Speaker Will Weatherford, R-Wesley Chapel, discusses issues ranging from the budget, Medicaid expansion and high school athletics.

It's an expensive irony: Health care workers who can't afford health insurance, but in Florida that is the plight of some full-time employees of local nursing homes and other smaller or independent health-industry players.

As the number of employers in the state who offer health insurance continues to decline10 percent fewer today, compared to about a decade agoand the cost of coverage employees must contribute continues to rise, some health care workers say they have been forced to forego health insurance.

Marie Milicent has worked nearly two decades at Hillcrest Health and Rehabilitation Center in Hollywood. She had coverage for her two children, ages 10 and 12, until recently, when changes in the plan priced it out of her reach.

"Most of us dropped our health insurance at Hillcrest," Milicent said. "The deductible is $2,000. It's crazy."

Health insurance is particularly important for industry employees, according to Milicent, a certified nursing assistant.

"When you're working with sick people, anything could happen to you," she said. "Now that I don't have health insurance, I don't feel secure."

As the state legislature continues to debate the future of Medicaid in the state, local healthcare workers like Milicent and the union they belong to are lobbying hard for Medicaid expansion.

"Our members of SEIU Florida, 55,000 curent and retired membersare very much committed to passing and securing the expansion of Medicaid in the state of Florida," Monica Russo, president of the SEIU Florida State Council. With more than 1.1 million members in the field, the national Service Employees International Union represents nurses, lab technicians, nursing home workers, and home care workers.

"The people who are saying no to [Medicaid expansion] have very good health care packages, and we're paying for it," said Susan Gershman of West Palm Beach, who said her son works two jobs but cannot afford insurance coverage. She joined other healthcare workers in a protest last week calling on lawmakers to expand Medicaid.

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Uninsured health care workers push for medicaid expansion