Scott’s 7 steps taking Florida to the abyss
By Daniel Shoer Roth
From The Miami Herald
Rick Scott won the governorship with his famous slogan: “Let’s get to work” – a seven-step plan to create 700,000 jobs in seven years.
Yet, judging from the winds now blowing in the state capital, his slogan should have been: “Let’s work for business” – a seven-step plan to leave 700,000 Floridians in poverty in seven years.
First Step: Raise insurance premiums.
The Florida Senate Banking and Insurance Committee last week approved a measure to allow Citizens Property Insurance Corp., the state’s largest property insurer, to raise rates by up to 25 percent a year.
Another initiative gives a green light to private insurance companies to raise their premiums 30 percent annually, without prior authorization from the state’s Office of Insurance Regulation.
Second step: Get $1 billion from consumers to return a favor to FPL.
The electricity bills could go up more than $2 monthly during the next five years so that Florida Power & Light, which has the monopoly of electricity supply in large parts of the state, can continue taking over the solar energy market as well.
FPL gave at least $4 million in campaign contributions to legislators and candidates for governor – a fantastic investment!
And you will not get anything in return for the price increase any time soon; it’s an investment for the future.
Why should we customers pay for the investment costs of this company that reported $945 million in profits in 2010?
Third step: Raise fees for basic telephone service.
Tallahassee proposes to deregulate land lines. This will impact mostly retirees and low-income residents who only subscribe to the monthly basic service.
The legislation removes consumer protection because the state’s Public Service Commission would cease to monitor prices and access to telephone service and would instead become an arbiter for disputes between companies.
Fourth step: Raise tuition in state universities and colleges.
Because the state university system has seen a 25 percent decrease in funding, legislators – encouraged by several presidents of these higher-education institutions – want to pass on the bill to students, who have already faced a 30-percent hike in their tuition in the last two years.
It’s true that tuition in Florida is among the lowest in the nation, but that is true also of salaries. Authorizing universities to make college more expensive when less financial aid is available is denying our youth a prosperous future.
Fifth step: Cut unemployment benefits.
The House approved a bill reducing from 26 to 20 the number of weeks an unemployed person can collect benefits.
Another proposal aims to reduce the period to only 12 weeks should the unemployment rate fall under 5 percent. These “business-friendly policies” will also make it really easy to fire workers so they can’t receive benefits.
Sixth step: Shifting patients into private managed care plans.
Scott, who amassed a fortune in medical service companies and has a $62 million investment in a chain of urgent care centers, supports a bill to overhaul the Medicaid program so patients can be shifted to HMOs and other types of managed-care plans.
Yes, let’s give $20 billion to out-of-state corporations. Will they do a better job caring for the sick and fragile? I doubt it.
Seventh step: Less affordable housing.
In order to grant more exemptions to private corporations, legislation has been introduced in the Senate that would permanently redirect the documentary stamp tax that funds the Sadowski Housing Trust Funds into general revenue.
These monies are supposed to be used to build affordable housing, so much needed nowadays.
After the seven steps, the deluge.
By the time Rick Scott finishes implementing his seven-steps plan, 700,000 Floridians – perhaps more – will have to resort not to a seven-step but to a 12-step recovery program. It will be known as RSVA: Rick Scott’s Victims Anonymous.
