Florida to Barack Obama: Keep your health care reform money
Thanks but no thanks. That’s what the state of Florida is saying to the Obama administration, taking back its request for a $1 million grant to implement the health law.
In response to this week’s court ruling declaring the law unconstitutional, Florida has withdrawn an application for health reform funds.
In a letter sent Tuesday, Florida Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty informed the Department of Health & Human Services the state no longer wanted a $1 million grant that they had applied for last year.
“The purpose of this letter is to inform you that after deliberate consideration, I hereby rescind acceptance of the above-referenced $1 million rate review grant, which occurred in a letter to you dated September 15, 2010,” McCarty wrote in the letter, obtained by POLITICO.
As the state tries to deal with Monday’s explosive court decision, its Democratic senator is arguing for some certainty sooner rather than later. Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida is introducing a resolution asking the Supreme Court to quickly take up the health care reform lawsuits.
“Isn’t it in our interest, isn’t in the common sense interest, if we were to come here and join in a resolution to petition the Supreme Court to have an expedited review of this case,” Nelson said on the Senate floor Wednesday.
“The vote to repeal health care is largely symbolic, because the Supreme Court is going to have to be the one to decide this matter,” said Nelson. “We ought to do the right thing and ask the high court to rule quickly so we don’t keep arguing over this for the next several years.”
The Florida Department of Insurance Regulation was already discussing the possibility of withdrawing its grant application prior to this week but says that the Court rulnig “solidified” their decision to do so, according to spokeswoman Brittany Perez.
Florida already has “prior approval” authority, to weigh in on rate hikes before they go to consumers, in the small group and individual market. They had planned to use the grant to build the necessary infrastructure for prior approval of large group market.
Gov. Rick Scott told reporters Tuesday that, in the wake of the court ruling Monday, in which Judge Roger Vinson declared the health reform law unconstitutional, he would no longer implement the health reform law.
“We are not going to spend a lot of time and money with regard to trying to get ready to implement it,” he told reporters, according to an article in the St. Petersburg Times.
Forty-six states applied for the rate review grant opportunity.
