Florida Community Health Centers currently treat 1.8 million patients from all 67 counties, at more than 700 clinic locations (Adobe Stock)
By Trimmel Gomes
August 14, 2025
Public News Service
‘Perfect Storm’ Hits Florida’s Community Health Centers
A “perfect storm” of policy changes has pushed Florida’s Community Health Centers into financial crisis, with layoffs and clinic closures already underway.
Health clinics face simultaneous Medicaid cuts, pharmaceutical industry attacks on what’s known as the 340-B drug discount program, and expiring Affordable Care Act tax credits. Elodie Dorso, CEO of Tampa Bay-based Evara Health, warned that the combination could collapse the state’s health-care safety net.
“Any one of these changes – Medicaid coverage losses, redetermination, flat funding, 340-B restrictions, potential subsidy cuts – any one of them would be a challenge,” she said. “But all at once, it’s really a perfect storm threatening the financial stability of the health-care safety nets known as Community Health Centers.”
Florida’s Community Health Centers serve 1.8 million patients, no matter their ability to pay, including 450 people on Medicaid. Dorso said more than 30% of the Medicaid patients at Evara Health lost coverage during the post-pandemic “unwinding,” the eligibility review that dropped 1.3 million Floridians from Medicaid rolls.
Dorso said the 340-B program, which lets Community Health Centers buy drugs at discounts to help fund care for uninsured patients, has lost $150 million statewide due to manufacturer restrictions.
“When we lose this funding that’s supposed to help make us whole and pay for things like preventive cancer screenings – or behavioral health services – it’s the patients that are hurting,” she said, “because we’re ending up having to close or decrease these services, because we just can’t afford to keep them.”
If Affordable Care Act subsidies expire in December, 320,000 Floridians could face unaffordable premiums for their health coverage. The 2025 federal budget reconciliation law failed to renew these enhanced subsidies, leaving their fate up to Congress. Dorso said this will be another threat to coverage for vulnerable families and wants to see bipartisan solutions to preserve affordability.