Rick Scott has taken his years-long fight to keep people from getting access to health care to monumental levels of absurdity recently in Florida, and if it weren't for the fact that people are dying every day because he and ideologues in his party are using them as political footballs, it would be funny.
It's not.
Now he's twisting his excuses to block Medicaid expansion into a pretzel of fail. Picture Scott as a snake swallowing it's tail and that's about where we are now. He's threatening to sue President Obama because funds for hospitals are at stake, thanks to all of Scott's and the GOP's political tactics just to avoid giving the working poor access to health care. Yes, the man who refused to take Florida taxpayer dollars from the feds for Medicaid expansion (which went to other states who DID expand Medicaid) is now threatening to sue the President because Florida may not get LIP funds without it.
Yes. Chew on that for a moment.
So far the lawsuit is just a threat and nothing has been filed, but that hasn't stopped Scott from heading to his base (FOX news) to whine and complain while trying to distract people from the meltdown now occurring in his own party as they attempt to balance the budget. Some Republicans in the legislature are having second thoughts about their monumental Medicaid blunder, while others are steadfast in their effort to keep low income families in Florida from having any access to the care they need. So now the GOP may not be able to pass Scott's budget, and this mess of their own making is about to blow up in their faces.
In his attempt to distract everyone from reality, Scott said this, about the Obama administration, to FOX viewers last night:
"They don't care about the low-income families because they're willing to walk away from a program. This is the Sopranos," Scott said during an interview with Fox News on Thursday night. "They're using bullying tactics to attack our state. It's wrong. It's outrageous."
I must have missed the episode where Tony Soprano and Paulie Walnuts held a gun to the head of a rival while trying to give them money for people who couldn't afford health care.
The White House responded:
"It's difficult to explain why somebody would think that their political situation and their political interest is somehow more important than the livelihood and health of 800,000 people that they were elected to lead," White House press secretary Josh Earnest said in a briefing Thursday.
"Difficult to explain" is putting it mildly, which is why Scott's having so much trouble doing it. Worse, here he comes with yet another taxpayer funded lawsuit to add to all the others, including Pam Bondi's failure to block Obamacare altogther before the Supreme Court. Because Scott and the GOP "care about Florida families" and their hard earned money.
Nice try Rick, but anyone who has watched this ugly chapter in Florida "governing" history unfold is well aware of who the real bullies are. You and Republican lawmakers in Tallahassee have perfected not caring about low income families to an art form. This is a mess of your own making that's coming home to roost.
In other words, as Tony Soprano said, this is "like King Midas in reverse." Everything you touch is turning to s--t."
Cross posted at Beach Peanuts