At Tampa presser, Rick Scott avoids responding to question on Medicaid expansion

At the Associated Press’ annual legislative planning meeting in Tallahassee on Wednesday, House Speaker Steve Crisafulli tossed a wet blanket on the coalition of businesses in Florida pushing for the state to expand Medicaid in 2015, saying,”House still stands where we stood before: We do not plan to do anything on Medicaid expansion.”

Advocates for Medicaid expansion were buoyed by Indiana Governor Mike Pence’s announcement on Tuesday that he had reached an agreement with the White House for what is being called the Healthy Indiana Plan 2.0, a version of expansion with some distinct twists. His announcement makes him just the latest GOP  to accept federal money to expand Medicaid coverage as part of the Affordable Care Act.

So what about Rick Scott?

The Governor made a drive-by appearance at the Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce on Thursday, where he asked people to hold up their smartphones as he explained that his proposed communications tax cut will save the average Floridian about $43 annually if they spend at least $100 on their cable bill.

Press Secretary Jeri Bustamante then told the Governor that he should accept the first question from the press from the Tampa Tribune’s Jerry Stockfish, who asked him his thoughts on Medicaid expansion for this year.

“My first year in office we did historic Medicaid reform,” Scott replied, though that was not the question being asked.”We had a program that was growing very rapidly. And so we fixed the program so today through getting waivers in 2012 from the federal government to today we have a program that our taxpayers can afford and our citizens are using Medicaid are have Medicaid, know that they have somebody responsible for their care.” An attempt by this reporter to follow up went unanswered after Bustamante called out “last question,” as a phalanx of advisors escorted Scott from the premises to his SUV idling along Jackson Street in downtown Tampa.

Florida Politics followed up with Bustamante for a response, but have not heard back as of early this afternoon.

Meanwhile, the Koch Brothers funded Americans For Prosperity issued a press release this morning claiming that Scott is going wobbly on the concept of  not wanting to expand Medicaid.

In a press release, Chris Hudson, state director of AFP, said, “there is nothing conservative about adding hundreds of thousands of able-bodied adults to a taxpayer-funded healthcare program. By voicing support for the acceptance of federal funds, Governor Scott may feel that he is doing the responsible thing for over a million Florida residents who would become eligible under the plan. But he should know that, if he accepts the funds, he’ll exacerbate the existing problems in the healthcare system and leave Florida further beholden to the federal government’s healthcare mandates. We don’t needed decisions about the health of Floridians being made from D.C.”

The Affordable Care Act would offer federal dollars to expand Medicaid coverage to approximately 1 million Floridians.

But Speaker Crisafulli calls Medicaid a “broken system.”