Florida House Republicans Supports Government Health Care For Themselves

Republicans in the Florida House of Representatives voted against accepting federal money to provide health insurance for one million poor Floridians. Since Republicans are the majority in the House a million Floridians will not receive health care. That didn't stop House Republicans to keeping their state government health care at $30 a month. Members of the House pay one-sixth of what other state employees pay for health insurance. Rep. Richard Corcoran provided a laughable explanation.

"I think the entire state health care system is broken, and what we tried to do is try to fix it," Corcoran said, noting that conservatives have called his proposal a national model. "When you do that, everybody is going to be treated equally and fairly."

In Corcoran worldview, the health care system is broken. His remedy is cheap health care for himself and denying Medcaid to a million Floridians. That is taking a broken sytem and smashing it with a hammer.

House Speaker Will Weatherford claims that he will eventually get around to addressing the discrepancy between what House members and other state employees pay.

In a statement Monday, Weatherford said: "We are aware of the differences in what House members pay compared to other state employees for health insurance and are looking forward to addressing it next session."

Weatherford fails to address why this wasn't addressed during the session. The Florida Senate was wise enough to increase to payments for state health insurance.

Sen. Joe Negron, R-Stuart, insisted on the change, saying it wasn't fair for senators to pay less than low-level state workers. Senators now pay $50 a month for health insurance, or $180 a month for their families.

"I think the public expects the state Senate to be treated the same as our fellow co-workers in state government and not be given preferential status," Negron said Monday.

There is no excuse. Weatherford led the charge to fight the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. Yet he wants to keep low cost health insurance for the House of Representatives. This is pure hypocrisy.