Florida taxpayers foot bill for Gov. Crist, top lawmakers' healthcare subsidy

[Louisiana1976]

Top Florida lawmakers are balking at Congress' plans to help more poor people get healthcare, though they've protected an entitlement of their own: free insurance premiums.

Taxpayers have been stuck with covering the premiums -- at a cost of about $45 million a year -- even while lawmakers pledged to scrimp as they grappled with three straight years of budget shortfalls.

Florida doesn't limit the subsidies to statewide officeholders like Gov. Charlie Crist and Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink, or to legislators like Senate President Jeff Atwater and House Speaker Larry Cretul. About 27,479 state employees -- many of them high-level bureaucrats and political appointees -- also get the break. So do their families.

``I think it's appropriate. I think it's part of the compensation package for a public servant,'' Crist said. ``It's a policy that has been supported by the Legislature and I'm comfortable with it.''

The governor plans to add his wife of nearly one year, wealthy businesswoman and philanthropist Carole Crist, as well as her two daughters from a previous marriage to his health plan on Jan. 1. The girls attend an all-girls private school in New York and live with their father, who owns a jet-rental company.

snip

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/southflorida/story/1357598.html

[SpiralHawk]

1. Typical Republicon hypocrisy

Republicons = The Latter Day Pharisees.

Fer sure.

[peekaloo]

2. I thought his wife's name was Convenience.

:shrug: