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FUZZY MATH

Florida Gov. Rick Scott Concedes Medicaid Expansion Would Cost $21 Billion Less than He Claimed

Attacked for using questionable cost estimates, Scott's administration changes course and releases new price tag

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by Lisa Fine

Staff Writer t

Image: AP

After Florida Republican Gov. Rick Scott came under fire this week for using questionable cost estimates to justify refusing to expand Medicaid, his administration has changed course and puts the new price tag at $21 billion less than he'd been claiming.

Florida's agency managing the Medicaid program released Wednesday evening a new estimate that Medicaid expansion would cost the state $5 billion. The Florida legislature will consider Medicaid expansion when the new session begins in March, the Orlando Sentinel reports.

Scott had been arguing against the option of expanding Medicaid under Obamacare saying it would cost Florida a whopping $26 billion over 10 years, even though his staff was warned that number was way off weeks ago by the state's chief economist, Health News Florida reported Tuesday. Scott repeated that figure in a Tampa Bay Times op-ed on Sunday and again at at a Washington press conference after meeting with federal health care officials on Monday.

The $26 billion figure ignored the fact that under Obamacare, the federal government would pay for most of the state's Medicaid expansion, Health News Florida reported. Meanwhile, other estimates of the cost have been dramatically lower. If Florida expanded Medicaid, about one million uninsured people would gain coverage at a 10-year cost to the state of around $1 billion, according to a study released by two nonpartisan research groups, the Urban Institute and Kaiser Family Foundation.

Via the Orlando Sentinel and Health News Florida

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  • o
    thejimbo
    !
    Lying, hiding the facts, bamboozling his opposition and ignoring the law are all simply fundamental aspects of the business model that Rick Scott has used for his entire working life. How can he be expected to change these habits just because he bought the office of Florida governor? See more of this as he struggles to keep it in 2014....

    Rick Scott = Florida's Biggest Mistake
  • harold_lloyd
    !
    If he runs again, and succeeds, he will have proved that Florida voters are the dumbest in the nation. I pray it isn't to be.
  • u
    Enslaved
    !
    Is this an example of liberal open mindedness and tolerance? Again we see liberal arguments have nothing to do with facts but instead rely on personal attacks and hatred.

    This kind of comment is so typical of liberals. No wonder they transfer all those many aspects of themselves they hate onto their opponents.

    Slavery and Racism oh well that's a republican thing. Of course it was democrats that started the KKK, Jim Crow Laws and opposed civil rights legislation all the up until the 1960's.

    Not until after Johnson did Democrats realize they could use black people by keeping them in poverty and buy their votes by offering them free handouts.

    Democrats know how much their racism is hated and despised so they just transfer it onto their political opponents. Poverty is worse in the black community now than it ever was before the war on poverty. But why would democrats want to have black people rise up and be successful when keeping them poor and dependent gives democrats votes and power?

    Just hate filled liberals buying votes and blaming the other guy for everything democrats stand for.
  • kirbstomp1
    !
    @Enslaved - the southern democrats changed/morphed into the republican party in the sixties. Learn your history. Secondly, neither of these men are liberals, they are libertarians. Very GOP like of you to assume. Your ignorance and assumptions make you look foolish. I will say these men crack jokes because our government is full of jokes. Such as this man lying his ass off by 500%. Both don't like the institution and disprove of most politicians, including this one. If anything libertarians are one the least racist/sexist of all parties. Doesn't mean we can't pick on greedy politicians.
  • Denizen_Kate
    !
    @Enslaved - "This kind of comment is so typical of liberals." Wrong. This kind of comment is typical of anyone, left or right, who refuses to see that every coin has two sides. You seem to be under the impression that conservatives never make personal attacks on liberals, and all the while your very comment is just such an attack.
  • wild_turkey6
    !
    @Enslaved I never said that I was a liberal. Read some of my previous posts. You can defend this clown, but he is a joke and his approval rating proves it.
  • DerivePI
    !
    Wow, someone who is actually questioning the numbers! For the price of $26 billion, 1 million Floridians can now be insured for 10 years. That comes out to $217 per month the government gets to pay. The real monthly cost for Floridian insurance is - "According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, the average monthly cost per individual is actually about $400 a month." I wonder where the rest of the money will come from?

    Oh and the big dig in Boston only cost $5.8 billion in government speak.($22 billion in our world)
  • u
    Libertyiskey
    !
    Exactly, and where does the $21 billion dollars the government spends comes from? The magical money fairy the government has that leaves them a few trillion dollar coins under their pillow every time they tell a lie.
  • u
    Yank
    !
    @Libertyiskey I am looking at the other responses here and shaking my head. How is the people of FL paying $26 billion in state taxes to pay for Medicare somehow worse than them paying $5 billion in state taxes and $21 billion if federal taxes to pay for Medicare? If the cost is the same than it is costing them $26 billion.

