Notes For Thursday, February 06, 2003

MEDICAID 'REFORM". "A coalition of advocates for the poor have written Congress, arguing that [W's medicaid] plan will mean half of the state's Medicaid recipients could face losing benefits. 'Such actions will contribute to the millions of Floridians who are uninsured or underinsured,' said Karen Woodall of the People's Advocacy Center for Training. 'We meet a fraction — a fraction — of the needs in this state,' Woodall said. "So ... what will essentially happen is there will be no opportunity for expanded coverage in these Medicaid programs.

"But Gov. Jeb Bush, one of several Republican governors who have pushed for the changes in Medicaid in an effort to slow the growing cost of Medicaid program, says the system needs to be overhauled. Bush has said it is outdated and doesn't provide states flexibility to figure out ways to make it less expensive, including requiring co-payments by beneficiaries as private health insurance does. 'We're a growing state, so we're always going to have a growing Medicaid budget,' Bush said last week after the administration proposal was released. 'But it's not a good insurance program either. It's very expensive, but it's not as good as the private plans.'" That's right, John Ellis, privatize everything.

See "Advocates for the poor worry about proposed Medicaid changes". 6:54 AM [Go to current Florida Politics site (no popup ads)]

OUCH. In "Florida's idea of education: The School of Hard Knocks, Palm Beach Post columnist Emily J. Minorwrites writes:"isn't this the education administration? Isn't Jeb! supposed to be all hot on family values?"

"The Florida Prepaid College Program is about as family-based as it gets. Working-class parents -- people without family money or portfolios or stockbrokers -- are routinely struggling to make these monthly payments. They're doing without dinner and a movie. They're buying two tires instead of four so they can invest in a college education.

"And this [gutting the prepaid education program while cutting the intangibles tax] is the payoff?"

"All I can say is, I'm giddy for those people -- people with family money and portfolios and stockbrokers -- who no longer have to pay as much on their investment income. I'm so happy, I feel like building a tax-free skybox.." 6:48 AM [Go to current Florida Politics site (no popup ads)]

MARQUEZ RECONSIDERS BUSH'S "VISION" - URGES HIM TO "SPARE US TAX CUTS". It is unusual for Orlando Sentinel columnist Myriam Marquez (the Sentinel's putative "liberal" columnist) to say anything remotely critical of John Ellis Bush. But she does criticize him in "Spare us tax cuts for kids' sake". In recent weeks, we have been critical of her fawning comments about Bush's inagural remarks - in a previous column, Marquez described Bush's "vision" for Florida to be "universal and timeless" and "clear and electrifying as [the inauguration] day's cobalt blue sky." Today she writes: "So much for Jeb's visionary leadership." The column includes the following:

"Budget's tight again. So what does Jeb Bush propose to do to balance the books? Propose another round of tax breaks for the wealthiest Floridians in a year he expects the state will come up short $4 billion because of a lagging economy. For the little people, he's tossed in a few days for a sales-tax holiday, too. In the scheme of all things GOP, it's a small tax cut -- only about $116 million from the intangibles-tax on stocks, bonds and other investments and much less for waiving the sales tax for a few days. Hardly anything compared to the $6 billion in cumulative tax cuts that Bush got through the Legislature in his first term in office when the economy was humming."

6:41 AM [Go to current Florida Politics site (no popup ads)]