Tallahassee Health Care Advocates Call Out "Unconscionable" Attacks on Pre-Existing Conditions Protections

Despite his recent rhetoric, Rick Scott has repeatedly refused to take concrete action to stand up to the Trump Administration and the state of Florida’s legal attacks on pre-existing conditions.

Today at a press conference at the State Capitol in Tallahassee, Commissioner Curtis Richardson was joined by local healthcare professionals and activists in condemning Rick Scott’s refusal to speak out against Florida and the Trump administration’s lawsuit that would make coverage for pre-existing conditions unconstitutional.

“Despite Scott’s rhetoric, he has done nothing substantive to actually defend Floridian’s healthcare. Instead, he’s done just the opposite. Under Scott’s leadership, the state of Florida has joined as a party to a lawsuit that would make protections for pre-existing conditions unconstitutional. Here in FL-2 alone, more than 280,000 residents have pre-existing conditions. But that doesn’t matter to Rick Scott, he still won’t speak out against his close ally Donald Trump in his continued attacks on our healthcare,” said Commissioner Curtis Richardson. “We plead with our governor if he has a conscious at all, that he instructs our Attorney General to remove Florida from the lawsuit and tell his friend Donald Trump how wrongheaded this is for the citizens of Florida.”

“I have been a physician for 45 years, and I have seen first hand how not having protections for pre-existing conditions adversely affects the health of our children. While Rick Scott has said things like “we have to award people for caring for themselves”, there are children out with chronic conditions that have no power over the condition they have,” said Dr. Paul Robinson, a Tallahassee pediatrician. “If we stop allowing children with chronic health problems to get health insurance, people will get less care, people will die at a younger age, and people will suffer. That is unconscionable to me.”

“To think that one of the best initiatives of the Affordable Care Act, protections for pre-existing conditions, is in danger of being removed by legal action from our elected officials in Florida is deeply disheartening,” said Johnette Wahlquist, mother child with Hurel’s Syndrome. “It is so sad to think that any child’s parents should have to worry about losing their healthcare.”