In his first major address as speaker, Weatherford told a joint session of the Legislature about the cancer that took his little brother's life, and his gratitude for the charities and government safety nets that helped his family with crushing medical bills. But he opposes the federal expansion of Medicaid in Florida.
because I believe it crosses the line of the proper role if government. I believe it forces Florida to expand a broken system that we’ve been battling Washington to fix. And I believe it will ultimately dirge up the cost of health care in Florida.
Under Obamacare -- the Affordable health Care Act -- the federal government would pay 100 percent of the cost to expand the program to cover four million Floridians, and then pay 90 percent of the added cost after that. Gov. Rick Scott said that program would have been ideal when his little brother got a hip disease that would have gone untreated except for a charitable intervention by Shiners Hospital for Children. And he said in his State of the State address, that's why he supports expanding Medicaid, at least for now.
I concluded that for the three years the federal government is committed to paying 100 percent of the cost of new people, I cannot in good conscience deny the uninsured access to care.,
Scott says any money Florida turns down -- and that would be money Florida sent to Washington in the first place -- would be spent on the care of sick people in other states.