The Man Who Didn't Want the Money

[Howey]

Huh. And here we thought Rick Scott publicly refused all that healthcare reform money! I guess that's just what he wanted all his teabagger buddies to think. 

While Gov. Rick Scott has made news by rejecting several grants funded by the federal healthcare reform act, a study by an independent nonprofit group finds that Florida organizations have quietly received $119.6 million in reform act funds over the last two years.

Using federal data, the National Conference of State Legislatures has compiled a report that shows Florida state agencies, universities, hospitals, public clinics — even faith-based private groups such as Tallahassee-based Live the Life Ministries — received funds from the Affordable Care Act in 2010 and 2011 for everything from clinic expansion to abstinence lectures.

This has happened while Florida has been a leading state in a lawsuit alleging that the Obama administration act is unconstitutional. What’s more, NCSL reports Florida is one of three states planning to ask voters next fall to consider a constitutional amendment to declare illegal key provisions of the reform act — a stance that could lead to a state-federal court battle if the amendment were to win approval.

Scott, former leader of the HCA hospital chain, has been highly vocal in opposing the reform act, passed by Congress in 2010 with its most important provisions scheduled to start in 2014.

[ekg]

figures...


and this part

Shortly after his election in 2010, Scott announced he didn’t want the state to accept $1 million in federal money — already accepted by his predecessor, Gov. Charlie Crist — that was intended to help Florida set up a health insurance exchange, a system in which small employers and individuals can join together to get lower rates usually available only to large employers.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/02/10/2635440/healthcare-reform-has-netted-florida.html#storylink=cpy

if you polled 1000 people on this, 1001 people would be for it.. call it 'obama-care' and that 100% rating would drop..

same with the no-pre-exisisting condition... 1001 out of a 1000 would want it, but call it Obama care? and they shit themselves just like Foxnews taught them to

not to mention the part where now covering kids up until they're 26...forcing insurers to use the majority of the money they get for like healthcare instead of admin and bonuses,making insurers prove their policy increases instead of just raising them willy-nilly... etc etc etc..

broken down people not only want this stuff, but beg and bleed for it... call it Obama care and it's Kenyan secular socialism that's destroying the country..

[uselesslegs]

figures...


and this part

if you polled 1000 people on this, 1001 people would be for it.. call it 'obama-care' and that 100% rating would drop..

same with the no-pre-exisisting condition... 1001 out of a 1000 would want it, but call it Obama care? and they shit themselves just like Foxnews taught them to

not to mention the part where now covering kids up until they're 26...forcing insurers to use the majority of the money they get for like healthcare instead of admin and bonuses,making insurers prove their policy increases instead of just raising them willy-nilly... etc etc etc..

broken down people not only want this stuff, but beg and bleed for it... call it Obama care and it's Kenyan secular socialism that's destroying the country..

It reminds me of my cousin growing up.  At some point, through whatever association, he couldn't eat a sandwich unless it was cut in half, diagonally.  It was still a sandwich in every conceivable way, but he would lose his fuck'in mind if it wasn't cut, diagonally.  Not in half from top to bottom, oh God no! Diagonally.  

I remember this, because at his house one weekend his dad was watching us.  He brought us out a mans feast at lunch that would have pissed off my mom for it's non-nutritional value.  Fuckin gigantic bag of Funions/Funyuns or something, Cheez Whiz, crackers, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with globs of enough Smuckers to cause instantaneous diabetes, jar of peanuts and wings and other shit I can't seem to recall.  A god damn veritable cornucopia of manly disregard for health.

"Dad, my sandwich is cut wrong." "What?"  "You cut it wrong." "It's a sandwich buddy, it'll still taste exactly the same." "Oh HELLLLLLLLLLLL NO YOU DI'UNT!?" So began one of my earliest recollections of being made uncomfortable and witnessing logic and reason being rebuffed by adamant resolve that a sandwich was wholly inedible, if not cut diagonally.

[lil mike]

Huh. And here we thought Rick Scott publicly refused all that healthcare reform money! I guess that's just what he wanted all his teabagger buddies to think. 

At least based on this article, it sounds like Scott only didn't want to accept the 1 million to set up the exchanges.  As far as I can tell from the article, that amount still hasn't been accepted.

[Howey]

At least based on this article, it sounds like Scott only didn't want to accept the 1 million to set up the exchanges.  As far as I can tell from the article, that amount still hasn't been accepted.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/01/us/01florida.html?pagewanted=all

In recent months, either Gov. Rick Scott’s administration or the state’s Republican-controlled Legislature has rejected grants aimed at moving long-term care patients into their homes, curbing child abuse through in-home counseling and strengthening state regulation of health premiums. They have shunned money to help sign up eligible recipients for Medicare, educate teenagers on preventing pregnancy and plan for the health insurance exchanges that the law requires by 2014.

