Throughout his administration, Gov. Rick Scott has been a fierce opponent of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, more often referred to as “Obamacare.”
After the act passed in 2010, Scott refused to set up an online health care exchange for the state of Florida. In addition, the Scott administration’s Department of Health banned “navigators,” counselors authorized by the act to help sign people up for insurance, from county health departments.
Until recently, the governor also opposed the expansion of Medicaid included in the act. Although he recently expressed his support for a limited Medicaid expansion, the Republican-dominated Florida Legislature rejected the proposal.
The Legislature’s failure to expand Medicaid means that up to 1.3 million Floridians who would have otherwise been eligible for the program will not have that opportunity.
Republicans at the federal level have demonstrated a similar hostility toward Obamacare. On March 5, House Republicans voted for the 50th time to repeal the law, a symbolic measure that has no chance of advancing as long as Democrats control the White House and the Senate.
Despite the governor’s best attempts, the Legislature and Republicans in Congress, Obamacare appears to be succeeding in the Sunshine State.
The Associated Press reported that more than 440,000 Floridians have signed up for health insurance through the online federal marketplace at healthcare.gov. This figure means that Florida is on track to surpass the Congressional Budget Office’s initial projections for insurance enrollment in the state.
The success of Obamacare in Florida can largely be credited to the efforts of nonprofit groups like Enroll America as well as federal funding for advertising and outreach efforts.
Republican attempts to sabotage Obamacare offer a marked contrast to the last large-scale rollout of a federal health care program.
In 2003, former President George W. Bush signed the Medicare Modernization Act into law. The MMA included a massive new prescription drug benefit program for American senior citizens known as Medicare Part D.
Medicare Part D experienced significant issues in its implementation, just as Obamacare did.
Democrats in Congress and around the country could have seized on the initial failure of the MMA in order to benefit politically. Instead, Democrats dedicated themselves to ensuring that the program was fixed and implemented properly.
Then-Wisconsin Senator Herb Kohl encouraged his fellow Democrats to “put aside any partisan thoughts to work together to get this program running.”
Hillary Clinton, then a senator from New York, had this to say about Medicare Part D:
“I voted against it, but once it passed, I certainly determined that I would try to do everything I could to make sure that New Yorkers understood it, could access it and make the best of it.”
Although Medicare Part D remains flawed, the joint efforts of Republicans and Democrats helped it grow into a program that now provides millions of senior citizens with affordable prescription drugs.
The Affordable Care Act is not perfect. Its reliance on the private insurance market will result in higher health care costs than a publicly financed, single-payer health care system.
However, Obamacare has helped millions of Americans gain access to reasonably affordable health insurance, even with a massive contingent of the political establishment working to sabotage it. How much more successful would the law be if members of both parties worked together toward its improvement?
Rather than seeking to destroy Obamacare for political gain, Scott and his fellow Republicans should put their effort into making the law work as effectively and efficiently as possible.
[Elliot Levy is a UF political science and public relations junior. His column appears on Wednesday. A version of this column ran on page 7 on 4/2/2014 under the headline "Obamacare succeeding in spite of Scott"]
