saw me and started chanting my name. And when you're a mile out from the end of 107 miles, it's awesome to have your name chanted. More good news. The state of Florida just authorized the Department of Environmental Protection to spend up to $5 million each fiscal year to help the city of Apalachicola with projects to improve the quality of the bay. The bill went into effect on July 1st. I'm Margie Menzel. Down the panhandle in southwest Florida, it was a mixed year for loggerhead sea turtles on Sanibel and Captiva islands along the Gulf Coast.

This year saw a record number of nests, but the fewest hatchlings since 2016. The Sanibel Captiva Conservation Foundation says storms, the extreme summer heat, and predators are to blame. Florida has the largest number of nesting loggerheads, which are on the Endangered Species Act list of threatened animals. Today's efforts to protect the turtles are very much linked to the past. Janine Zeitlin reports from WGCU in southwest Florida. For more than half of a century, Sanibel residents have been working to protect sea turtles. Betty Anholt, an island historian, was involved in early sea turtle conservation.

She and her late husband worked with Charles LaBeouf, a leader in those efforts. They worked during the summer to try to increase the numbers of the turtles. They salvaged turtle eggs and hatched them. Today, sea turtle nests are kept on the beach, marked and protected. Decades ago, one practice was to move vulnerable eggs into enclosures. Anhalt described an unforgettable moment from those early days. One of the things we did was stored five-gallon plastic buckets that were full of beach sand where we had moved the eggs from the turtles. We would dig them up rather than leave them on the beach at that point in time. When they were hatched we would take them down to the

beach and very often have a big crowd of kids especially to release them to the sea and basically celebrate. But this one time this hatchling nest hatched early. They overflowed the bucket and my kids were out playing and warned me that turtles were escaping and we went rushing out and picking up baby turtles. There's usually in a nest approximately 100 turtles. So, you know, they were all over the place. We called the Sanibel police and they came out and helped us pick up turtles and got them all safe and to the beach. At the time, conservationists were still figuring out the best ways to protect the turtles. It is now illegal to harm, harass,

or take turtles, their eggs, or their hatchlings. When Ann Holt joined efforts to try to save Sanibel sea turtles, she recalled seeing dozens of nests in a single nesting season. The most recent season ended in October, and more than 1,000 loggerhead nests were counted on Sanibel and Captiva, according to the Sanibel Captiva Conservation Foundation. The foundation took over sea turtle monitoring in the early 90s. Anholt is delighted to see their work pay off so many years later. It's just been really wonderful to see the sea turtles expanding

the way that they have been in the last several years. The turtles that are coming back now could very likely have been those of 40 years ago or 30 years ago. You feel related to them. 40 years ago or 30 years ago. You feel related to them. They're almost like grandchildren because you know that many years ago, you may well have saved those turtles. This is Janine Zeitlin on Sanibel Island. And I'm Tom Hudson. You're listening to the Florida Roundup from your Florida Public Radio station. Finally on the Roundup this week, a sight of Disney that you probably have never seen, let alone heard about. The world's most visited theme park has become, partly by accident, one of the most important links in a wildlife

corridor spanning the length of the Sunshine State. Steve Newborn from our partner station in Tampa, WUSF, was able to visit. Our tour bus veers away from the futuristic monorail, away from the Polynesian Village and Contemporary Hotel, into a ribbon of green that very few tourists ever see. Welcome to the Disney Wildlife Conservation Area. No admission ticket is required. No crowds jostle to get in line at the next ride. Rachel Smith, conservation programs manager at Walt Disney World, shows the group a gopher tortoise nesting area deep in the woods. So we thought we would just stop at a few. You can see a couple of these active burrows behind me.

Don't expect to pay for a ticket and take a bucolic break from the Magic Kingdom to come here. This was a special tour for attendees of a nearby conference that focused on the Florida Wildlife Corridor. We want our guests as they go over on the Skyliner and they look down as they're going from resort to resort or park to park to feel the wilderness that surrounds them. Zach Gazan is a conservation manager with Disney. that surrounds them. Zach Gazan is a conservation manager with Disney. He said from the very beginning of the attraction in the 1960s, Walt Disney had a vision of what it would look like. And wildlife was a big part of who he saw himself as a human and the impact he could have on the world. The happiest place on earth is now one of the only places in this part of Florida that allows wildlife to migrate from the vast green areas to the south of Orlando to the green swamp on the northwest. These patches of preserved

areas are what members of the Florida Wildlife Corridor Foundation are eyeing for protection across the state. Jason Lauritsen is chief conservation officer of the Florida Wildlife Corridor Foundation. He says the Disney Corridor is critical. 50 years ago, there were lots of different ways for wildlife to go back and forth. The I-4 became that significant impediment, and there are only a couple of spots that were remaining five years ago. Now we're down to one. So if we hope to have a meaningful overland connection between the northern Everglades and the Green Swamp, this is it. Mallory Likes-Dimmitt is executive director of the Corridor Foundation.

She says she's grateful that Disney had the vision to preserve a wild space. That's what we need everywhere in the corridor is to have people think beyond their immediate property boundaries and how we can be working together across those boundaries to sustain these connections that they'll last in perpetuity. That way, what they call the last green thread can stay open forever so wildlife in Florida can thrive well into tomorrow land. I'm Steve Newborn in Tampa. And that's our program this week. The Florida Roundup is produced by WLRN Public Media in Miami and WUSF Public Media in Tampa. Bridget O'Brien produced the program. WLRN's Vice President of Radio and the program's Technical Director is Peter Mares,

engineering help from Doug Peterson and Charles Michaels. Our theme music is provided by Miami jazz guitarist Aaron Leibos at aaronleibos.com. You can catch this podcast and you can share this episode and catch up on past episodes by visiting wlrn.org slash podcasts. Thanks for listening and supporting Public Radio. I'm Tom Hudson. Have a terrific weekend.