While 36 states shared $27 million to counsel health insurance consumers, Florida did not apply for the grants. And in drafting this year’s budget, the Legislature failed to authorize an $8.3 million federal grant won by a county health department to expand community health centers.

In interviews, Mr. Scott, a Republican, and state legislative leaders were clear about their rationale. They said they detested everything about the federal health law, which was declared unconstitutional by a federal judge in a case filed by the state. Unless ordered to do otherwise by an appellate court, they said, they had no intention of putting it in place, even if that meant leaving money on the table.

“There are a lot of programs that the federal government would like to give you that don’t fit your state, don’t fit your needs and ultimately create obligations that our taxpayers can’t afford,” said Mr. Scott, a former hospital company executive who rose to political prominence by financing an advertising campaign against the health care legislation.

[lil mike]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/01/us/01florida.html?pagewanted=all

That seems to answer it.

“I don’t want to waste either federal money or state money on something that’s unconstitutional,” Mr. Scott said in a 30-minute interview in his office on Friday.

The governor, sporting black cowboy boots embossed with the state seal, said his subordinates had made case-by-case decisions about whether particular grants advanced the state’s efforts to remake its Medicaid program. This year, Mr. Scott and the Legislature enacted Florida’s own law directing most recipients into managed care plans.

But Mr. Scott deflected requests to explain where the line was drawn, other than to say that competition, personal choice and quality incentives should drive the health care market.

“I’d have to go through each program to look at it,” Mr. Scott said. “We have a Medicaid plan, so if it fits with that plan, then we’re interested, and if it doesn’t, we’re not.”

[Howey]

Mr. Scott and the Legislature enacted Florida’s own law directing most recipients into managed care plans

Like that's worked out great!

“We have a Medicaid plan, so if it fits with that plan, then we’re interested, and if it doesn’t, we’re not.”

Let me see if I have this right. He doesn't want health care funds for Obama's health care, he just wants them for Obama's health care. Gotcha!

The governor, sporting black cowboy boots embossed with the state seal

I wonder how much we paid for those, Mr. Saving Bucks!

[Howey]

...his subordinates had made case-by-case decisions about whether particular grants advanced the state’s efforts to remake its Medicaid program. This year, Mr. Scott and the Legislature enacted Florida’s own law directing most recipients into managed care plans.

*THIS* is all he cares about. He doesn't care about the poor, he just cares about making money for his own benefit. That election did cost him 70mil, remember?

Florida Governor Rick Scott (R) is one of the most vocal opponents of the Affordable Care Act, rejecting millions of dollars in federal grants and failing to implement key infrastructure that could help lower the state’s ballooning uninsurance rate and control costs.

Now, a new report from the Florida Health Care Insurance Advisory Board finds that the state’s health care picture is only getting bleaker: enrollment in health insurance has dropped for the fifth straight year in a row, from 4.5 million in 2006 to 3.7 million in 2010:

    The drop last year stemmed primarily from losses in the in-state small-group market, which saw enrollment decline by almost 19 percent. The individual market saw a 3 percent increase in 2010. But the report, which is updated annually, said the uptick in individual coverage is linked to the drop in the small-group market. “Because of the natural link between small business coverage and individual coverage, enrollment gains in the individual market can be reflective of a somewhat weakening small group market as smaller employers drop coverage,” the report said.

The 2010 Census found that Florida is home to the third-highest percentage of residents without health insurance and 3 of the top 10 highest-spending metropolitan areas in the country. Meanwhile, Scott — a former health care executive whose for-profit health care hospital chain was charged with excessive government fraud — refuses to even recognize the legality of the federal health care reform law. As he told the Palm Beach Post in November, “It’s not the law of the land,” Scott said. “I don’t believe it will ever be the law of the land.”

His quest to make money off privatization of Medicaid is his only goal. Thankfully, and rightfully, the feds are putting a stop to it. There's too much money being thrown at something that won't benefit the Floridians, just Scott and his buddies. Now that's crony capitalism, Mike!

Republican lawmakers' quest to expand a Medicaid privatization program statewide was dealt a blow this week after federal health officials said the state could not impose $10 monthly premiums on Medicaid beneficiaries*.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services also denied the state's proposal to charge $100 co-pays for any non-emergency ER visits, according to a letter sent Thursday. Federal health officials said the fees violated several statutes designed to protect nearly 3 million of state's most vulnerable.

