Rick Scott's Long Journey From Obamcare Hater To Medicaid Expander, In His Own Words

Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) has said a lot about President Barack Obama's health care reform agenda over the last four years.

After making his name in politics fighting against what Scott called "government-run" health care, last week Scott said his state should take part in Obamacare's Medicaid expansion. Seven Republican governors have now made the same call -- but Scott is a special case.

Scott, a former hospital industry executive, founded the anti-Obamacare group Conservatives for Patients' Rights in 2009. After raising his profile as a leading Obamacare hater, Scott won the 2010 gubernatorial election and continued his attacks against the health care reform law.

When the Supreme Court struck down the lawsuits brought against Obamacare by Florida and 26 other states, Scott announced that Florida wouldn't implement it. After Obama's reelection, though, Scott started to change his tune. Although he kept his promise to reject a state-run health insurance exchange, Scott flip-flopped on the Medicaid expansion.

In the end, the crusader against government-run health care has become a reluctant champion for enrolling an estimated 1.3 million Floridians into just that.

Here is a selection of Scott's statements on Obamacare from 2009 to the present:

March 5, 2009: "The free market does everything better than the government does it. Every time the government gets involved, costs go up, access goes down."
-- on FOX News Channel (via Media Matters for America)

March 24, 2009: "[M]oving towards a single-payer or universal health care system could guarantee access to all, it would do so at a terrible cost. It would strip patients of the power to make their own medical decisions, put government bureaucrats in charge of rationing care and force patients onto long waiting lists for the care they can receive."
-- in written testimony submitted to Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee via Health Care for America Now

Aug. 6, 2009: "I clearly believe that government-run health care will be bad for you as a patient. It will be bad for you as a taxpayer. It will be bad for our country." -- on CNN