Health Care Policy

Rick Scott and Florida Republicans Backing Down on Obamacare Opposition

Not only did Floridians vote to reelect President Obama on Tuesday, they also, by a wider margin, voted down a proposed state constitutional amendment that sought, in theory at least, to limit the effects of Obamacare in Florida.Dejected, Rick Scott, the former health care CEO, is now backing down o ... More >>

Mitt Romney Wins First Debate By Being a Ballsy, Big Bird-Killing Bullsh*t Artist

As Walter Cronkite once said: "Well, that debate was one flaming pile of rancid cat shit."*For those of you who didn't suffer through last night's 90-minute cojone-eating contest between Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama, here's your 10-second summary:Romney wonObama lostRomney snorted Ronald R ... More >>

Obamacare Isn't All Good or All Bad

Luke's Gospel: Obamacare Is as American as Apple Pie and Free Speech

Video of Rick Scott and Pam Bondi Learning Obamacare Was Struck Down, and Then Realizing It Wasn't

See also "Obamacare Is American As Apple Pie and Free Speech" and "Obamacare Ruled Constitutional by Supreme Court; Sorry, Pam Bondi."This is nothing even close to Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-Ohio) erupting into shrieks of joy upon learning of false reports that the individual mandate of the Affordable Car ... More >>

Obamacare Is American As Apple Pie and Free Speech

Luther Campbell, the man whose booty-shaking madness made the U.S. Supreme Court stand up for free speech, gets as nasty as he wants to be for Miami New Times. Today, Luke weighs in on Obamacare. As someone who's knows what it's like to fight all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, I'm very happy for ... More >>

Miami community development expert Cecilia "C.C." Holloman's legacy is empty coffers

Aiman Aryan, Government Center Pill Mill Pharmacist, Pleads Guilty

​A pharmacist who ran a pill mill from the lobby of the Miami-Dade County Government Center is pleading guilty for his role in a $55 million medicare scam involving prescription pain killers. Aiman Aryan will give up his pharmacist license and will be sentenced to at least 10 years in prison. ... More >>

White House Confuses University of Miami for That Ohio School

President Barack Obama was just at the University of Miami, so you'd think that his staff could get the name of the school correct. Apparently not. The White House sent out a press release today describing University of Miami president Donna Shalala as "President of Miami University." Miami Uni ... More >>

"Obamacare" Has Already Saved Floridians $142 Million

​Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi may be fighting to repeal President Obama's healthcare reform laws in court, but the new laws have already saved Floridians close to $142 million, and most of the laws haven't even gone into effect yet. The savings come from Medicare recipients who now pay l ... More >>

Texas Woman Shoots Self and Two Children After Being Denied Food Stamps

It is said that desperate times call for desperate measures. There is no denying that Rachelle Grimmer felt desperate when she shot her two children and then killed herself inside a Laredo, Texas food stamp office.Although the 38-year-old mother of two was obviously in dire straits, or at least beli ... More >>

Overanxious Florida Republicans May Ensure Obama Win

​A Florida commission appointed by Republicans will likely vote today to move up the state's Republican primary election to January 31.Though party muckety-mucks are still working on a compromise that could delay the election until February 21, the decision will probably create chaos.Given last we ... More >>

Rick Scott Pays Just $360-a-year For His Taxpayer-Subsidized Health Insurance

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, the average health plan costs an American family $13,770 in premiums a year. Governor Rick Scott pays just $360 to insure himself and his wife thanks to a state Government plan he's enrolled in. Yep. the average American pays 38.25 percent more for their he ... More >>

Jackson Memorial Apparently Only Hospital in the South That Cares About Gay People

​We wouldn't wish a trip to Jackson Memorial Hospital on our worst enemies. Yet according to a new report from the Human Rights Campaign, the public Jackson Health System is the only hospital in the entire southern United States cited this year for providing equal care to LGBT patients. That's a b ... More >>

12 South Florida Seniors Go Blind After Tainted Injections

​Twelve senior citizens in South Florida have lost their vision after being injected with tainted medication. The Department of Health claims a contaminated batch of medication and syringes was distributed to various medical clinics in the area.

Earthly Girls are Easy

Florida Judge Worried Obama Might Make Us All Buy Broccoli

via​A federal judge today began hearing arguments in outgoing Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum's lawsuit against the Federal Government, which alleges that forcing citizens to buy health insurance is unconstitutional. The trial is expected to be an in-depth, mature and scholarly proceeding. ... More >>

Alex Sink Blames Obama Administration for Her Loss

Is Alex Sink chewing on a bushel of sour grapes following her loss to Rick Scott or is she accurately hitting on some of the political and messaging failures of the Obama White House and the Democratic party in general? In an article on Politico this weekend, Sink lays some of the blame for her loss ... More >>

McCollum: Rekers Was "The Best Expert"

​Surprise! Attorney General and Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill McCollum still opposes gay adoption -- notwithstanding the spectacular downfall of his hand-picked anti-gay expert, George Alan Rekers. "I don't believe the gay family model is good for kids," McCollum said this week to the ... More >>

Update: Tons of Contaminated Cheese Sold in Florida, Texas, California, New York

Alex Izaguirre​Yesterday I described what might have been the largest cheese bust in history. Eighty-five tons of the stuff, most of it contaminated with staph, was sold to at least 30 people. Today I learned some of the cheese made it out of Miami to Texas, California, and New York. The FDA has ... More >>

