Florida House speaker Will Weatherford: No Medicaid expansion
Florida GOP House Speaker Will Weatherford declared in an interview that the prospect of Medicaid expansion in his state is “dead” – regardless of any additional lobbying from Gov. Rick Scott.
“I think based on where the membership is today, the votes are not there to expand Medicaid no matter what the governor says,” Weatherford told POLITICO Saturday at the Conservative Political Action Conference.
Stunning conservatives, Scott came out last month for the expansion of the federal-state health care program for the poor that was part of the Affordable Care Act. But a Republican-led House committee blocked the expansion earlier this month and last week a Senate panel also moved to stop the plan to offer health care to an additional 1 million Floridians.
By rejecting the Medicaid expansion, Florida is estimated to be giving up $51 billion over 10 years to cover low-income residents. Under the law, the federal government would pay for 100 percent of the costs for the first three years of the program and then 90 percent thereafter./blockquote>
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http://www.politico.com/story/2013/03/florida-house-speaker-medicaid-expansion-dead-88945.html