In the Midst of a Pandemic, Gov. DeSantis and Speaker Oliva Celebrate Slaying Healthcare with a Baseball Bat

Miami Herald reporter Samantha Gross reported today that Governor Ron DeSantis gave Speaker Jose Oliva a baseball bat with the words “Slayer of the healthcare industrial complex.”

Juan Peñalosa, executive director of the Florida Democratic Party, released the following statement:

“Governor DeSantis should apologize for bragging about decimating our healthcare system and disrespecting our healthcare workers who are on the front lines fighting a global pandemic with limited testing kits and scarce resources. The Governor should be working to expand access to healthcare to Floridians, not boasting about ‘slaying’ the industry with a baseball bat.”

DeSantis and Oliva have refused to expand Medicaid this or last session, denying an estimated 847,000 uninsured Floridians access to Medicaid. All the while Coronavirus cases in the Sunshine State have soared to over 400.

On social media, MSNBC’s Joy Reid stated her astonishment at DeSantis’s action’s on Twitter: “This is remarkable. The governor of one of the most coronavirus-afflicted states celebrating the refusal of his and the previous Republican government to get perfectly available and critical healthcare to those most in need.”