MANDATORY health insurance, part 2

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While Cutting Health Care For The Poor, Gov. Scott Pays Less Than $400 A Year For Taxpayer-Subsized Health Insurance | ThinkProgress

By Marie Diamond on Aug 10, 2011

After relentlessly campaigning to abolish health care reform, Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) has taken every opportunity to slash health care coverage for the poor, elderly, and disabled. Since taking office in January, Scott has enacted a landmark Medicaid privatization scheme, rejected millions in federal health aid for seniors, children, and the disabled, and even turned down $52 million in federal funding to fight child abuse.

Scott is a former private health industry executive who made his fortune downsizing hospitals for profit. He clearly has no problem making low-income Floridians pay more for basic health services. Yet when it comes to his own health insurance, Scott is only too happy to take advantage of a plan that lets him pay less than $400 a year — courtesy of taxpayers:

Gov. Rick Scott, a critic of the federal health care overhaul, is paying less than $400 a year for health insurance for himself and his wife.

While Scott is accepting no salary for his job as governor, the multimillionaire and former hospital chain executive chose to enroll in the taxpayer-subsidized health insurance plan offered by the state of Florida.

Scott is among nearly 32,000 people in state government who pay relatively low health insurance premiums. It’s a perk that is available to high-ranking state officials, including those in top management at all state agencies.

Nearly all 160 state legislators are also enrolled in the program that costs just $8.34 a month for individual coverage and $30 a month for family coverage.

In contrast, rank-and-file state workers pay $50 a month for individual coverage and $180 a month for family coverage. In 2010, the average American family with employer coverage paid $13,770 for health insurance. Florida also has one of the highest uninsured rates in the nation.

A Scott spokesman refused to comment on the governor’s exclusive, taxpayer-funded health care plan, calling it a “private matter.”

State Sen. Nan Rich (D) says it’s unfortunate that the governor is taking advantage of this plan while fighting to keep other Floridians from getting access to health insurance coverage. “I wish every Floridian had the same opportunity,” she said.
 
People should stop their lazy whining and work hard enough to become high-ranking state officials like Gov. Scott if they want good cheap healthcare. :shrug:




The Daily Beast, Aug. 16 (Michael Tomasky)
Last Friday’s decision by a three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, holding the individual mandate portion of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) unconstitutional, will almost surely force a Supreme Court decision next year, many legal analysts believe. So, bam, right in the middle of a presidential election, we’ll have the biggest and most political high-court decision since Bush v. Gore—and one with far greater destructive potential as precedent. The standard liberal position is to fear that the court will overturn the ACA. Sure, I fear that. But I also fear the political consequences on next year’s election of the court upholding it and worry that those consequences could be even worse for the progressive cause.
Consider an announcement from the Supreme Court next May or June that a 5-4 majority, including the four liberals and Anthony Kennedy, has upheld the ACA. What happens? The administration breathes a sigh of relief. But who actually celebrates? Not many people. Liberals are generally ambivalent about the act and always have been. Meanwhile, who is infuriated? Millions of conservatives. “Obamacare” becomes a hot-button issue all over again. If you think conservatives can’t get any angrier than they already are, well, you and I have been watching very different conservative moments these last few years...a court-imposed “socialistic” outcome, forced on decent, freedom-loving Americans by four liberals and that sodomy-endorsing Kennedy, is a pretty big something.
 
I would think the hypocrisy would be if he DIDN"T take public health insurance at the same time he was cutting it. If you don't believe me substitute health care with public schools.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) has taken every opportunity to slash public school budgets while sending his kids to private schools.

That would be somewhat hypocritical I think.

What this does illustrate is exactly what governors in Wisconson, Indiana, New York and New Jersey have been saying since taking office. Public employee benefits must be reformed or state budgets are going to explode. It simply isn't fair to ask middle class taxpayers to pay such a large percentage of the health care costs for government employees.

The outrage isn't that the Florida governor is paying so little for his health care it's that there are 32,000 other government workers--just in Florida--with the similar perk.

PS Think Progress is a liberal slime machine so I would expect them to cover this an example of GOP hypocrisy rather than that of government largess.
 
Not wanting everyone else to have the very thing that you take full advantage of is hypocrisy, plain and simple. Don't see how it's any different from the school thing-Gov. Christie does that and he said it's a private matter (like he told that citizen who asked him, it's none of your damn business or something to that effect).

Come on, the guy even turned down all that money to fight child abuse. WTF?
 
Not wanting everyone else to have the very thing that you take full advantage of is hypocrisy, plain and simple. Don't see how it's any different from the school thing-Gov. Christie does that and he said it's a private matter (like he told that citizen who asked him, it's none of your damn business or something to that effect).

If he was "slashing" public spending on health while he and his family enjoyed a lavish, private, platinum-plated Cadillac health care plan... what would Think Progress call that?


Come on, the guy even turned down all that money to fight child abuse. WTF?

Why is the federal government sending tens of millions of dollars to Florida, and presumably the other 49 states, to fight child abuse?

We... don't... have... the... money !!!
 
Wow INDY your example really shows that you don't understand this topic at all.

He is not losing coverage by making these cuts so your public school metaphor doesn't work.
 
We... don't... have... the... money !!!

On the other hand we do have the money to give wealthy people their Bush tax cuts, grant them all kinds of ridiculous tax loopholes, and countless dollars on various military misadventures in the Middle East.
 
Yeah, just let the kids be abused

How does printing money in Washington D.C. prevent child abuse in Jacksonville, Florida? Is there a "child abuse prevented" statistic as phony as the "job saved" number to justify this spending?



I'm sure the subsidized health care plan must be pretty good, or why wouldn't he just buy a Cadillac plan?

Ummmm, he didn't want to be labeled a hypocrite. Oh well. :shrug:
 
He's not trying to prevent citizens of Florida from buying Cadillac plans. Yeah, he made a hypocritical choice in order to avoid being labeled a hypocrite. That makes sense.

I'm not going to claim that throwing any amount of money at child abuse is going to prevent it, but no one will convince me that those programs don't make a difference. And as for me, I'd rather spend money here on things like that than on dragged out wars, at least one started under false pretenses (that also creates the necessity of spending millions of dollars on veterans, I don't begrudge them one penny of it but it does) while the wealthiest people and corporations get all their perks.
 
I'm not going to claim that throwing any amount of money at child abuse is going to prevent it, but no one will convince me that those programs don't make a difference.

Ok, then why not double the federal grant to $104 million. But then surely child abuse will still exist in Florida. Double that to $208 million. I say let's spend $208 million dollars a year to combat the epidemic of Floridian child abuse.

Argue for a penny less and you must hate children.
 
By the Florida government's data, 192 children in Florida died from abuse in 2009 (last year for which data is available). The funding would've been used to support an existing home visitation program for designated high-risk children, which was founded on the premise that preventing (further) abuse is far cheaper than covering the costs of foster care and medical treatment after the fact. That's not an argument for spending money we don't have, it's an argument for understanding what programs being cut (child welfare, defense, whatever) actually consist of so that we can reasonably claim to have considered their value to the public good when deciding where and how much to cut.





Aaaaaaaand time to start a new thread, so...
 
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