Lawmakers passed the bills last year trying to rein in the Medicaid budget of more than $20 billion a year and increase accountability for providers. Under the plan, the government pays private companies a set amount for handling a specific number of residents — similar to a health maintenance organization, or HMO, in the private sector. The companies, in turn, decide how to care for the patients, including which doctors they can see and what treatments can be prescribed.

The privatization program builds on a controversial five-county pilot program that started in 2006. Patients said they struggled to get doctor's appointments and doctors dropped out of the program complaining the health plans denied the treatments they prescribed. Several health care providers also dropped out of the program, saying they couldn't turn a profit, leaving patients to be deal with gaps in services as they were bounced between plans.

There has also been little data evaluating the program. The state has not tracked what services were denied and it's unclear whether the small amount of savings was because patients got less care or because it was delivered more efficiently.

Several outspoken Democratic lawmakers, including Rep. Elaine Schwartz, have hammered the importance of such data, worrying the for-profit health providers will line their pockets with administrative costs unless closely monitored. Federal health officials have insisted the state require private health plans to spend 85 percent of funds on patient care.

“We hope this is just the start of gutting this bad program, and not a mere sop to those of us who see Florida's proposal as a true gutting of the purposes of Medicaid,” Schwartz said.

*Not only that, but they want to charge $100 copays for ER visits!

Of course, we all know it's about the war on the poor...

From outside an Orlando Starbucks, 45-year-old Rudy Roberts powers up his laptop computer* and uses the free wireless Internet to apply for retail jobs.

Roberts, who has been out of work since the Kmart he managed closed in 2009, relies on $400 a week in state unemployment benefits — money that he says stopped coming in September because of a bureaucratic hiccup. He applies for five jobs each week, he says, in order to comply with a requirement passed by the Florida Legislature.

“I understand why (lawmakers) want you to get out and apply,” said Roberts, who traveled by bus from Orlando to Tallahassee last week to protest Medicaid cuts. “But I don’t think they understand how difficult it really is.”

While Florida’s economy has shown signs of improvement in recent months, the prospects remain bleak for many of the state’s most disadvantaged residents. And there is concern things may only get worse.

The Republican-led Legislature passed a series of sweeping changes last year and is considering additional changes in 2012 that lawmakers say protect taxpayer dollars, wean residents off government assistance and position businesses to reignite Florida’s dormant economy.

Critics like Dorene Barker, legislative director with Florida Legal Services, say the measures amount to an “unprecedented attack on the poor” — from requiring cash welfare recipients to first pass a drug test, to diverting Medicaid patients into managed care, to making it harder for people like Roberts to keep their unemployment benefits.

* Let me add here...the latest Circle Jerk of Attribution™ deals with the poor using computers and *shudder* government-provided cell phones to apply for jobs.

It's called Life Line, doods, and it's been around since 1996. When it was approved by the all-Republican Congress led by Newt Gingrich and signed into law by Clinton. It's purpose is to provide low cost phone service (among other things) to the elderly and poor.

Help! I've fallen and can't get up!

Nowadays, of course, that little old woman is an evil manipulator of the government.  

[lil mike]

*THIS* is all he cares about. He doesn't care about the poor, he just cares about making money for his own benefit. That election did cost him 70mil, remember?

His quest to make money off privatization of Medicaid is his only goal. Thankfully, and rightfully, the feds are putting a stop to it. There's too much money being thrown at something that won't benefit the Floridians, just Scott and his buddies. Now that's crony capitalism, Mike!
*Not only that, but they want to charge $100 copays for ER visits!

Of course, we all know it's about the war on the poor...
* Let me add here...the latest Circle Jerk of Attribution™ deals with the poor using computers and *shudder* government-provided cell phones to apply for jobs.

It's called Life Line, doods, and it's been around since 1996. When it was approved by the all-Republican Congress led by Newt Gingrich and signed into law by Clinton. It's purpose is to provide low cost phone service (among other things) to the elderly and poor.

Nowadays, of course, that little old woman is an evil manipulator of the government.  

The state tried to have a copay for Medicaid before, in the late 80's I think.  It was before I worked at the health department, but I heard about it.  It was ended by the clients themselves.  They just refused to pay and demanded services anyway.  The State caved.

[Howey]

The state tried to have a copay for Medicaid before, in the late 80's I think.  It was before I worked at the health department, but I heard about it.  It was ended by the clients themselves.  They just refused to pay and demanded services anyway.  The State caved.

Back when our home health patients were requested to pay a $2 co-pay if they had it. I don't call that "refusing to pay" or "demanding service". You really have a deep-seated hatred of the poor, don't you?

Now I can see why you no longer work at the Health Dept.