By Nancy Cook and Christine Sexton
October 12, 2015
Jeb Bush will reach back to his own legacy as Florida governor on Tuesday to unveil his vision for replacing Obamacare, showcasing what he calls state-tested ideas for bringing down health care costs and revamping health coverage for the poor.
But Democrats are ready to make the case that his record in Florida is nothing to emulate — that in particular, his changes to Medicaid harmed Florida’s poorer residents, something that could make him vulnerable in the general election if he becomes the GOP presidential nominee.
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“The rhetoric and the reality were two different things,” says Joan Alker, executive director of the Georgetown Center for Children and Families. “When the concept was rolled out, it was very much about injecting these market-based principles into the state in a radical way. That is not really what happened at the end of the day.”
Alker also warns about what would happen if Bush tried to roll back requirements on the benefits insurance companies should cover on the federal level, as he did on the state level. “The federal protections are very important to protect beneficiaries, many of whom are very vulnerable,” she says. “Medicaid is an important program for people with disabilities, the poor and seniors. It’s risky to go down the path that I believe he would want to go down.”
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