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Healthy State tells the stories you need to know to stay well, with a special focus on Florida.We'll bring you the latest fitness trends, new research on preventing and treating disease, and information about how health policy impacts your pocketbook.We report on health using all the tools at our disposal -- video, audio, photos and text -- to bring these stories to life.Healthy State is a project of WUSF Public Media in Tampa and is heard on public radio stations throughout Florida. It also is available online at wusfnews.org.

Compromise to Help Uninsured 'Unlikely'

The Florida Senate is scheduled to vote on state Sen. Joe Negron's Healthy Florida plan on Tuesday, which would accept billions of dollars in federal funds through the Affordable Care Act to provide health coverage to 1.1 million uninsured low-income Floridians.

Negron, R-Stuart, sounded determined but pessimistic on Monday, saying he doesn't see how the Senate's plan can be meshed with the House's version, which accepts no federal funds and would provide subsidies to about 115,000.

The House has already rejected the Senate plan, which state Rep. Mike Fasano introduced last week as an amendment to the House's plan. That House plan, Florida Health Choices Plus, would use only state money and would leave out adults who aren't disabled or don't have young children at home.

The differences between the plans are so great that Negron told reporters on Monday that he thinks a compromise is "unlikely," News Service of Florida reported.

He also said he thinks a special session to resolve the matter is "improbable."

Carol Gentry, founder and special correspondent of Health News Florida, has four decades of experience covering health finance and policy, with an emphasis on consumer education and protection.After serving two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in Colombia, Gentry worked for a number of newspapers including The Wall Street Journal, St. Petersburg Times (now Tampa Bay Times), the Tampa Tribune and Orlando Sentinel. She was a Kaiser Foundation Media Fellow in 1994-95 and earned an Master's in Public Administration at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government in 1996. She directed a journalism fellowship program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for four years.Gentry created Health News Florida, an independent non-profit health journalism publication, in 2006, and served as editor until September, 2014, when she became a special correspondent. She and Health News Florida joined WUSF in 2012.
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