Opinion

Economist Alan Green, who will be teaching at Stetson University beginning in August, says that he and his peers were dumbfounded by Florida House Republicans' refusal to accept $51 billion in federal funds over a decade to provide health coverage for the low-income uninsured beginning next year.

Orlando Sentinel columnist Scott Maxwell says Rick Scott would be smart to summon lawmakers back to Tallahassee for a special session on Medicaid expansion. There are moral, logical and financial arguments for doing it, he says, but most important to a public official facing re-election, there is a political argument for it, as well.

Whatever its accomplishments, the 2013 Legislature will forever be remembered as a shameful failure for turning down $51 billion in federal funds that could have assured access to health coverage and peace of mind for a huge number of low-income uninsured, the Tampa Bay Times editorial board wrote.

The health-care delivery system is undergoing a powerful and revolutionary transformation, one that will ride changes in technology to  both improve outcomes and cut costs, according to a column published in the Tampa Bay Times.

Unless Speaker Will Weatherford calls up SB 1192 today, the 2-year-old prescription drug database could run out of money. The bill passed unanimously by the Senate would keep it alive and would require pain-clinic doctors to consult it for new patients.

The Tampa Bay Times editorial board argues that the database is a critical tool in fighting prescription drug abuse.

Tampa Bay Times columnist Daniel Ruth writes that even Gov. Rick Scott had enough sense to see that when someone offers you $51 billion to help 1 million people, you should take it. But not House Speaker Will Weatherford. 

At his site Our Health Policy Matters, consultant Paul Gionfriddo looks at Medicare spending on treatment for depression, and the gap in treatment between men and women even though women are more likely to be diagnosed with depression.  

This Tampa Bay Times editorial introduces four Floridians who need basic health care but can't get it. They'll be left out under the House's plan, which rejects federal funds and uses state money to help only a fraction of low-income Floridians who are uninsured.

Tampa Bay Times columnist John Romano details the illogical, inane, offensive arguments that Florida House Republicans used last week in rejecting federal funds for Medicaid expansion.

An editorial cartoon by Jeff Parker in Florida Today illustrates what’s going on in the Florida House, where lawmakers have rejected federal funding to cover uninsured Floridians.  

The Tampa Bay Times said in an editorial Thursday that the House health plan being rammed through by Republican leaders -- Speaker Will Weatherford and Rep. Richard Corcoran -- is both dumb and cruel. It rejects billions of federal dollars and adds to state taxpayers' financial burden, while ostensibly offering coverage that is nothing but an illusion.