It’s a law that helped give rise to the tea party, spurred a Republican takeover of Congress and has been the subject of GOP-backed legal challenges that have extended all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
President Barack Obama’s health care reforms — commonly known as Obamacare — have roiled state and national politics for more than five years. Opposition to Obamacare has become a defining issue for Republicans — a test of how true party members are to conservative values.
So maybe it should be no surprise that implementing Obamacare in Florida by expanding subsidized health insurance coverage for the poor has become the state’s most heated legislative battle in decades.
The problem for Republicans is that Florida faces a major health care funding dilemma. The federal money tied to coverage expansion would help make up for other federal health care dollars that are drying up, spurring a debate that many in the Florida GOP — which controls state government — would rather not have.
