U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Tampa/St. Petersburg, FL) released the following statement:

“In an attempt to cover up his failure to serve the best interests of Floridians, today Florida Gov. Rick Scott announced a wasteful and baseless lawsuit to divert attention away from a budget impasse in the state capital that is largely of his own making. Gov. Scott has been aware of the June expiration of the Low Impact Pool monies for a year, but he included the funds in his proposed state budget anyway. The Florida LIP is a fairly unique provision of Florida’s federally-approved Medicaid waiver, and is greatly in need of reform as it is not the most cost-efficient and effective way to serve Floridians. Gov. Scott appears to be caught in his own ideological trap as he proposes to sue President Obama because billions of dollars for health services for hard-working Floridians are now available through an expansion of Medicaid rather than the more convoluted LIP.

CMS has been open and involved in discussions with Florida policy-makers for many years over the needed reform of LIP. Once again, Gov. Scott is not playing it straight here and will waste taxpayer money to wage an ideological fight rather than work to provide access to health care for more than 800,000 Floridians. This is a disturbing pattern for Gov. Scott – earlier this year, Florida’s Agency for Health Care Administration asked the state legislature for more $2 million to fight a federal judge’s ruling that Florida’s healthcare system for needy and disabled children was inadequate and in violation of several federal laws. Instead of taking steps to improve medical care for children and to pay pediatricians adequately, Gov. Scott chose to fight it at taxpayers’ expense. The State of Florida has known for a year that LIP funding is expiring, and this hypocritical stunt by Gov. Scott will do nothing to serve our neighbors, Florida hospitals or Florida businesses.”

U.S. Rep. Castor serves on the Health Subcommittee in the U.S House of Representatives and was instrumental in the previous extension of the Florida Low Income Pool. 

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