Wednesday, Florida’s Republican governor, Rick Scott, a Donald Trump supporter, visited Fox News to cheerlead the destruction of ObamaCare. But when repeatedly asked by host Neil Cavuto how to “protect” the 20 million Americans who have gotten health insurance under ObamaCare, Scott could not answer the question.
Scott looked absolutely delighted as he argued that taking away health insurance for 20 million people is imperative.
SCOTT: We have to do it. President Obama said you wouldn’t lose your doctor, people did. He said your health care costs would go down, they spiraled up. We have to do better for the American public. First, we got to get jobs going, then we’ve got to have a health care system that people can afford. What Obamacare did was raise all the costs of health care which means fewer people can pay for health care.
CAVUTO: So you want to repeal and start from scratch?
SCOTT: Absolutely.
CAVUTO: So how would you or would you protect or recommend President-elect Trump to protect the 20 million people who’ve gotten health insurance through this plan?
Clearly, Scott had thought out the first part of his argument. But not much for the people whose health insurance he salivated for removing. So he dodged the question.
SCOTT: First off, The political elite in Washington, they think there’s no way. They think there’s no way you can do this, but here’s what you do. It’s like fixing a company. You focus on what you need to do. “You’ve got to drive health care costs down, how do you do that? Competition, you’ve got to create more competition in health care. You’ve got to let people buy the insurance they want to buy, let people buy across state lines, and then create safety nets state by state that work for those states.
But he had thought out what he could do for himself. “I know what works in Florida. Let me create the safety net with the support of the federal dollars … that works for my state," he said.
Scott hasn’t done a very good job so far. According to the industry’s Modern Healthcare, nearly half the counties in Florida have high numbers of uninsured adults.
Not surprisingly, Cavuto didn’t mention that. However, he did press Scott for an answer about the people whose health insurance he wants to yank.
CAVUTO: Those are a lot of good ideas and market-based ideas, but you would have this gap, this period where these people who have coverage wouldn’t have coverage. What should be done or anything for them?
Scott’s “solution” was to pretend it wouldn’t be a problem. And to attack President Obama.
SCOTT: I don’t believe that. I believe you can create safety nets. The way Obama did it, there was no way to drive health care costs down. You’re gonna get more people health care if you can drive health care costs down. Competition does it, let the people buy the insurance they want to buy does it. And then create the safety net for the group of people that you care about.
That’s an odd turn of phrase for a governor. Wouldn’t you think he’d be interested in a safety net for everyone who needs one, not just those he cares about?
Interestingly, the Fox News clip (the first one embedded below) stops there. But Cavuto kept at challenging Scott. In the second clip below, Cavuto continued.
CAVUTO: I understand that and I’m not meaning to be a stickler about this but if I have a health care policy – and it might be I’m paying through the nose for it, but that’s what I’ve got. It’s not a safety net, it’s a policy. How do you assure those people that while this is being reworked, they’d still have coverage?
In short, Scott can’t. In fact, he suggested he would never bother his mind about it.
SCOTT: When I’m saying a safety net, it would be a policy that they would know they’d be covered. … Look, I want everyone to be able to get health care. I worked in the health care industry. I want people to get health care. But if people can’t afford it, eventually, there’s a day of reckoning. Whether it’s government doesn’t pay for it or you don’t pay for it, there’s a day of reckoning.
It’s nice that Scott should be talking about fiscal accountability and “a day of reckoning.” Because when he talked about his career in the health care industry, Scott forgot to mention that his company was fined $1.7 billion for Medicare fraud. Funny how that never seems to get mentioned on Fox.
Meanwhile, it’s obvious Scott is more interested in scoring political points than in the welfare of the people he represents. Or those of anyone else it would seem.
Watch the kind of selfishness that goes along with supporting Donald Trump above, from the November 9, 2016 Your World.
(News Hound Ellen also contributed to this article.)
Crossposted at News Hounds.
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