Don’t Color on the Dog: Jackass Edition

The controversial $10 million Medicaid settlement check that flowed through the Hope Florida Foundation to the political action committee Keep Florida Clean has emerged as a case study in governmental dysfunction, raising serious questions about transparency, proper procedures, and the misuse of public funds. State Rep. Alex Andrade, who Gov. Ron DeSantis has called a jackass, sat down with me, whom many have called a jackass, sat down to discuss the scandal.

Bypassing Essential Oversight

The Centene settlement stands out as an anomaly in Florida’s handling of statewide legal agreements. According to State Representative Alex Andrade, this is “the only statewide settlement I’m aware of that wasn’t negotiated by the Attorney General’s office.” Instead of following established protocols that would have involved both the Attorney General and the Chief Financial Officer, the settlement was “controlled and directed by an agency secretary in the governor’s office.”

• This departure from normal procedures eliminated crucial oversight mechanisms designed to protect taxpayer interests. The settlement documents should have been reviewed by the Chief Financial Officer’s office, but that step was simply skipped. These missing safeguards represent what Andrade describes as a fundamental absence of “checks and balances” in the process.

The settlement itself involved Centene, which had been attempting to resolve Medicaid-related issues with Florida since 2022. Originally offering $67 million, the company suddenly agreed in late 2024 to a reduced settlement of $10 million, with specific instructions to send the funds directly to the Hope Florida Foundation rather than to state coffers.

Deceptive Execution

Rep. Andrade said the $10 million given by Centene to the Hope Florida Foundation was done under false pretenses.

• “When this settlement was executed on Sept. 14, the state, AHCA, and the governor’s office were telling Centene that this $10 million was going to be used to expand Hope Florida’s role in providing Medicaid services,” said the lawmaker. “Centene would not have sent this money, which was Medicaid money, to the foundation for any other reason other than to provide Medicaid services because Centene understood these were Medicaid dollars.”

The Associated Press reported that it had obtained text messages that show that James Uthmeier, Gov. Ron DeSantis’ chief of staff whom has since been appointed Attorney General, had directed Save Our Society from Drugs executive director Am Ronshausen to go after the funds. I asked Andrade about the texts.

He said, “Those text messages made clear that James Uthmeier, before the Hope Florida Foundation knew that they were receiving this money, was already telling Amy Ronshausen to go get that money from the foundation, which on the timeline of it is really damning.”

Andrade added the message to Ronshausen was “go get this money for our mutual fight against Amendment 3.”

Why has Casey DeSantis been injected into this?

I asked Andrade about why Gov. DeSantis keeps injecting his wife into the controversy, even though she has no known ties to the Hope Florida Foundation or the Centene settlement.

“One of the more cynical reasons why it’s possible there’s been this focus on the First Lady is that there’s been rumors in Tallahassee for well over a year that some of the funds from these DSOs (Direct Support Organizations), like the State’s Emergency Management DSO or the Hope Florida DSO have been used for some of our own personal expenses,” Andrade said. “There’s nothing to verify that, but at the same time, the Hope Florida Foundation still hasn’t turned over their bank records to us to review, so it’s possible that’s why.”

He continued, “But it’s also possible that they’re making it so personal because they viewed this as her kind of campaign avenue to show competence, to say she has this executive record that’s also conservative to bolster some kind of gubernatorial campaign. I care about none of that…I don’t really care about who wins the gubernatorial race next year.”

Andrade added that the most obvious reason might be the incompetence of DeSantis’ people. “Probably the most obvious reason why, just because going back to the simplest and dumbest answer is normally the correct answer in this circumstance, it really is more like Veep than House of Cards. There might be some misuse of funds for her personally. There might not be. I can’t tell you, and I’m not coming out there and saying that. All I know right now is her fingerprints are nowhere on this. And it’s bizarre that she keeps getting injected into this by her husband.”