Levin’s pivotal move was his 1993 rewrite of the Florida Medicaid Third Party Recovery Act. He identified language that, if amended, would allow the state to recoup Medicaid costs for treating smoking-related illnesses by suing the tobacco companies—closing legal loopholes that the industry had previously exploited to avoid liability.
Working behind the scenes, Levin collaborated with state senator W.D. Childers and Governor Lawton Chiles to push the bill through the legislature. The amendments were passed in a strategic, largely secretive manner to avoid intervention from tobacco lobbyists, as openly challenging such a powerful industry was deemed impossible at the time.
Despite the tobacco industry’s subsequent attempts to repeal the new law (and their near-success in the Florida Senate), Governor Chiles vetoed the repeal effort. The law withstood court challenges, including at the U.S. Supreme Court, and became the basis for the state’s lawsuit against major cigarette manufacturers.
In 1997, this legal offensive culminated in a landmark $13 billion settlement for the State of Florida—the largest such agreement in U.S. history up to that point.
