Gov. Rick Scott Changes Mind Again, Murders Medicaid For Florida After All

Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R-Not Actually Human) has seen the light on Medicaid expansion. You know, the original light he saw when he first opposed it, but then changed his mind and saw the other light during the 2014 election and supported it in a real tear-jerker of a speech that turned out to be all lies (surprise!). But now, in the middle of budget negotiations with the state legislature, he's back to thinking Medicaid expansion is a terrible idea for Florida:  

The stakes are enormous as the Republican governor's decision means that as many as 800,000 low-income Floridians could go without health insurance. Under Obamacare the federal government was tasked with covering the full cost until 2017 and at least 90 percent thereafter. [...]

"Our priority is to cut more than $600 million in taxes this session and get K-12 education funding up to record levels while holding the line on college tuition."

What with needing to cut taxes (drink!), providing health care insurance to those 800,000 Floridians just doesn't rank on the governor's list of priorities, especially because he doesn't believe the feds will really cough up the dough anyway, so why even bother? It's not as if Florida's failure to expand Medicaid has harmed or killed anyone, except for how it has.

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Ah well. Sometimes letting people die from deaths that could have been prevented if only they'd had health insurance is the price of freedom, isn't it? And it's not as if Florida is made of money, especially not after Gov. Scott spent so much of it robocalling constituents and bilking the state with some fancy "accounting."

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And then there was that time he oversaw the largest Medicare and Medicaid fraud in history, but that's when he was CEO of Columbia/HCA in the private sector, so free market, bitches.

But anyway, Florida's Republicans already came up with a terrific alternative to the tyranny of the Affordable Care Act and its bill-footing of Medicaid expansion. It's called Florida Health Choices, and the state has already spent $2.4 million on a program that has managed to enroll a whopping 42 people. It's a great plan for people who want more limited coverage at a higher cost. Which, thanks to Gov. Scott's flip-flop on his flip-flop, is the only option available for those 800,000 people who would have been able to obtain health insurance through expanded Medicaid, because they couldn't otherwise afford it, but you know. Priorities.

[ TPM ]