Thousands Of Floridians Lose Healthcare As DeSantis Campaigns Against ‘Woke’

Ron DeSantis is still traveling the country ranting and raving about fighting "woke" in Florida as part of his presidential campaign. Meanwhile, 250,000 of his constituents are about to lose their Medicaid coverage thanks to the ending of pandemic policies. Florida is one of a handful of states that has created a paperwork nightmare for public assistance programs, and a quarter of a million people are being thrown to the wolves as DeSantis tries to ascend to a higher office. Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins explains what's happening.

Check out our merch by visiting our store

Subscribe to our podcast

Become a member today!

Support us by becoming a monthly patron on Patreon, and help keep progressive media alive!

Spread the word! LIKE and SHARE this video or leave a comment to help direct attention to the stories that matter. And SUBSCRIBE to stay connected with Ring of Fire's video content!

Support Ring of Fire by subscribing to our YouTube channel

Be sociable! Follow us on:

*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

Roughly 250,000 Floridians have lost their health insurance within the last week and within the coming days, uh, many more thousand will lose their health insurance. Because of the ending of pandemic era policies that actually gave states more money to keep people on Medicaid, if those states agreed to do away, basically with all the excess paperwork and the reapplication that people on Medicaid had to submit every single year. Florida is one of the states that, uh, basically bogs people down with so much paperwork that it becomes exclusionary to basically keep people off of the program. And under the pandemic era policies, Florida got more money for Medicaid in exchange for doing away with all the paperwork. So more people could have health insurance while we were in a global health crisis. Well, that's over. And the state of Florida says we're going back to the old ways.

And so far, again, roughly a quarter million people have lost their health insurance. But you wouldn't know that if you're out there listening to Ron DeSantis because a quarter of a million Floridians no longer having access to a doctor is not the biggest concern. The biggest concern, of course, is whatever the hell woke means for Republicans on any given day. Ron DeSantis is of course, still traveling the country, giving speeches. He actually did a speech the other day where he used the word woke seven times in 23 seconds, seven times. He said the word woke in 23 seconds. He was like, we're gonna fight the woke in the schools. We'll fight the woke on the shores. We'll fight them on. It was ridiculous. But here's the point of this story. Floridians are suffering. 250,000 people no longer have healthcare coverage. The state of Florida actually has the money to keep these people on the program.

You know, we're spending millions of dollars. I'm sure you've heard these stories for Ron DeSantis to ship migrants from Florida to other parts of the country. It's actually gotten so bad that yesterday, California Governor Gavin Newsom actually threatened Ron DeSantis with kidnapping charges. So, you know, that may be something DeSantis needs to worry about in the future, but Florida is suffering. And we have a governor who is so desperate to become president that not only is he ignoring our state, but he's out there talking about anything other than the real problems facing Florida and the rest of the country. That's what's happening here. We have immigrants in the state of Florida right now, thanks to Ron. DeSantis recently passed legislation that are fleeing the state, robbing us of hundreds of thousands of workers. Industries are facing

Massive shutdowns in Florida because of Ron DeSantis anti-immigrant legislation got so bad yesterday. There was a hearing where Republican lawmakers met with business leaders and begged them to tell their migrant workers not to leave. But Ron DeSantis isn't talking about any of that. He's not talking about the people losing their health insurance. He's not talking about the skyrocketing cost of real estate in the state that is pricing people permanently out of home ownership.