Gov. Rick Scott held a press conference Friday to discuss the recent Ebola cases in Texas. Fears about an outbreak in Florida were heightened after a plane carrying one of the nurses diagnosed with Ebola stopped at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.
Although health care experts assert that the risk of Ebola spreading to Florida is miniscule, Scott has repeatedly stated his commitment to ensuring that the state is fully prepared in case Ebola somehow strikes.
“The CDC and the federal government have already failed to get ahead of the spread of Ebola in Texas, and we’re not going to let that happen in Florida,” Scott said.
Although it is important to be sure that Florida is prepared for any disease outbreak, public health has not been a priority of the Scott administration until now.
According to the American Public Health Association, Florida spent about $20 per capita on public health in 2013, which ranked No. 31 in the nation. The Sunshine State receives about $16 per capita in public health funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, No. 45 among all states.
The APHA also found that Florida had the fourth-highest level of people without insurance in the U.S. last year at nearly 20 percent. The national uninsured rate is 15.7 percent.
A USA Today report found that Florida slashed its public health budget by 15.5 percent in 2012. When Jacksonville experienced an outbreak of tuberculosis that same year, Scott’s massive cuts to the Florida Department of Health budget were blamed for the state’s slow response.
Scott also has a mixed track record on one of the most important health care issues of recent years: the Medicaid expansion provided by the federal Affordable Care Act.
Throughout the early days of his administration, Scott forcefully opposed the Medicaid expansion, which would have provided hundreds of thousands of poor and disabled Floridians with access to affordable health care. The governor initially claimed that the expansion would be too costly, despite the fact that the federal government would cover more than 90 percent of the program’s costs.
Although Scott later expressed support for a limited Medicaid expansion, he made no effort to revive the issue after the Florida Legislature rejected the proposal.
Scott’s decision to prioritize Ebola is less likely about a sincere concern for public health and more likely a strategic decision to take advantage of a hot-button political issue.
“He’s playing politics with fear,” said Nova Southeastern University professor Charles Zelden, according to the Tampa Bay Times. “He’s following the Republican Party playbook, which is to scare people into voting.”
If Scott is truly concerned about disease prevention in Florida, he should commit to strengthening Florida’s public health programs permanently, not just when it is politically expedient.
[A version of this story ran on page 6 on 10/20/2014]