    P.S. I wonder if my vending machine at work will accept a trillion dollar coin.
  • DerivePI
    !
    @Yank - Better spend those $trillion coins quickly, the $quadrillion will soon take its place. (we of course will need nicknames for the new coinage
  • Denizen_Kate
    !
    To all of you on this little side thread: "... other estimates of the cost have been dramatically lower. If Florida expanded Medicaid, about one million uninsured people would gain coverage at a 10-year cost to the state of around $1 billion, according to a study released by two nonpartisan research groups ..."

    For the mathematically challenged, that means it would cost FL about $1000 per person to insure 1 million people for 10 years. Sounds like a bargain to me.

  • View all 9 replies >

  • wild_turkey6
    !
    The zombie kind, or the fire and brimstone kind? To be honest, the worst part for me during the zombie apocalypse would be hiding my excitement.
  • Dan_Tien
    !
    @wild_turkey6 I notice that while I was channeling the future I wrote "apocalyspe", so I suspect that it would have to be the flaming kind.
  • martydotcom
    !
    Rick Scott The former CEO of a firm convicted of Medicare fraud. Rick Scott walked out with a multi million severance package rather than going to jail after taking the 5th 75 times.
    He has an approval rating in the high 20's low 30's and should be impeached over his actions impeding voter rights during the past election.
  • PNWest
    !
    I'm still PO'd at this Bat Boy look-alike incompetent wretch. I would have won the $100 Politix election prediction contest if this guy had been able to suppress enough democratic voters in Florida to give the state to Romney.
  • jessejaymes
    !
    What amazes me here in the land of hanging chads, yet another Bush family creep, Rick Scott and voter suppression, day long lines to vote, cutting early voting to benefit the GOP and STILL obama took Florida. Kinda makes you wonder if things had of been a level playing field if Obama would have taken Florida with 70% of the vote?
  • jessejaymes
    !
    This is why we need true socialized medicine. We pay more for our current system than any country in the world and are currently ranked behind 11 other countries in quality. We are also not the longest life country anymore and quickly falling behind in every aspect of health care. Oh, and every country in the world ranked ahead of us? Socialized health care.
  • jessejaymes
    !
    @David944 EVERYONE does. In Germany even the illegal Turks have to pay. EVERYONE. American's spend an average of 8,000.00 a year on health care. Germans spend an average of 4,000. And they are rated higher than we are. Take your pick.
  • jessejaymes
    !
    @David944 So like the gays, like the Taliban, like the rich, like the gang banger, all that matters to YOU is what YOU want. Great.

  • View all 7 replies >

  • o
    Mogal
    !
    @harold_lloyd Oh please, if we cant make fun of our elected officials, who can we make fun of? Lighten up, Francis.
  • jessejaymes
    !
    In comedy script I wrote "Buffy" is complaining to "Carmen" about their boss.

    "You know what Carmen? He thinks we're nothing but airheads"
    "You maybe"
    "Oh no Carmen, I'm no better than you are. If I'm an airhead you're an airhead".

    Your comment just reminded me of that line.
  • Denizen_Kate
    !
    Mimi, it isn't the costs that are constantly changing, just Scott's so-called estimates of those costs. He's been caught fudging the numbers in an effort to demonize the ACA. Busted, and now has to admit it.
  • u
    Yank
    !
    So does it cost less just because the Fed is paying for it instead of the state? The cost is still the same and the amount the tax payers pay is still the same! Also what happens when the Fed stops paying for the expansion?
  • Denizen_Kate
    !
    The costs aren't changing so much as the estimates of what those costs will be. Scott was over-estimating in an effort to demonize the ACA, and now he's admitting to poor math skills. It's all spin - the GOP wants to spin it into "it's going to cost too much" while the Democrats try to spin it the other way into "it wont hurt a bit." Both are wrong. Personally, I'll go with the estimates from the non-partisan groups like those listed in the article.
  • mimi57
    !
    Is it me, or are these politicians just getting creepier and creepier?...We've got
    drunks on brooms, woman (Schultz ) with an eye on each side of her head, Fat
    Fattie Mobsters,'Skelators', Biden, goes without saying, people falling down ,
    knocking out what brains they have left !!! I'm really getting tired of this circus...
    Is a new one coming anytime soon???...
  • SignifiedNBlue
    !
    Its because they have been getting away with it for so long that they dont even care who knows how balantly obvious crooks they are
  • u
    RobertJHarsh
    !
    "The $26 billion figure ignored the fact that under Obamacare, the federal government would pay for most of the state's Medicaid expansion, Health News Florida reported.."

    True...but ONLY FOR THE FIRST YEAR....NO ONGOING. Kasich in Ohio outright reject Medicare expansion and the Healthcare Exchange. He stopped short of calling Health Insurance a "federal problem" but he is right up to the door there.

    As far as I am concerned, Health Care Insurance is the Federal government's problem and their problem alone. The Supreme Court basically says the law overrides the states' 10th amendment rights. I cannot see how any state can legally pass or enforce any state created health care law at this point.
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