Florida's GOP Governor Rick Scott is at it again. As a part of his continuing efforts to balance Florida's Budget on the backs of the poor, he is proposing to eliminate any funding for Primary Health Care Clinics for the state's most vulnerable people.
Clinics in Florida are scrambling to find funding after Wingnut GOP Governor Rick Scott "zeroed out" clinic care for the Florida Department of Health. This is particulary cruel, since Florida is in the forefront of opposing Health Care Reform and has filed suit to block it.
How bad is this? Today's Palm Beach Post reports that the effects in Palm Beach County alone would be devastating:
The state manages seven clinics that serve vulnerable people in Palm Beach County: the uninsured, the homeless, migrant workers, those on Medicaid, those lacking a doctor.
The clinics care for pregnant women, people with HIV/AIDS, patients with chronic diseases such as diabetes, people with infectious diseases - anyone with nonemergency medical needs.
The health department saw about 67,000 clients last year from Pahokee to Delray Beach, and if the state agency pulls its $5 million contribution, the entire $30 million program risks closure or dramatic shrinkage, warned Dr. Claude Earl Fox, who heads the Florida Public Health Institute in Lake Worth.
"If the health department gets out of primary care, which it looks like it may, you are talking about 40,000 to 60,000 patients who are going to have nowhere to go," Fox said. "I am not sure the capacity exists elsewhere to handle those patients."
Sixty Seven Thousand people would lose any hope of care in one Florida County alone! That translates to hundreds of thousands statewide.
What would Health Care Reform do to this picture? The Palm Beach Post article states:
If the Affordable Care Act's insurance rules are put in place as written in 2014, that would make a big difference. It would dramatically expand Medicaid eligibility and offer income-based subsidies for buying insurance in group marketplaces.
But that plan is under attack in Congress and the courts, and its fate is likewise uncertain.
The underprivileged who lack health care in Florida are facing a dark and uncertain future.
Updated by Trial Lawyer Richard at Tue Feb 22, 2011, 09:32:45 AM
The head of head of Florida Public Health Institute Dr. Claude Earl Fox commented today that "If the health department gets out of primary care, which it looks like it may, you are talking about 40,000 to 60,000 patients who are going to have nowhere to go".