This is one of those things that, in Gov. Rick Scott's Florida, makes you tilt your head like a confused puppy. Let's say you're a Florida doctor, a heart specialist who spends one day a week in a state-run clinic treating poor children with heart conditions under the state's Children's Medical Services program. You're doing this because you're, well, a decent human being.
And then you get a letter from the state saying they're going to start billing you for the privilege of treating those kids.
St. Petery initially thought a rental agreement sent to him by the chief operating officer for the Department of Health on March 31 was an early April Fool’s Day joke.
But it wasn't. The DOH's Jennifer Tschetter sent him a contract asking him to pay $1,397 in rent annually if he were going to continue see children out of the state-owned CMS clinic in Tallahassee. It’s the same place St. Petery has been treating medically complex children with heart disease for last 40 years.
Did we mention that St. Petery is a fiery (public) critic of the Rick Scott administration's healthcare moves, and that as of yet he appears to be the only individual doctor in the state asked so far to pay this "rent" for the privilege of seeing impoverished kids at a state-run clinic? Yeah. So that’s a bit odd.
Perhaps this is what Republicans mean when they say they want to run government (for poor kids with heart conditions) like a business?