“Rick Scott’s Hissy Fit”: Impatiently Snapping His Fingers At Sylvia Burwell Won’t Do Him Any Good
Rick Scott’s clearly a man who expects others to snap to it when he asks for something. But his demand that the Obama administration instantly give him assurances they’ll agree with his construction of an incredibly technical interplay between the Medicaid expansion option he’s now flip-flopped a second time to oppose, and an existing Low-Income Pool program who’s beneficiaries overlap with Medicaid’s, is now turning into a hissy fit, per this report from The Hill‘s Peter Sullivan:
Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) on Wednesday demanded an answer from the Obama administration “right now” on the renewal of federal funds for hospitals in his state, amid a showdown over ObamaCare’s Medicaid expansion.
“I’ve let them know our timeline and we need an answer right now,” Scott told reporters outside the Department of Health and Human Services headquarters in Washington after meeting with Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell.
According to HHS, Burwell gave Scott the “preliminary view” that the state’s current proposal falls short of the administration’s requirements.
At issue are federal funds to reimburse hospitals in Florida for treating uninsured people, known as the Low Income Pool (LIP). Scott is suing the Obama administration, alleging that the administration is withholding the funds in an effort to force the state to expand Medicaid under ObamaCare.
The administration counters that Florida is free to expand Medicaid or not, and that the decision on LIP funding will be made “regardless” of whether the state expands Medicaid.
You don’t have to go all the way down into the weeds to understand this; the administration obviously does want to keep the pressure up on Scott to do the right thing, and Florida hospitals are probably giving their Governor holy hell for not only rejecting the cornucopia of dollars from a Medicaid expansion, but jeopardizing their existing federal funds while he’s at it. But in any event, HHS has a good excuse for delaying any final decision on Scott’s proposal for a larger LIP program than would normally be the case:
HHS pointed out that the proposal is still in the middle of a 30-day public comment period in Florida, a step before its final decision on the proposal.
“HHS is continuing to engage with Florida on the state’s LIP proposal, even as the period for public comment in Florida is underway,” the readout said. “HHS heard the Governor’s request for a timely response to help the state meet its budget timeline. HHS believes completion of the public comment period, on-going discussions with the state, and the state’s submission of its proposal to CMS are the next steps in the process.”
That doesn’t meet Scott’s politically driven timetable, of course, so he’s impatiently snapping his fingers at Sylvia Burwell.
Don’t think it will do him any good.
By: Ed Kilgore, Contributing Writer, Political Animal Blog, The Washington Monthly, May 7, 2015
“Praise The Lord, Mom’s Alive”: Rick Scott’s Stunning Health Care ‘Ruse’ In Florida
In early 2013, Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) surprised nearly everyone by announcing he’d changed his mind about Medicaid expansion through the Affordable Care Act. The Republican governor had long condemned the idea, but he apparently had a change of heart.
“I cannot, in good conscience, deny the uninsured access to care,” he said at the time. Scott added that Medicaid expansion is “a compassionate, common sense step forward.” The governor even referenced the death of his mother when explaining his rationale.
“A few months ago, my mother passed away, and I lost one of the only constants in my life,” Scott said. “Losing someone so close to you puts everything in new perspective … especially the big decisions…. As I wrestled with this decision, I thought about my Mom’s struggles raising five kids with very little money.”
That was February 2013. In April 2015, Scott reversed course again, announcing his renewed opposition to the policy he’d endorsed. And today, the local CBS affiliate in Miami reports that the governor offered an unexpected explanation for his posture two years ago.
Scott conceded this week that was all a ruse. He now says his support for Medicaid expansion was a calculated move designed to win support from the Obama administration for the state’s proposal to hand over control of Medicaid to private insurance companies. At the time, he denied that his support was tied to a deal with the federal government.
Now that he’s succeeded in privatizing Medicaid, Scott is again railing against Medicaid expansion and is suing the federal government for allegedly forcing it on him.
Oh my.
Of course, if you notice that CBS/Associated Press excerpt, you’ll notice that it’s missing something: a quote. The entire report appears to be a paraphrase of Scott’s comments, and the exact wording always matters.
Indeed, the governor’s office this afternoon pushed back against the AP’s reporting, saying the piece “editorialized” Scott’s comments.
So, which is it? On Twitter, Gary Fineout, an AP reporter in Florida, fleshed this out in a little more detail, explaining the argument Scott presented yesterday. As Fineout described it, the governor may have claimed at the time that his mother’s death inspired him to change his perspective, but in reality – according to Scott’s comments yesterday – the Florida Republican only supported Medicaid expansion as part of “a quid pro quo” to get a waiver from the Obama administration for Medicaid privatization.
Scott may have publicly claimed in 2013 that his position was about his “conscience” and deceased mother, but according to the governor’s new version of events, the rhetoric wasn’t actually sincere – his previous position was a calculated move to gain approval for his privatization plan.
In other words, the governor didn’t literally use the word “ruse” yesterday, so much as he effectively described a scheme in which he told the public something untrue in order to get what he wanted at the time.
I don’t expect much from Florida politics, but when a governor references his deceased mother to make a deliberately misleading argument, the Sunshine State is quite possibly breaking new ground in ugliness.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, May 7, 2015
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