Outliers: Tangled in the safety net

Eighteen years ago, Florida House Speaker Will Weatherford's family didn't have health insurance.

When his brother, Peter, died from brain cancer as a toddler in 1995, the family turned to a program funded by Medicaid to save them from what Weatherford called “insurmountable” medical debt.

“Peter lost his battle with cancer, and my father found himself with a mountain of medical bills that he could never afford to pay,” Weatherford said in an emotional inaugural address to the state Legislature this month. “It was the safety net that picked my family up.”

Greeted by a standing ovation, Weatherford went on to explain why he strongly opposes extending Medicaid coverage to many of the 3.8 million Floridians who lack insurance today.

Wait … what? Turns out Weatherford—a rising Republican star in Florida politics—had been under the mistaken belief that the hospital that treated Peter had provided the safety net by absorbing the costs through what hospital officials call uncompensated care, according to accounts in the Tampa Bay Times and other sources.

But reporters' phone calls to Weatherford's father revealed a more complicated picture. It turns out the family in 1995 had qualified for Florida's Medically Needy Program, which is funded by Medicaid and allows families who earn too much to qualify for the traditional program to receive short-term assistance after paying a deductible.

A day after his speech, Weatherford acknowledged the gaffe, but went on to note that the Medicaid expansion enshrined in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act would not increase the number of covered children in Florida because low-income kids are already eligible for Medicaid or the state's KidCare program.

“As I stated yesterday, I believe in the safety net. My family benefitted from the safety net,” Weatherford's statement said. “The inflexible law that has been pushed down to states like Florida does not allow us to target populations that are vulnerable, but requires us to provide full coverage to populations that we have never covered before.”

As of deadline, subcommittees in both Florida legislative chambers had rejected Gov. Rick Scott's call to expand Medicaid under the reform law.