That's the history of Scott's position on the issue. As you can see, reality is not as cut-and-dried as PolitiFact made it seem by stating that Scott "has refused to accept" Medicaid expansion under the ACA. Scott "accepted" Medicaid expansion in 2013 and told the state legislature to pass it into law. That position endured for two years. PolitiFact knows this yet falsely told its readers otherwise. There's also a larger truth here that PolitiFact is ignoring, which makes its reporting even more misleading. The truth is that Scott is powerless to "cut Medicaid" and keep Jennings out of Obamacare, which is what Jennings accused him of doing. And, like most governors, Scott simply cannot expand his state's Medicaid program on his own. Florida's Medicaid eligibility criteria and benefits are spelled-out in state law, subject to federal regulations, and no Florida governor can change them. Only the state's Legislature can make such changes to Medicaid. So, not only is it false that Scott "cut Medicaid" and thereby prevented Jennings from "getting Obamacare." The real truth is that he couldn't do that even if he wanted to. This makes Jennings' accusation not only false but also ridiculous. Medicaid, the joint state and federal program to cover the very poor, normally extends to people making 44 percent of the federal poverty level (100 percent is currently $11,880 for an individual and $24,300 for a family of four). When Obamacare was enacted, it was supposed to cover adults up to 138 percent of that level. In Florida, up to 948,000 people would be eligible under an expanded Medicaid, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. But a 2012 Supreme Court ruling made that provision optional, so Florida and 18 other states currently have not extended coverage. If a state doesn’t expand Medicaid, people who make 100 to 400 percent of the poverty level can get marketplace subsidies to buy private insurance. That leaves a hole for people between 44 and 100 percent of the poverty level. This is known as the coverage gap. An estimated 567,000 Floridians fall into that gap. PolitiFact decided to go off on a tangent here, for some reason. It's true that states choosing not to expand Medicaid under Obamacare have a "coverage gap," but that issue has no bearing on whether Jennings' accusation is true or false. However, because PolitiFact skewed reality with this tangential issue, I'll get into it also. Since PolitiFact is based in Florida, you might think the writers would know something about the Medicaid program in their own state. Unfortunately, they seem to have done very little fact-checking along those lines. Each state has different criteria for Medicaid eligibility. Florida's system is based largely on categories and levels of income. For instance, pregnant women with household incomes up to 185 percent of the federal poverty level (FPL) are eligible. Children (until they turn 19 years old) with household incomes up to 133 percent of the FPL are eligible. Infants up to age 1 can have household incomes up to 200 percent of FPL and still be eligible. This information is easy to find and is explained in greater detail at the website of Florida's Dept. of Children and Families in this document, which links to this table. This whole discussion is about Florida Medicaid. It's a mystery why PolitiFact chose to tell us that Medicaid "normally extends to people making 44 percent of the federal poverty level," when that is so obviously not true for Florida Medicaid. Forty-four percent of the FPL is not a Medicaid eligibility threshold for anyone in Florida. PolitiFact's assertion is not only false, but it also damages PolitiFact's reliability, i.e. how can we trust a fact-checking organization to check other people's facts when it can't get its own facts straight, even the very simple ones? We tried to reach Jennings by phone, text, email and even Facebook, but didn’t hear back from her, so we don’t really know the specifics of her situation. That makes it difficult to gauge whether she was able to benefit from the health care law. However, she told Tampa’s ABC Action News that she that she was a single mother working part time, so it’s entirely possible she does fall into the gap. We rate Jennings’ statement Half True. How PolitiFact can rate Jennings' statement as "half true" is another mystery. Her accusation is nowhere near being half true – it is 100 percent false, as explained above. PolitiFact seems to think that because Jennings might fall into the coverage gap, her statement is therefore half true. That's ridiculous. Either Scott "cut Medicaid" or he didn't. Since he didn't, Jennings' status regarding the coverage gap is irrelevant. See below for the accusation's very simple logic depicted in a flowchart. It's not difficult to grasp, but this logic somehow escaped PolitiFact. Furthermore, "False" is the most lenient rating that PolitiFact could have rendered. You