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Thom's blog
Is Rick Scott guilty of murder?
Florida Governor Rick Scott is now officially a killer, and Charlene Dill is one of his victims. Charlene Dill was a hardworking Florida woman, who moved down to Florida when she was just 18 years old. To help make ends meet, Charlene worked at various fast food restaurants, at Disney World, and even cleaned houses and babysat. As the years went by, Charlene found herself, as a single mother, struggling to raise 3 children. Last year, Charlene made just $11,000 cleaning houses and babysitting. She used that money to help put food on the table for her children, and to put a roof over their heads.
Then Charlene discovered she had a severe heart problems that needed to be managed. And she couldn't afford to get it treated right, because Charlene didn't have health insurance. Charlene fell into what's called the "Red State Donut Hole," created by Republican lawmakers like Rick Scott. It says that if you make over $5,400 and less than $11,400, you get no health insurance.
Below the $5,400, Charlene would have qualified for Florida's pretty pathetic Medicaid program. Over $11,400, she would have qualified for free health insurance under Obamacare because of the subsidies for low-income people. But because she only earned $11,000, she made too little to qualify for Obamacare, but too much to qualify for Florida Medicaid.
This isn't, of course, how the Obamacare law was written. But this giant Swiss Cheese hole was drilled into Obamacare by John Roberts, when the Supreme Court said that states could refuse to take federal money to pay to cover people who don't earn enough to qualify for insurance subsidies but make more than state Medicaid programs will cover. It was into that hole that Charlene fell.
-Thom
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