Five of today’s top Florida political stories at your fingertips:

Florida congressional reps clash over King v. Burwell – Members of the Florida delegation continued to divide along party lines on Thursday afternoon over the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in King v. Burwell. In a 6-3 decision on Thursday, the court ruled in favor of tax subsidies set up by President Barack Obama’s federal health-care law. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Anthony Kennedy sided with the court liberals on the 6-3 decision. The challenge to Obama’s law specifically focused on whether health insurance tax credits can be run at both the federal and state levels. The plaintiffs insisted only state exchanges can promote the tax credits. Read more

Related: Florida reaction to Supreme Court decision on Obamacare

Scott and Bondi react to Burwell ruling: Obamacare is still a bad law – Gov. Rick Scott and Attorney General Pam Bondi did not have much to say about the U.S. Supreme Court ruling today upholding the Affordable Care Act subsidies to states that rely on the federal exchange but instead steered their focus to the continued opposition to the underlying law.  “The Affordable Care Act continues to be the most heavy handed federal health care law in our nation’s history, and today’s decision in the King v. Burwell case does nothing to alleviate the harms the law will continue to cause,” Bondi said in a statement. Read more

Tom Lee says early LIP talk good for state – After six months of political jockeying, litigation, and one-upsmanship Florida and the federal government have agreed in principle to $1.6 billion in supplemental Medicaid funds over the next two years. Most of those funds, $1 billion, have been allocated in the budget Gov. Rick Scott signed into law on Tuesday. A little more than $600 million, though, still needs to be negotiated between Florida and the federal government. Read more

Florida’s feud over the uninsured to continue after ruling — Gov. Rick Scott and the legislative opponents to the Affordable Care Act dodged a bullet Thursday when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the federal health insurance subsidies, but it did little to narrow the divide between Republicans over how to handle Florida’s uninsured. The ruling reduces the pressure on state leaders to create a state exchange to cover the 1.3 million low- and middle-income Floridians who now rely on the federal program for health insurance. Read more

Florida TaxWatch releases annual ‘Turkey’ report – With every new budget for each fiscal year comes another annual legislative tradition: Florida TaxWatch’s yearly “Turkey” report, which identifies the projects which squeaked into the state budget — and passed — at the last minute. These turkeys are projects which circumvent the established review and selection processes or are projects which have completed the established process which are funded ahead of much higher priority projects. Read more

Just in time for summer: Florida AG shuts down South Florida scuba dive business over fraud 

For more Florida political news, visit BPR’s FLORIDA NEWS page

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Cheryl Carpenter Klimek

Administration
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