Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) crashed into office earlier this year on a campaign bashing President Barack Obama's health care plan and its ability to lower costs for consumers, but it turns out that he doesn't mind the governmental twist that allows him to pay a lower insurance premium himself.
Scott pays only $30 per month for taxpayer-subsidized health insurance for himself and his family, the Miami Herald reported. Meanwhile, the janitors who clean his office in the state Capitol pay six times as much out of pocket for their own health coverage.
Scott accepts no salary as state executive, but a perk of his — and 32,000 other high-ranking state officials — job is the option to enroll in the cheap insurance plan. Individual insurance for these top-tier officials costs only $8.34 per month. Nearly all of the state's 160 legislators are enrolled in the plan as well.
A spokesman for Scott called the governor's reasons for enrolling in the plan "private matters."
For the same family health plan that Scott pays $30 for, rank-and-file state employees pay $180 per month. Florida has one of the highest rates of uninsured people in the country.
Scott has rejected millions of dollars in government grants that would make insurance less of a burden on Florida's residents through the Affordable Care Act, and pushed to privatize Medicaid in the state.
Florida is also one of the 20 states suing in an attempt to have the health care reform declared unconstitutional.
State Sen. Nan Rich (D) told the Herald that while Scott is "entitled" to taking the cheap coverage his office extends, he shouldn't prevent his constituents from doing the same.
"I wish every Floridian had the same opportunity," she said.
