If you're looking for Governor Rick Scott, you can probably find him in the Burn Ward today.
That's because the Tampa Bay Times zinged him so hard in an editorial entitled "Rick Scott, Florida's Socialist Governor."
Not a nice thing to say, given that Governor Scott hate, hate, hates socialism. In fact, the Affordable Care Act (fine, Obamacare) was the "reason" he bought the governorship, he told this reporter in 2010 during a campaign stop in St. Pete.
Adding insult to injury is the fact that denizens of the far right—who espouse similar views to those of Scott—consider the Times itself to be a socialist rag (it's not).
The piece, posted on the paper's Web site Tuesday, compared Scott's recent call to make hospitals that receive taxpayer dollars pony up money to fill the gaping hole that's about to left by the disappearing federal Low Income Pool (LIP) dollars to the much-maligned economic theory.
The LIP money, which is used to help treat the poor and uninsured, is going away, and Scott (as well as leadership in the Florida House) refuses to consider an easy fix, accepting billions in federal Medicaid dollars available through the Affordable Care Act (money that's been on the table for years).
"Your assistance in suggesting fair profit sharing to replace federal LIP funds at those institutions that rely on them most, like Shands Jacksonville, will be critical to keeping them up and running," Scott wrote in a letter sent to Florida Hospital Association head Bruce Rueben, according to the News Service of Florida. "This would be similar to how large market baseball teams share revenues with small market baseball teams."
Yeah, like baseball teams...or that organic food co-op we worked at in Santa Fe in college.
So Scott, former head of HCA, the largest hospital chain in America, wants to see nonprofit hospitals like Tampa General, All Children's and Morton Plant kick money into the program.
And get this: last week, on the same day Scott said profit sharing is the way to go, HCA sent his PAC a big ol' $100,000 contribution.
From the Times Piece:
"This is about the governor's disdain for nonprofit hospitals that care for most of the Medicaid patients and uninsured in this state and receive most of the public money. And this is about seeking retribution against the safety net hospitals that have strongly supported accepting Medicaid expansion money."
Nicely done.
