A.G. Gancarski
In Jacksonville on Monday morning, in addition to addressing reporters’ questions about her district lines being redrawn, U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown had another piece of business to attend to: launching a statewide petition drive for the November 2016 ballot to protect health care funding.
The timing was not coincidental, since the news conference was called to celebrate the 50th birthday of Medicare and Medicaid. The latter program has been in the news very much this year with the status of safety-net hospitals such as UF Health under threat.
Congresswoman Brown, who hopes to get 900,000 to a million signatories on the petition, sees it as an example of “people power.”
At the Mary Singleton Center for senior citizens on Monday, she was not alone.
Jacksonville Councilman Reggie Brown and Councilwoman Katrina Brown attended to lend support, as did former council candidates Ju’Coby Pittman and Mincy Pollock.
Beginning her remarks at 10:45 a.m., Congresswoman Brown extolled the virtues of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid as representing the “difference between us” and other countries where such safety nets do not exist.
“I’m asking you to do something,” she said of signing the petition.
“The people on TV who say we don’t want it,” the congresswoman said of Republican critics, who already have insurance.
To send back $56 billion to the federal government by rejecting Medicaid expansion, she said, proved the critics are “stuck on stupid.”
Brown then turned her attention to a rumor that “we’re going to cut Social Security by $200 per person.”
“It will not happen on my watch,” Brown declared.
Beneficiaries of government health care took the mike. A woman missing a leg spoke of her need for a prosthesis, saying, “I need the device for my leg to work.”
Then, an elderly man who receives Social Security spoke, regarding the rumor the congresswoman mentioned.
“My rent is $425, and there’s not enough subsidized housing” for older people, he said.
If Social Security were to be cut, half the seniors in the room would be “homeless in the street.”
Pollock spoke next, mentioning that his grandmother raised him, and said, “She couldn’t have done it without Social Security.”
Congresswoman Brown spoke again, asserting that Florida is “not going to balance the budget on the backs of senior citizens” and that the state is “not going to rob poor and working people to give tax cuts to the rich.”
Brown said she sees the petition as a way of answering the question of “How can we get the Legislature to take federal money?”.
As well, it is a way of ensuring that those poor working people who fall into the “doughnut hole” have recourse to preventative care.
Brown was taking her crusade to Gainesville and Orlando later Monday, where she will likely make a similar case in those media markets, underscoring what she sees as inconsistency in a state government that derives 34 percent of its revenue from the Feds and takes money for the port and education, but will not to adhere to Affordable Care Act guidelines.
