The quagmire in Tallahassee over health care spending forced an early end to the spring legislative session. At the heart of it is a federal program known as the Low Income Pool, or LIP. It reimburses Florida hospitals more than two billion dollars a year for providing care to low-income or indigent patients. The federal government is phasing the program out as it shifts to new programs provided by the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare.
Now, Gov. Scott is making the rounds in Washington D.C., trying to prod the feds to keep funding LIP. Now, Scott has backtracked from his previous position on supporting expansion of Medicaid in the state to serve low-income residents.
Scott recently spoke to reporters in the nation's capitol.
"The families that are covered through the Low Income Pool is a different group of individuals than are covered by Obamacare," Scott said.
Click on the video below to hear what he had to say about LIP and Medicaid:
-5FJs
PolitiFact Florida rated his statement "Mostly False," saying:
This makes it sound as if the people who would qualify for Medicaid under an expansion are completely different than patients who leave hospitals with unpaid bills the LIP fund helps pay to providers. Health policy experts said that while there would still be uninsured people not paying their bills under an expansion, plenty of overlap exists between the two, especially at lower incomes.
Next up, in our spirit of bi-partisanship, let us now set our sights of the presumptive Democratic candidate for president, Hillary Clinton. She's polishing her liberal bona-fides by positioned herself as the only candidate who backs full citizenship for undocumented immigrants. And she's taking shots at her Republican opponents for the top job.
Clinton told reporters "not one" GOP presidential contender backs a path to citizenship:
PolitiFact Florida rated this claim as "Mostly False," ruling:
She's telling voters who want a path to citizenship that there's no one on the Republican side who supports that issue. That is not accurate. There is one -- Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who isn’t officially in the race but has said he's likely to run. She does have a point that the other dozen or so candidates either have never backed a path to citizenship or have sent mixed signals.
