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Fla. Governor Under Fire for Health Care Cost Estimates

Posted: 2:44 PM Jan 8, 2013
Reporter: The Associated Press

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) -- Gov. Rick Scott is coming under fire again that he is overstating the potential cost to Florida taxpayers of the federal health care overhaul.

Scott on Monday met with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to express his concerns about the overhaul. A key part of the overhaul is the optional expansion of Medicaid to cover more of the state's working poor.

The Republican governor told Sebelius that state taxpayers will have to pay near $26 billion over the next 10 years to implement the overhaul.

But internal emails show that the state's top economist and a legislative budget analyst challenged the assumptions used by the Scott administration to reach that figure. Scott this past summer was forced to backtrack after he gave incorrect figures for the overhaul.