Following Maine's lead, two Florida lawmakers say they're going to pose the question of whether to expand Medicaid, via readily available Obamacare dollars, to the voters.
In other words, they're taking a proposal their colleagues have long neglected to implement because — why else? — NObama! directly to the people.
On Thursday, State Senator Annette Taddeo (D-Miami) and State Representative Lori Berman (D-Boynton Beach) announced an initiative to get a proposed constitutional amendment on the 2018 ballot that would close the Medicaid gap that currently leaves nearly 900,000 Floridians without affordable health coverage.
“As of July 2016, roughly 877,000 Floridians remain uninsured," Taddeo said. "They fall into the healthcare gap. I mean, these are hardworking people. They're being punished for making too much — if you could say that $16,000 is too much — and they fall into that gap where they actually are employed. They make a living that I wouldn't call a good living, but not enough to buy health insurance. So they fall into this gap where we are punishing them.”
The two South Florida legislators added that, though the human aspect of the proposal is in itself justification for the policy shift, there's an economic element that ought to inspire the GOP to look at Obamacare differently.
Namely, Florida taxpayers put tons of money into the federal program and get essentially nothing back. Meanwhile, if an un- or underinsured person gets sick or injured, taxpayers end up footing the bill for ER visits.
“This is money we send to Washington, and we deserve to have it back," Taddeo said.
Plus, when people don't fear losing health employer-sponsored insurance, they may be more likely to venture into a small business endeavor or entrepreneurship.
There's evidence that a decent majority of Floridians would support such an initiative. No, really.
Yet its passage would not come without some pretty major hurdles.
The first of these is getting the legislature to approve it for the November ballot, of which chances are minuscule, given that many Florida lawmakers live in a dimension in which people being able to go to the doctor without fear of the expense would basically make us North Korea.
Luckily for them, there's another way to get constitutional amendments on the ballot in Florida: ask the voters themselves if they want it on the ballot, which Taddeo said they'd do if legislative leadership ignores the measure.
“We're ready for this fight. We're ready for the legislature to do the right thing for Floridians. And if they don't, we will take it to the ballot via signatures if it comes to that,” she said.
Of course, if it does get the hundreds of thousands of petition signatures it needs — and state supreme court approval of the language — the amendment would face a giant wall of money, the likes of which helped the original medical marijuana amendment get shot down in 2014.
Plus, like that year, 2018 is of course a non-presidential year, which in Florida tend to favor Republicans (though maybe the Trump backlash will continue to be a thing and Dem voters can offset all the voter suppression that's been going on...who knows?).
If it passes, the legislature will then have to implement it, and if the medical marijuana bill amendment voters did pass in 2016 is any indication, they'd drag their feet in doing so.
