Let's be real - the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, if you will, has never been popular, based on the polls..And it may never be.But that doesn't give Rick Scott, Barack Obama or anyone else carte blanche to distort what would we know to be true.
Before Rick Scott was accused of airing an inaccurate television ad regarding how many Floridians lost their health insurance due to the Affordable Care Act late last year,
there has been a dispute about what that number was. Is it 300,000, as the Republicans have stated for months now?
I asked officials with Florida Blue earlier this week what was the truth, and was sent this statement from Paul Kluding, a spokesman with the organization on Wednesday. Here's his exact quote:
It is important to note that “300,000” was a number that was being used when describing how many Florida Blue members could receive a notice that their policies would not be compliant with ACA requirements throughout all of 2014, if no extension was provided to these plans.
In actuality, only 40,000 letters were mailed to members with Jan. 1, 2014 effective dates. Subsequent notices were sent to these same members notifying them that their existing plans would remain active and unchanged through 2014.
To date, most of the members in our pre-ACA plans have kept their plans.
So there it is, folks. The ads that say that 300,000 Floridians lost their insurance last year. NOT TRUE.
Speaking of polls, a St. Pete Polls survey released yesterday was a bit stunning. It shows the Greenlight Pinellas measure in serious trouble, though there's still more than half a year remaining to turn that around. Then again, advocates for the transit tax say their own internal polls show an opposite version. Then again, the People's Budget Review had a survey released last month that showed that most people in Pinellas don't even know what's in the measure.
That legislation that would afford undocumented students the opportunity to attend Florida state colleges and universities at the in-state tuition rate passed through another Florida Senate Committee yesterday, though not without significant resistance from some Republicans.
Despite a heavy messaging push from top Democrats, the Senate failed to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act yesterday, aimed at cutting into the national gender wage gap — falling six votes short. A day before the vote, activists advocating held a rally for the law in front of Senator Bill Nelson's office in Tampa, honoring him with a cake for supporting the bill.