Christine Jordan Sexton
Florida Gov. Rick Scott said Thursday he will sue the federal government for “coercing” the state into expanding Medicaid under the federal health care law by withholding supplemental Medicaid funding known as Low Income Pool..
“It is appalling that President Obama would cut off federal healthcare dollars to Florida in an effort to force our state further into Obamacare,” Scott said in a news release announcing the lawsuit.
At press time, no lawsuit had been filed. The decision to sue the federal government comes just two weeks after Scott switched his position on Medicaid expansion. In 2013 Scott said he supported expanding Medicaid and the governor reiterated that position while campaigning for governor last year.
The National Federation of Independent Business filed a lawsuit, NFIB v. Sebelius, against the federal health care law, alleging that the mandate to purchase health insurance was unconstitutional. While the court upheld the law in a 5-4 opinion, it did rule that a section of the law that allowed the federal government to withhold Medicaid dollars from states that refused to expand Medicaid to low-income uninsured people was unconstitutional. It ruled that such an action coerce states to expand or lose funding.
Acting Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Vikki Wachino sent a letter to Medicaid Deputy Director Justin Senior on Tuesday noting that “coverage rather than uncompensated care pools is the best way to secure affordable access coverage to health care for low-income individuals, and uncompensated care pool funding should not pay for costs that would be covered in a Medicaid expansion.”
She added that the expansion was the best way to support the health care needs of “low-income Floridians and Florida’s health care system while at the same time spending federal tax dollars most wisely and meeting the objectives of the Medicaid program and the Affordable Care Act.”
Senior responded to the letter with one of his own accusing the federal government of “coercing” the state and warned that position violated the Supreme Court of the United State’s ruling in NFIB v. Sebelius.
The impending loss of $2 billion in Low Income Pool money and Medicaid expansion has been at the center of the Legislature’s budget impasse. Legislative leaders acknowledged Wednesday that the 2015 regular session will not end on time because the chambers can’t reach an accord on health care.
The Senate includes $4 billion from its assumption that Medicaid supplemental LIP payments — set to expire this summer — will continue and that the state will expand Medicaid under the federal health care law. Meanwhile, the House budget doesn’t contain the money.
CMS warned Florida a year ago that it would not extend LIP to Florida and that the money would expire this summer. The $2 billion is used to fund hospitals, federally qualified health centers, graduate medical education and Medicaid managed care plans.
Senate President Andy Gardner said in a prepared statement that he respects Scott’s authority to “protect the state’s interests in the way he sees fit” but said the federal government is under no authority to continue to fund LIP.
“From where I sit, it is difficult understand how suing CMS on day 45 of a 60-day session regarding an issue the state has been aware of for the last 12 months will yield a timely resolution to the critical health care challenges facing our state.”
