Editorials / Opinion

President Obama’s Affordable Care Act had no more zealous opponent than Florida Gov. Rick Scott. Guess who now backs Medicaid expansion?

Scott becomes the seventh GOP governor to move toward broader health-care coverage via the president’s plan. An estimated 1 million low-income Florida residents could become eligible for insurance, with the federal government picking up the tab  for the first three years. Some 3.8 million Floridians do not have health insurance.

Scott is entitled to his opinions about Obamacare, but he exercised his practical political instincts to participate in something that was good for his constituents and his own political standing at home. Good for him. Scott won a federal dispensation to offer a managed-care plan for Medicaid recipients to save money.

He said he would only participate while the government pays for it all. The split eventually goes to 90-10 – still a bargain – by 2020. Scott needs legislative approval to participate at all.

The topic is health care, but the goofy so-called sequester pending in Washington, D.C., comes to mind. Scott lives in the real world, and he made a decision that is good for literally a million people in his state. Politicians in Congress, many of whom have never run anything but their mouths, are willing to crash the operations of government in the name of ideology.

They would rather furlough food inspectors than do the hard work of making cuts and raising revenues to balance the budget and pay off the government’s credit card.

Scott made a pragmatic choice that will benefit people very close to home.