Despite unlikely backing by former hospital executive Gov. Rick Scott, Florida's GOP-led legislature has successfully blocked several bills to expand Medicaid in the state as the legislative session draws to a close for the year, according to a report by the New York Times.
Typically one of the fiercest opponents of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Gov. Scott in February voiced his support for the provision that would grant additional Medicaid federal funding, making him one of a handful of Republican governors to do so. Republican lawmakers didn't share his enthusiasm, with the state House last week voting down the Senate's plan to use private insurers to expand the program modeled after Arkansas' law.
Florida has one of the largest populations of uninsured residents, totaling more than a million low-income people who often must rely on emergency rooms for care and weigh a heavy burden on safety-net hospitals, who are slated to lose most of their compensatory payments for uncompensated and indigent care later this year.
In desperate protest, Democrats in the House launched a slowdown campaign requiring all House bills ready for a vote to be read in their entirety before a floor vote, calling in an automatic speed-reading machine named "Mary" which has since become an oddball persona in news coverage of the issue, even attaining its own Twitter handle, @HouseAutoReader.
When that move failed to change Republicans' minds, Democrats turned to the governor, urging him to call for a special legislative session or veto the budget bill that was passed. Waiting until the next legislative session in 2014 to expand the program would cost the state's Medicaid providers an additional $1 billion in missed federal funding for the program.
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Typically one of the fiercest opponents of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Gov. Scott in February voiced his support for the provision that would grant additional Medicaid federal funding, making him one of a handful of Republican governors to do so. Republican lawmakers didn't share his enthusiasm, with the state House last week voting down the Senate's plan to use private insurers to expand the program modeled after Arkansas' law.
Florida has one of the largest populations of uninsured residents, totaling more than a million low-income people who often must rely on emergency rooms for care and weigh a heavy burden on safety-net hospitals, who are slated to lose most of their compensatory payments for uncompensated and indigent care later this year.
In desperate protest, Democrats in the House launched a slowdown campaign requiring all House bills ready for a vote to be read in their entirety before a floor vote, calling in an automatic speed-reading machine named "Mary" which has since become an oddball persona in news coverage of the issue, even attaining its own Twitter handle, @HouseAutoReader.
When that move failed to change Republicans' minds, Democrats turned to the governor, urging him to call for a special legislative session or veto the budget bill that was passed. Waiting until the next legislative session in 2014 to expand the program would cost the state's Medicaid providers an additional $1 billion in missed federal funding for the program.
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