Press Releases

JMI COMMENDS GOVERNOR DESANTIS FOR PROTECTING FLORIDA’S CHIP PROGRAM

By: Logan Padgett / 2024

Logan Padgett

VICE PRESIDENT OF COMMUNICATIONS AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS

Press Releases

2024

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 5, 2024

CONTACT
Logan Elizabeth Padgett
850-386-3131

JMI COMMENDS GOVERNOR DESANTIS FOR PROTECTING FLORIDA’S CHIP PROGRAM

JMI applauds the Agency for Health Care Administration for filing suit to fight the Biden Administration’s flagrant attempt to undermine Florida’s ability to effectively expand health insurance coverage to the state’s children. 

Florida’s Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), the first enacted in the United States, operates in a way that has allowed our policymakers to expand it, as recently as last year. Florida’s system is showing Washington, D.C. how to increase access to care for our children in a way that doesn’t send a taxpayer-funded program into financial disaster. It protects both our kids and our fiscal health – allowing us to do more. 

Of course, big government acolytes (and their partners among Florida’s leftists), don’t like that. Consequently, they’re looking to destroy the CHIP program.

In a push to enact their vision of putting Washington, D.C. bureaucrats in complete control of the nation’s health system, the Biden Administration order requiring “continuous coverage” would create a free-for-all, hurting the very people Florida’s CHIP program needs to help the most. 

This attempt by the Biden-Harris Administration and unelected D.C. bureaucrats is a back door attempt to enact by rule what they could not by passing a law. It oversteps all available authority granted to them. 

This rule would be one small step in that direction. A “universal” health system would be nothing short of a universal disaster, eliminating access to care and destroying the lives of millions.

“Members of the media and others on the Left have disappointingly constructed a false narrative regarding the suit. Their lies and obfuscations are disappointing, but sadly not surprising. Florida is doing more to increase access to care in a responsible manner than any other state in the U.S.,” said Sal Nuzzo, Senior Vice President at The James Madison Institute. 

“If only Washington, D.C. would take a cue from Florida policymakers, they might see a way forward on healthcare that doesn’t send the entire fiscal health of the country off a cliff.”

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The James Madison Institute is a 501(c)3 organization dedicated to the ideals of limited government, economic freedom, federalism and individual liberty coupled with individual responsibility. The institute conducts research on such issues as criminal justice, health care, taxes and regulatory environments.