63,000 New Florida Jobs With Medicaid Expansion, Says White House

If The White House is right, Medicaid expansion for Florida’s low-income residents will create jobs.

According to a Wednesday report from the Tampa Bay Times, the Obama administration says covering more Sunshine State residents under Medicaid will add more than 63,000 jobs to the regional economy.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, survived a Supreme Court challenge in 2012 in an ideological 5-4 split decision, conservative Chief Justice John Roberts considered the deciding vote in upholding the legislation.

Most states in Northeast and Western U.S. have instituted some form of a state exchange system mandated under the law, but 24 have yet to adopt the measure or institute an analogous Medicaid expansion for poorer residents who can’t afford out-of-pocket healthcare costs or employer-based medical coverage.

According to White House numbers, over 800,000 Florida residents are uninsured.

The American Medical Association, the foremost association of licensed physicians in America, says uninsured patients visiting medical facilities “strain individual, business, and government budgets.”

As previously reported in Patch, Gov. Rick Scott continues to refuse to expand Medicaid, costing the state considerable public funding to subsidize a state healthcare exchange.

If Florida expands Medicaid under the President’s plan, Washington pledges to fund the 100 percent of costs for the first three years of implementation, and 90 percent thereafter.