Rick Scott -- Florida's Tea Partying Republican Governor, big-profit hospital corporation executive, and Medicare fraudster -- pays $8.34/month for individual health insurance, or less than $400/year to cover both him and his wife.
The Associated Press reports:
Gov. Rick Scott, a critic of the federal health care overhaul, is paying less than $400 a year for health insurance for himself and his wife.
While Scott is accepting no salary for his job as governor, the multimillionaire and former hospital chain executive chose to enroll in the taxpayer-subsidized health insurance plan offered by the state of Florida.
Scott is among nearly 32,000 people in state government who pay relatively low health insurance premiums. It's a perk that is available to high-ranking state officials, including those in top management at all state agencies. Nearly all 160 state legislators are also enrolled in the program that costs just $8.34 a month for individual coverage and $30 a month for family coverage.
At risk of using a cliche, LET THEM EAT CAKE.
If you work at McDonald's and can't afford to pay more than $10/month for insurance, take this mini-med plan and hope to God you don't get cancer.
If you had a pimple removed and Aetna and CIGNA say, "go to hell, we're not covering you," oh well.
If your premium is rising to pay big-profit insurance company executive salaries, screw you. (And, you know what, I'll make sure that in Florida no poor health insurance company has to spend 80 percent of its premium dollars on your care!)
I have mine, and that's all that counts. You're a state worker making a pittance? Screw you:
Why is it that I, a struggling single mother and State Employee who makes $30,000k per year, pay $180 a month for me and my child's health insurance, but the SMS employees (who can afford to pay more), actually pay less? Oh, that's right....the Legislature. Things just wouldn't be as peachy anymore for the rule-makers if it was any other way, now would it? And instead of trying to balance the budget by cutting into State Workers' pensions, why not just charge SMS employees the same for Health Insurance as Career Service employees? Oh that's right, I forgot again....politics. D'oh!
So, let's review. The same asshole that has or is:
*Suing to block health care for all citizens in one of the states with the largest uninsured populations in America...
*Paid the largest fraud settlement in American history for stealing from Medicare and Medicaid...
*Rejected a $2.1 million federal grant to help elderly citizens remain in their homes while ill (which would have saved Medicaid tons of money, but whatever)...
only has to pay $8.34/month for health insurance to insure his cruel, heartless body.
Oh, and the following is key to note, too:
Florida has one of the highest uninsured rates in the nation, according to data released last year by the U.S. Census. Scott and other Republicans have been very critical of the health care overhaul signed by President Barack Obama that is intended to increase the number of Americans with access to health insurance. Before he ran for governor, Scott ran a group called Conservatives for Patients' Rights that ran television ads criticizing the health care overhaul.
What's the big picture point here (besides the fact that Rick Scott is a hypocritical asshole)?
Health care must be funded with progressive taxation whereby those who can pay the most do indeed pay the most, and those who can pay the least pay the least. Then, those who get sick, get care. Those who are well, don't.
Instead, in America, the wealthiest pay the least for their care, and the middle- and lower-income classes who are stuck begging for junk-surance from Aetna and CIGNA pay the most.
This happens in no other highly-developed country on the face of the Earth -- this cruel, backwards non-system of financing health care.
The prescription for justice: Medicare for ALL (funded through progressive taxation), and calling out this asshole on his hypocrisy every single chance we get.