Fox News Wonders if Local Mom Battling Leukemia is "First 'Death Panel' Victim"

​In the News Roundup each morning we've been keeping an eye on the plight of Diana Smith, a local mother battling a rare form of leukemia. Smith was almost denied a life saving treatment when Social Security disability payments made to her son raised her income enough to where she no longer qualif ... More >>

Obama Critic Rick Scott to Run for Governor, and Boy, Does He Have an Interesting Past

​Richard L. Scott, a businessman who lives in Naples, has thrown his hat into the ring for the Republican's gubernatorial nomination against Attorney General Bill McCollum and state Sen. Paula Dockery. Don't know anything about him? Here's some fun facts:He hates President Obama's health care refo ... More >>

RPOF Says Alex Sink is Basically Florida's Fidel Castro

​Fidel Castro took some time out of his busy schedule of not dying to pen a piece for a state newspaper that said President Obama and the Democrat's recent passage of health care reform is a "miracle." Well, the Republican Party of Florida took time out of their busy schedule of basically giv ... More >>

Health Care Reform Passes, No Thanks To Your South Florida Politicos

If you're half as cool as the staff here at Riptide, you were flipping between March Madness and C-SPAN last night like your life depended on it. Which to pick?photo by Sage Ross, via Wikimedia CommonsThe power of cardboard signs and megaphones was not enough to derail health reform.On CBS, Korie Lu ... More >>

Marco Rubio Launches "Petition" to Repeal Health Care

​Marco Rubio's stunning gains against Charlie Crist in the Republican Senate primary largely stems from the Tea Party movement, whose main focus over the past year has been to defeat the Democrat's health-care reform efforts. Well, it passed yesterday, so what's a politician like Rubio to do? Well ... More >>

Miami-Dade Ranked 11th Healthiest County in Florida; #1 in Category That Takes Risky Sexy, Drinking into Account

​Well, here's something slightly counter-intuitive. Miami-Dade county is apparently the 11th healthiest out of Florida's 67 counties. What's more is that we ranked the healthiest in the state in "Health Behaviors," a category that takes into account smoking, binge drinking and risky sex.CountyHeal ... More >>

Governor Race: McCollum Leads Sink by 10 Points

​Hot on the heels of his announcement that he'd file a lawsuit if any health care legislation passes in Washington that would force people to buy insurance, Attorney General Bill McCollum finds himself with a 10 point lead in the Governor's race.According to a new poll from Quinnipiac, R ... More >>

Democrat Maurice Ferre Doesn't Back Democrat Health Plan One Day After Democrat Loss

​Former Mayor of Miami Maurice Ferre, who somehow thinks he is running for US Senate even though he is trailing in the primary race for the party that is trailing in the general election race, has announced that he doesn't support the Democratic healthcare plan.  "It is a special-interest pla ... More >>

Dick Armey Sending Army of Dicks After Bill Nelson over Health Care

​Dick Armey, the former Republican House majorty leader who's not currently making an ass out of himself on Dancing with the Stars, was in Palm Beach Gardens today speaking to teabaggers, um, Tea Party activists. According to the Palm Beach Post, Armey told the crowd of conservative acti ... More >>

Top Ten Thursdays: Top Ten Songs for Obama Haters

via rpof.orgJim Greer thinks censorship is very American.​All summer long I have gone shit-house-rat-crazy observing the likes of Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly, Karl Rove and the rest of The Right's evil elite dispense fear-mongering falsehoods in a desperate attempt to stop some much nee ... More >>

Floridians Sure Have Some Funny Ideas About Health Care Reform

via A R B O's flickr​According to a new Quinnipiac poll, 58% of Floridians support creating a government health insurance plan, while only 36% oppose it. So it should be good news for supporters of the so-called "public option" that voters in a notoriously moderate swing state seem to be ... More >>

Prominent Florida Doctor Latest Racist Idiot Caught Making Obama Jokes Online

 It's really sad that there are so many high-profile Republicans out there sending out racist jokes about our president on their email that I've kind of got sick of reading about them anymore. It's just depressing. So, I've seen this picture about a million times today online, and finally decid ... More >>

Kendrick Meek Opposes Using Federal Funds to Pay for Abortions

Rep. Kendrick Meek has joined a small group of house Democrats asking that any health-care reforms not lead to federal funding of abortion, according to the Washington Post. The possibility of taxpayer money being used to pay for abortions is becoming a hot-button issue in the health-care reform ... More >>

Miami-Dade Unveils Affordable Health Care

via Moriza's flickrHot off news that Miami has, by some metrics, the highest health care costs in the nation, the county unveiled plans for a new affordable health care plan that they're not only calling "cutting edge," but a possible model for nationwide reform. Dubbed Miami-Dade Blu ... More >>

On Day 99, Obama Hires HIV Czar

A quick followup of sorts to our post Monday highlighting the Obama administration's inaction on HIV/AIDS during his first 100 days in office. Yesterday it was announced the president has chosen Dr. Eric Goosby to head PEPFAR. Goosby served in the Clinton administration as deputy director of the Nat ... More >>

Tobacco Load

Legislators are weighing increasing premium cigar taxes by up to 20,000 percent

How Many Tabacaleros Does it Take to Write a Declaration of Independence?

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Annie Betancourts anti-embargo gambit in the race for U.S. House District 25

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Aileen Ugalde and Joe Garcia