Why not to expand Medicaid

Nary a day goes by without some editorial writer or state Democratic Party lawmaker or Charlie Crist haranguing Florida's governor and Republican-controlled Legislature for not taking federal tax dollars to expand Florida's Medicaid program under the terms of the Affordable Care Act.

On and on they go about 1.2 million Floridians being denied admittance to Medicaid — the taxpayer-funded program that pays low-income Americans' medical and pharmaceutical expenses.

And they ram home their point over and over that Gov. Rick Scott and the Legislature are rejecting federal money from coming back to Florida, money that Floridians have paid in federal taxes. According to Lloyd Dunkelberger, a Tallahassee-based reporter for Halifax Media, Florida will reject $66 billion in federal tax money over the next decade that would be used to provide medical services to Florida's Medicaid recipients.