can easily make the case that PolitiFact should have rated this first accusation by Jennings as "Pants on Fire." According to PolitiFact's own standards, a "Pants on Fire" statement is "not accurate and makes a ridiculous claim." As explained above, Jennings' accusation is not only false but it's also ridiculous. Given all that, I'm forced to rate PolitiFact's rating of Jennings' first accusation as "Pants on Fire." It's quite ridiculous that an organization holding itself out as a reliable fact checker got this issue so incredibly wrong. Women’s health cuts Jennings also claimed Scott "stripped women of access to public health care." Scott signed a law this year that cuts off state funding for any clinic that provides abortions, including Planned Parenthood. We heard estimates that it will cut anywhere from $114,000 to $500,000 for Planned Parenthood, which provides other health services to low-income women. It’s possible to wrongly assume from Jennings’ statement that Scott slashed women’s health care services broadly across the state. The cut targets abortion clinics, so it isn’t a cut for health care offices that don’t provide the procedure, such as county health departments. There is some truth to the statement, but it’s too soon to tell exactly how the law will curtail women’s access to publicly supported health care. We rate Jennings’ claim Half True. In rating Jennings' second accusation as "half true," PolitiFact includes a curious caveat: "It’s too soon to tell exactly how the law will curtail women’s access to publicly supported health care." First of all, it wasn't too soon to tell, as you'll see below. But, even if you accept that it was too soon to tell, how could PolitiFact say with a straight face that there's any truth to Jennings' statement, given that it was supposedly too soon to tell? New State Law
However, if you do even a little bit of research, you'll find that, in reality, the law won't have the effect she described. I read the text of HB 1411. After reading it and looking into it, I had to wonder whether anyone at PolitiFact actually did any research about it. The portion of the law cited by PolitiFact resides on lines 81 through 98. This portion seeks to prohibit state and local governmental entities, including managed care plans under contract to provide Medicaid services, from making payments to organizations that own, operate, or are affiliated with a clinic that is licensed to perform abortions, unless one or more specified exceptions apply. The law obviously seeks to prevent state and local government dollars from being paid to Planned Parenthood, not only for abortions, but also for any other services that Planned Parenthood clinics might provide. Mother, May I?
But, wait – there's more:
Given all these realities, the state of Florida will not be able to enforce this portion of the law for Medicaid. Other provisions within the law might be implemented, but not the prohibition against making Medicaid payments to Planned Parentood. Surely PolitiFact knows this, but if not, then what does that say about the ability of PolitiFact staffers to fact-check? Effect of the New Law
(By the way, the fact that states cannot block Medicaid payments to Planned Parenthood was made clear once again in a letter to all state Medicaid directors from the federal government on April 19, 2016. See that letter here.) Acknowledging but Ignoring the Truth
That's because the law seeks to prevent public dollars from being spent on abortion clinics like Planned Parenthood. It does not prohibit public dollars from being spent on women. Public health care services that are often provided by abortion clinics[2] can also be accessed via other health care providers under Medicaid, such as county health department clinics or other providers within a Medicaid managed care plan's network. Even if the prohibition could be enforced, the law would do nothing to prevent such Medicaid services from being provided to women in those settings. Non-Medicaid Services
So, even if the law were to prevent public funding of non-Medicaid services being paid to Planned Parenthood, that would still "strip funds" only from Planned Parenthood and would not "strip women of access to public health care," which is what Jennings accused Scott of doing. Women could still get those services from providers other than Planned Parenthood since the state could simply utilize its own county health department clinics or other providers. PolitiFact itself acknowledged this but then ignored it, just like it did with Medicaid. Half True? Not
You could argue that this PolitiFact assessment of Jennings' second accusation should also get a "Pants on Fire" rating, given that PolitiFact knows or should know that Scott has done nothing to strip women of access to public health care, which puts PolitiFact's rating in the realm of the ridiculous. Bottom Line
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