Charlie Crist On One-Man Death Panel Rick Scott

Charlie Crist, the former Republican turned Democratic candidate for Governor of Florida, goes for incumbent Rick Scott’s jugular early on.

Former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist (D) said in an interview on Friday that the state’s current Tea Party Gov. Rick Scott (R) is to blame for the deaths of six Floridians every day due to his refusal to expand Medicaid.

Talking Points Memo reported that Crist, a former Republican, was talking to MSNBC’s Chuck Todd when he made the allegation.

A key component of President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act (ACA) — also known as Obamacare — and the effort to provide health coverage to the country’s uninsured citizens is the expansion of state Medicaid programs. When the Supreme Court took up the question in 2013 as to the constitutionality of the ACA, Chief Justice John Roberts inserted a provision that would allow some states to opt out of the federal Medicaid funds available for states.

Some 23 Republican-led states have chosen not to accept the funds, including Florida. A joint study between researchers at Harvard University and and the City University of New York estimated that some 17,000 low-income adults will die as a direct result of the Republicans’ decision to not expand the health care program.

Crist said that six of those people die in Florida every day.

By: dave-dr-gonzo

David Hirsch, a.k.a. Dave "Doctor" Gonzo*, is a renegade record producer, video producer, writer, reformed corporate shill, and still-registered lobbyist for non-one-percenter performing artists and musicians. He lives in a heavily fortified compound in one of Manhattan's less trendy neighborhoods.

* Hirsch is the third person to use the pseudonym, a not-so-veiled tribute to journalist and author Hunter S. Thompson, with the permission of his predecessors Gene Gaudette of American Politics Journal (currently webmaster and chief bottlewasher at Liberaland) and Stephen Meese at Smashmouth Politics.