“Lost in much of the political analysis of the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark health care ruling on Thursday is the power the court gave to the 50 governors of the states…..Gov. Rick Scott made clear he would exercise the power given to him by the high court — the power to refuse a costly Medicaid expansion without fear of reprisal in the form of withdrawal of basic federal Medicaid funding. Scott told Fox News that he wouldn’t expand the Medicaid program because the Sunshine State would have to come up with about $2 billion in new Medicaid funding that it doesn’t have.”
….”Florida lawmakers know full well that their budget problems get worse — much worse — if the state portion of Medicaid continues to balloon. Scott said Obama’s plan for the states to expand Medicaid and set up market “exchanges” to find private health insurance for the uninsured would cost too much money. The Medicaid expansion would cost about $2 billion alone, he said.”
“Medicaid now exceeds what the state spends on public education. The state will spend about $21 billion on Medicaid this budget year — that’s about 30 percent of the state’s $70 billion budget. Spending on public schools, by comparison, totals $17.2 billion, or 25 percent of the budget.”
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