Rick Scott Says He Will Sue Obama Administration Over Medicaid Hardball

Flor­ida Gov. Rick Scott said Thursday that he will sue the Obama ad­min­is­tra­tion for, in his words, try­ing to force the state to ex­pand Medi­caid un­der Obama­care by threat­en­ing to cut off an­oth­er stream of Medi­caid fund­ing.

It takes the ten­sion over Flor­ida’s ne­go­ti­ations with the Cen­ters for Medi­care and Medi­caid Ser­vices, already high, to a new level.

“It is ap­palling that Pres­id­ent Obama would cut off fed­er­al health care dol­lars to Flor­ida in an ef­fort to force our state fur­ther in­to Obama­care,” Scott said in a state­ment an­noun­cing the pending law­suit. Scott has pre­vi­ously sup­por­ted Medi­caid ex­pan­sion but re­versed his po­s­i­tion this month as the state and the ad­min­is­tra­tion fought over the pro­grams.

(RE­LATED: Things Got Weird In Flor­ida When a Medi­caid Of­fi­cial Went Miss­ing)

He ref­er­enced a let­ter sent by CMS this week that said Medi­caid ex­pan­sion and $1 bil­lion in fed­er­al fund­ing for Flor­ida’s low-in­come pool, or “LIP,” which helps cov­er some un­com­pensated care in the state, are linked in the ad­min­is­tra­tion’s eyes. The fed­er­al agency has re­peatedly said that the LIP pro­gram would not be re­newed as it cur­rently ex­ists.

Scott ar­gued that link­ing the two pro­grams vi­ol­ates fed­er­al law, cit­ing the 2012 Su­preme Court de­cision that made Obama­care’s Medi­caid ex­pan­sion op­tion­al. The Court said that the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment could not co­erce states to ac­cept the ex­pan­sion by threat­en­ing all cur­rent fed­er­al fund­ing for the ex­ist­ing Medi­caid pro­gram.

“Not only does Pres­id­ent Obama’s end to LIP fund­ing in Flor­ida vi­ol­ate the law by cross­ing the line in­to a co­er­cion tac­tic for Obama­care, it also threatens poor fam­il­ies’ ac­cess to the safety-net health care ser­vices they need,” Scott said. “The pop­u­la­tion in Flor­ida served un­der the LIP pro­gram is dif­fer­ent from the pop­u­la­tion that would be covered un­der any Medi­caid ex­pan­sion.”

(RE­LATED: Rick Scott Walks Back Medi­caid-Ex­pan­sion Sup­port Amid Tense CMS Talks)

CMS made its po­s­i­tion on LIP and Medi­caid ex­pan­sion more ex­pli­cit in this week’s let­ter, sent by Vikki Wachino, act­ing dir­ect­or of the Cen­ter for Medi­caid and the Chil­dren’s Health In­sur­ance Pro­gram, to a mem­ber of Scott’s ad­min­is­tra­tion.

“When the Af­ford­able Care Act (ACA) was en­acted, it es­tab­lished a more com­pre­hens­ive ap­proach to provid­ing health care cov­er­age, in­clud­ing Medi­caid, while sup­port­ing hos­pit­als that serve com­munit­ies with the greatest needs,” Wachino wrote. “Medi­caid ex­pan­sion would re­duce un­com­pensated care in the state, and there­fore have an im­pact on the LIP, which is why the state’s ex­pan­sion status is an im­port­ant con­sid­er­a­tion in our ap­proach re­gard­ing ex­tend­ing the LIP bey­ond June.”