Palm Beach County Commissioner has great advice for Rick Scott — Part 2

Image via The Palm Beach Post.

As the dust settles on last week’s Trumpcare debacle, President Donald Trump is reaching out to Sen. Chuck Schumer and others who think that America should join the rest of the civilized world in making basic health care a fundamental right.

That makes this an excellent time to remind Trump’s good friend, Florida Gov. Rick Scott, about the burgeoning public health crisis in the backyard of the Winter Palace at Mar-a-Lago.

Palm Beach County Commissioner Melissa McKinlay was the first public official to urge Scott to call Florida’s heroin epidemic by its right name: a public health crisis. That was, and remains, the Very Best Idea in Florida Right This Minute, and McKinlay’s choir is, thankfully, growing.

Last week, Palm Beach County’s Chief Circuit Judge Jeffrey Colbath tossed his robe into the ring. In his plea to Scott, Colbath noted that last year’s local death toll was in the hundreds, and each overdose call to the Fire Rescue folks costs taxpayers about $1500. The price paid by first responders can run much, much higher.

Colbath is no bleeding heart, big-government, soft-on-crime snowflake. Experience as a prosecutor and insurance defense lawyer shapes his view from the bench.

The Palm Beach Post’s pacesetting, big-picture reporting on the opioid epidemic paved the way for police and prosecutors to begin cleaning up the Palm Beach County sewer of “sober homes” where pimps, extortionists and insurance fraudsters got rich preying upon addicts too sick to take care of themselves and insurance companies too stupid to recognize a criminal conspiracy.

But, as Colbath and everyone else paying attention can see, the problems have metastasized far beyond Palm Beach County. They won’t be solved easily, and they may not be solved at all without the statewide leadership that Scott’s Department of Health is long overdue to provide.