Four Medicaid health plans withdrawing from Florida counties

WellCare's HealthEase and Staywell plans, United Healthcare and Amerigroup—the four largest health plans in Florida's Medicaid reform experiment—are dropping out of the program, forcing more than half of 204,000 affected patients to change insurers and possibly doctors. The health plans have given written notice to the state that by Dec. 1 they will withdraw from Broward County and some of four other counties in the Jacksonville area participating in the experiment. The reform started two years ago to save the state billions and also improve healthcare for low-income people with Medicaid by switching them into HMO-style plans.