TAMPA BAY TIMES NAMES PAM BONDI, RICK SCOTT’S DEPT. OF HEALTH “LOSERS OF THE WEEK”

Winner and losers of the week in Fla politics [Tampa Bay Times] “Losers of the week: Pam Bondi. Showing extraordinary hubris and/or hypocrisy, the attorney general decided she would postpone an execution rather than inconvenience donors planning on attending her re-election fundraiser the same day. Rick Scott’s Department of Health. Apparently it’s time to scrap the agency’s official mission — “To protect, promote & improve the health of all people in Florida” — since it refuses to let federal Obamacare “navigators” into DOH offices to help eligible Floridians obtain health insurance.

TAMPA BAY TIMES: RICK SCOTT “ON THE WRONG PATH” WITH PROPOSED TAX CUTS

Here’s what really hurts Floridians [Tampa Bay Times Editorial] “Gov. Rick Scott is right to object to the rising cost of living in Florida. But he’s on the wrong path in proposing $500 million in tax cuts in a state that already has relatively low taxes. Where Florida families are getting pummeled is on the rising cost of regulated services: property insurance, electric rates and health care. Those are hidden taxes that dramatically affect the cost of living, yet the governor and the Legislature have embraced policies that are increasing those costs…Scott wants to cut Florida’s already low tax burden when he should be focusing on the high expenses tied to the state’s regulated industries. It’s the increasing cost of electricity, property insurance and health care that have most hit Floridians’ pocketbooks and that Tallahassee continues to ignore.”

PENSACOLA NEWS JOURNAL: BONDI “CLEARLY NOT FOCUSED ON HER JOB OR FULFILLING THE DUTIES OF HER OFFICE”

Editorial: Death and justice delayed in favor of politics and party [Pensacola News Journal] “As you read this, the monster is still alive. He is still alive because of Attorney General Pam Bondi and Gov. Rick Scott. Bondi’s office contacted Scott’s to request the execution be delayed due to a conflict in Bondi’s schedule. Without question, the governor obliged. Had our governor been engaged enough to ask what sort of conflict required a delay in the single most serious responsibility of governmental justice, he would have been told it was due to a political fundraiser. Bondi’s fundraiser. Not a duty of her elected office, but a social obligation, a party – like so many more yet to come this election cycle – loaded with booze and schmooze and fistfulls of campaign cash. So, priorities being what they were, the execution of a monster was delayed because of a party…This never would have happened if Bondi’s head were in the game. She was clearly not focused on her job or fulfilling the duties of her office.”

FDP FILES PUBLIC RECORDS REQUEST TO GET TO THE BOTTOM OF BONDI’S EXECUTION RESCHEDULING FIASCO

Dems want records in execution date change [Pensacola News Journal] “The Florida Democratic Party said it has submitted an open-records request for communications between the offices of Gov. Rick Scott and Attorney General Pam Bondi after Bondi asked for an execution to be rescheduled from the night of her ‘campaign kickoff’ fundraiser. ‘Pam Bondi has demonstrated astoundingly bad judgment, putting partisan politics ahead of the most serious duty she has as Attorney General,’ said Joshua Karp, a party spokesman, in a news release.”

RICK SCOTT’S TEA PARTY IDEOLOGY “LEAVES FLORIDIANS AS CASUALTIES” 

War on Obamacare leaves Floridians as casualties [Sun Sentinel] “There was the lawsuit, a legal pursuit led by two Florida attorneys general that made it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court before the justices certified Obamacare as the law of the land. Undaunted, the state of Florida went on a tear. It turned down federal funding to help set up those marketplace/exchange websites, where the uninsured will find, evaluate and ultimately sign up for health insurance policies. As time passed, state leaders decided not to bother with the websites, threw up their hands and punted the task over to the federal government…The state declined Washington’s offer of $51 billion over ten years to expand Medicaid and allow more of the state’s 3.8 million uninsured a chance to obtain health insurance. The move prompted acrimony, but failed to produce any new money. Gov. Rick Scott didn’t help matters. He initially said he wanted Washington’s money and supported Medicaid expansion to get it. Those comments, however, didn’t go over well with the governor’s tea party backers, and Scott hasn’t said or done anything else since.”

GAINESVILLE SUN SLAMS REPUBLICANS FOR OBAMACARE OBSTRUCTIONISM

Sickening stats [Gainesville Sun Editorial] “Conservative critics of the federal health care program known as Obamacare are long past the point where they need to put up or shut up. If they have identified problems with Obamacare or its provisions to expand Medicaid, they need to help fix those problems or provide a viable alternative. Otherwise, they’re complicit in maintaining the sickening statistic that Florida has the second-highest percentage of residents without health insurance. Only Texas surpasses Florida’s rate of having 24.8 percent of residents under age 65, or 3.8 million people, lacking health insurance in 2011, according to recently released U.S. Census figures.”