PS podcast: Gaetz argues for Senate plan to help uninsured

On News Talk 1370 WCOA’s Pensacola Speaks, I talked with Sen. Don Gaetz on how the Florida Senate wants to provide health coverage for the uninsured.

“Basically what we have is the Obama Administration saying expand Medicaid. Put another million Floridians on a program that frankly doctors and hospitals don’t like, patients don’t like, and taxpayers don’t like,” said Gaetz. “Medicaid is not a successful program.”

He said that Governor Scott supports the expansion of Medicaid and the Florida House of Representatives that doesn’t want to anything about it.

“Then you have the Florida Senate, which four times in the last two years has passed legislation to provide premium assistance to uninsured people, so that they could buy into the private healthcare market,” he said. “They could buy a health insurance plan that works for them.”

He said the Senate plan is suited specifically to people based on their age and their health conditions and has a work requirement. He lamented the federal government has about a billion nine hundred million dollars of Florida money — Florida dollars that could be used to support unreimbursed healthcare in our state.

“When we don’t get our own Florida money back to do that, then those of us who have private health insurance and go to the hospital, or go to the doctor, we have to pay not only our costs, but the costs of unreimbursed care gets shifted onto us,” said Gaetz. “It’s a good idea to have some way to provide some care to people who need temporarily at least, some help. Otherwise, we lose a lot of money, and we cost shift onto the rest of us who pay for our healthcare, or our employers pay for our healthcare.”

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