Remember when Rick Scott began to soften his stance against Obamacare and said there should be a conversation about it?
Yea, scratch that.
Scott did the math and well, the numbers just don't add up. So. No Obamacare for you, Florida!
Oh. Sure. He still walks around like he's all hey I'd be totally open to Obamacare, but it just costs too much, bros.
But, according to some internal emails uncovered by Health News Florida, Scott's math is not only wrong, he knows it's wrong, but is still going with it.
Because, according to our math, Rick Scott hates poor people.
Scott has been talking and talking out of his reptilian face hole that Florida Medicaid would cost Florida $63 billion over 10 years, with the state paying $26 billion of it.
But, according to a legislative budget analyst and State Economist Amy Baker, Scott's Medicaid cost math is, let's call it, a liberal estimate. They told him this via the emails sent to his office weeks ago.
But Scott keeps using his numbers anyway.
Even with the reality that we are among the nation's leaders in having the most uninsured people, and that Scott can help nearly a million low-income residents get insurance by just accepting the optional Medicaid expansion, he won't.
Because he randomly punched a bunch of numbers into his calculator .... beep. beep. beep. boop. bop.... and ping! the math says it's just waaaaaay too much.
Actually, the flawed numbers come from something called the "Estimates Related to the Affordable Care Act," which was sent to members of the Legislative Budget Commission on December 17.
But, just three days after it was sent, two of the recipients were all, hmmm something don't add up here and pointed out the faulty numbers and sent it back to to the Agency for Health Care Administration for a re-do. According to Health News Florida, it would violate Florida law to proceed with the estimate.
According to the emails, the original report's numbers were crazy fat because it did not take into account the full amount that the federal government will be reimbursing states that choose to expand Medicaid.
In the end, analysts -- or, as we call em: People Who Do Math Good -- found that Medicaid expansion would cost Florida only $1 billion.
Scott is now saying that he intends on looking at other estimates too, because he's a fair and balanced guy, you see.
So everything should be fine now. If Rick Scott says he's going to consider other estimates, we have no reason to believe he'd lie.
Right?
Yes!
Except that, no.
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