{"id":371098,"date":"2026-08-14T06:16:41","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T06:16:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/371098\/"},"modified":"2026-08-14T06:16:41","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T06:16:41","slug":"this-is-pretty-bad-judges-grill-desantis-administration-over-medicaid-termination-letters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/371098\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018This is pretty bad’: Judges grill DeSantis administration over Medicaid termination letters"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"ExteriorTampa General Credit: Shutterstock<\/a><\/p>\n

A trio of federal judges Wednesday grilled an attorney representing the DeSantis administration over how the state terminated people from Florida\u2019s Medicaid program in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n

Florida was first sued three years ago over how it disenrolled people from the safety net health care program \u2014 a process known as an \u201cunwinding\u201d \u2014 which resulted in hundreds of thousands of people losing benefits.<\/p>\n

After losing before a lower court, the state appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, a court that Gov. Ron DeSantis has pointed out often sides with him and his Republican administration.<\/p>\n

That may not happen in this case, as lawyers representing the state got an earful from skeptical judges, with one judge even offering the comment, \u201cThis is pretty bad.\u201d<\/p>\n

Andy Bardos, representing the state health care agencies that have been sued, tried to defend the state\u2019s handling of Medicaid termination notices, arguing Florida only needed to adhere to minimum due-process requirements. Those included notice of the intended action, the date when that would occur, and a statement of the reason why.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith nothing else?\u201d U.S. Circuit Court Judge Adalberto Jordan asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe think that\u2019s the minimum requirement of due process,\u201d Bardos answered.<\/p>\n

Jordan said the state perhaps could have included additional information in the notices steering people to a website where they could input their annual salary and any other source of income, their expenses, and the number of children they have.\u00a0<\/p>\n

They could be told whether they qualify for Medicaid and, if not, how much they earned above the qualifying threshold.<\/p>\n

But the state didn\u2019t offer that and didn\u2019t include the information in letters to beneficiaries.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is pretty bad,\u201d Jordan said.<\/p>\n

Skeptical judges<\/p>\n

U.S. Circuit Court Judges Barbara Lagoa and Robin Rosenbaum also seemed skeptical.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you don\u2019t tell me what the basis is of the income determination that you\u2019ve made, what you believe is the income, then how would I know what to challenge?\u201d Judge Barbara Lagoa asked Bardos.<\/p>\n

Lagoa, once a DeSantis appointee to the Florida Supreme Court, said \u201cit\u2019s clear\u201d Medicaid notices must provide the recipient with meaningful notice and the opportunity to be heard.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou cannot be heard if you don\u2019t know what you\u2019re objecting to,\u201d Lagoa told Bardos. \u201cBecause, by the way, I don\u2019t think you would like a trial judge to issue an order just telling you \u2018denied\u2019 and not tell you the basis. Correct? Because you wouldn\u2019t be able to have meaningful appellate review.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rosenbaum grappled with the idea that the state wouldn\u2019t provide the information it used to determine beneficiaries were no longer eligible.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is the whole point of hiding this information?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n

State-federal program<\/p>\n

Medicaid is jointly administered and paid for by the state and federal governments. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the federal government increased by 6.2% its contributions. The increased funding came with the requirement states couldn\u2019t disenroll people during the pandemic.<\/p>\n

Congress agreed the continuous eligibility requirement would end March 31, 2023, and that, post-pandemic, states could unwind their Medicaid programs to their normal operations.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Florida started Medicaid unwinding on April 1, 2023, and by the following year the Department of Children and Families redetermined the eligibility of more than 4 million people.<\/p>\n

Attorneys for Florida Health Justice Project and the National Health Law Program filed the lawsuit in Jacksonville in 2023 on behalf of people who erroneously lost benefits.\u00a0<\/p>\n

U.S. District Judge Monica Morales Howard agreed to certify the lawsuit as a class action in 2024 and in 2025 issued a\u00a0273-page ruling\u00a0<\/a>finding that termination letters issued by the state were \u201cvague, confusing and often incorrect and misleading\u201d in violation of federal law.<\/p>\n

Florida Phoenix<\/a> is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Michael Moline for questions: [email\u00a0protected]<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This article appears in August 13 \u2013 19, 2026<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tampa General Credit: Shutterstock A trio of federal judges Wednesday grilled an attorney representing the DeSantis administration over…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":371099,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[65842,412,135,137,136],"class_list":["post-371098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-florida-health","tag-ron-desantis","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=371098"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371098\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/371099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=371098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=371098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=371098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}