The government giveth and the government taketh away.
Last year the Legislature appropriated $4.5 million for low-income health care clinics under the umbrella of the Florida Association of Free and Charitable Clinics, a worthy organization that enlists health care providers to treat low-income people. It was the first time they received state funds.
This year, the Legislature appropriated $9.5 million but it was vetoed by Gov. Rick Scott.
Mark Cruise, executive director of the organization, said it would put a crimp in the clinic operations, which have about a $40 million budget overall, mostly from private donors.
The 87 clinics statewide served 125,000 people last year, with each making three visits to a clinic per year on average, Cruise said, and they are “maxed out” at that rate even with 8,000 doctors doing volunteer work.
However, the deputy communications director for the governor said, "The budget includes $28.5 million for a grant program to benefit patients served by organizations like the Florida Association of Free and Charitable Clinics."
Dr. Todd Sack of We Care Jacksonville said the cuts represent a crisis for Northeast Florida, and the organization will begin trying to raise more private funds to take up the slack. Eleven We Care clinics provided $20 million worth of health care last year with the $600,000 they got from the state, he said.
It is estimated nearly 3 million Florida residents, three-fourths of them low-income, don't have health insurance, which does not mean they don't get health care. Some don't need or want insurance. When I was a low-income reporter many years ago I went for years without visiting a doctor or hospital. When I began to see a doctor, I saw the same one who treated billionaire Ed Ball, but I'm pretty sure Ball got a larger bill than I did for the same service. That's how the market leveled the playing field in fee-for-service medicine, without government help.
There are multiple layers of safety net, including subsidized insurance for the not-quite-poor provided by the state.
It is far above my pay grade to say where or how the money would be best utilized. But Scott should have explained his veto better and his press office is of little help to anyone trying to find out more.
Scott seems to be trying to figure out how the patchwork of subsidized services works, including the indigent care provided by hospitals. With his background in health care, he may be able to fashion something that will work better on sound market principles but he isn't making it any easier on himself by not responding to the savage attacks from liberal pundits, who accuse him of depriving the poor in order to exact political revenge on other Republicans.
Scott's best attribute is that he is not a politician. But that also hurts him. Politicians know the media are going to write what they like and all you do by not presenting your position is to ensure that it won't be given.
Lloyd Brown was in the newspaper business nearly 50 years, beginning as a copy boy and retiring as editorial page editor of the Florida Times-Union in Jacksonville. After retirement he served as a policy analyst for Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.
