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We don’t care about helping sick people – we’re Republicans! I wonder if Gov. Rick’s antipathy toward these programs has anything to do with the potential loss of money to his family’s nursing homes or his contributors in the insurance and health care industries? Of course, since he’s a wingnut, there’s always a strong possibility that he’s simply crazy: In recent months, either Gov. Rick Scott’s administration or the state’s Republican-controlled Legislature has rejected grants aimed at moving long-term care patients into their homes, curbing child abuse through in-home counseling and strengthening state regulation of health premiums. They have shunned money to help sign up eligible recipients for Medicare, educate teenagers on preventing pregnancy and plan for the health insurance exchanges that the law requires by 2014. While 36 states shared $27 million to counsel health insurance consumers, Florida did not apply for the grants. And in drafting this year’s budget, the Legislature failed to authorize an $8.3 million federal grant won by a county health department to expand community health centers. In distancing itself from the law, Florida declined to participate in a Medicaid pilot program that would have authorized up to $2 million in reimbursement to providers using a new hospice model for severely ill children. The state insurance commissioner applied to the Obama administration for a waiver from this year’s requirement that health insurers spend at least 80 percent of premium revenue on medical care. Only at the last minute did the State Health Department agree to provide required letters of support for community groups applying for federal wellness and prevention grants. Critics say the state’s Republican leadership has carried its opposition to the health care law too far. The grants being shunned by the state, they point out, have little connection to the provisions that Florida is challenging in cour t, namely the insurance mandate and the expansion of Medicaid eligibility. “It’s simply unconscionable that they’re turning back federal tax dollars that our citizens and businesses pay and sending those tax dollars to other states,” said Representative Kathy Castor, a Democrat who represents the Tampa Bay area. “Florida’s economy has been hit very hard, and we need every dollar and every job in our state.”