Florida governor Rick Scott, previously one of the most outspoken critics of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, has indicated a shift in his position by announcing he now approves of Florida participating in a optional provision of the legislation, accepting federal funds in order to expand Medicaid in the state. This is particularly unexpected consider Florida was one of the states that brought a lawsuit against the federal government in an effort to block President Obama’s new healthcare laws.
“While the federal government is committed to paying 100% of the cost of new people in Medicaid, I cannot, in good conscience, deny the uninsured access to care,” Scott said. “We will support a three-year expansion of the Medicaid program under the new health care law as long as the federal government meets their commitment to pay 100 percent of the cost during that time.”
His fellow conservatives had an intensively negative response to his announcement.
“I am terribly disappointed in [Scott’s] decision to expand Medicaid in Florida,” Erick Erickson of the conservative blog Red State wrote. “As one of the chief opponents of Obamacare and, before it, Hillarycare, governor Scott knows this is not the right thing to do. I would like to blame the staff around him, but the ultimate decision was his to make and he made it.”
