Charlie Crist

Charlie Crist

The decision by Republican state lawmakers to put politics over people will mean as many as 17,000 premature deaths , when people who would have had access to health care through Medicaid expansion are denied it. Democrats should make this an issue in every single race this year. And one is.

Florida's former Gov. Charlie Crist, who's running against current-Gov. Rick Scott to get his job back, is challenging Scott in the starkest of terms.



"[Scott] said he was for it, Medicaid expansion, for about 30 seconds. I'm exaggerating a little bit, but not much," Crist said on MSNBC's "Daily Rundown." "Didn't lift a finger to get it passed." "What are the results? About a million of my fellow Floridians are not getting health care today, and I am told by friends at SIEU (sic) that means that six people in Florida die every day as a result of that. Every day," Crist continued.

Analysists from Harvard University and the City University of New York estimate that deaths in Florida from lack of Medicaid access will range from 1,158 to 2,221. They don't put a time frame on that, but it's true that almost 1.3 million Floridians are being shut out of Medicaid, shut out of health care. It's thus entirely conceivable that six people could be dying every day in that state.

Scott did endorse expanding Medicaid, but Republicans in the state legislature blocked it, and Scott dropped the issue entirely, leaving almost 1.3 million people out in the cold. That's certainly an issue that should dominate in this year's election.