By: The Gazette Staff
Florida Gov. Rick Scott now says Florida will do nothing to comply with President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul and will not expand its Medicaid program. The announcement is a marked changed after the governor recently said he would follow the law if it were upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.
“Florida is not going to implement Obamacare. We are not going to expand Medicaid and we’re not going to implement exchanges,” Scott’s spokesman Lane Wright told The Associated Press on Saturday. Wright stressed that the governor would work to make sure the law is repealed.
Scott told Fox News the Medicaid expansion would cost Florida taxpayers $1.9 billion a year, but it’s unclear how he arrived at that figure.
Scott said the state will not expand the Medicaid program in order to lower the number of uninsured residents, nor will Florida set up a state-run health exchange, a marketplace where people who need insurance policies could shop for them.
“We care about having a health care safety net for the vulnerable Floridians, but this is an expansion that just doesn’t make any sense,” he told Fox host Greta Van Susteren.
Scott has gone back and forth on the issue after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Congress cannot withhold federal Medicaid funding from states that opt out of a requirement in the overhaul to expand coverage to those just above the poverty line.
According to Census data released last year, Florida had the nation’s third-highest rate of residents without health insurance during the past three years.
What is governor Scott’s solution to the health care crisis? Does he think it’s appropriate for Americans to go bankrupt when they get sick, to be ineligible for insurance, or to die from a lack of access to health care. His company stole our tax dollars from Medicare while he was CEO. With that kind of ethical record it’s not surprising that he is not interested in reducing the number of uninsured residents or in helping people find insurance through an exchange.
I believe the Governor is a “putz!”
Thumbs up to President Obama!