Eric Giunta
Neal Dunn, North Florida Republican for Congress, tells me why he supports Obamacare
By Eric Giunta
As a concerned citizen and North Florida voter, I attended the Capital City Republican Club on Dec. 2 to hear candidate Dr. Neal Dunn make his case for why Republicans ought to support him over his primary opponent, Tallahassee attorney Mary Thomas. Both are running to unseat Rep. Gwen Graham and represent Florida's 2nd congressional district in the U.S. Congress.
Thomas has repeatedly claimed to be "the only candidate in this race who wants to fully repeal Obamacare." While researching the candidates and their respective platforms, my initial inclination was to dismiss this rhetoric as just so much of the usual primary campaign season hyperbole. After all, how could any self-respecting Republican hope to win a primary in North Florida with such an albatross as Obamacare on his political back? Surely, I said to myself, Thomas was misrepresenting the good Dr. Dunn's position on the matter.
But then I read in several respected media outlets, including Politico, that Dunn, while on the Board of Governors of the Florida Medical Association (FMA), had joined a unanimous vote by that organization's House of Delegates in July 2014 to endorse Obamacare's Medicaid expansion in Florida.
As a former journalist, I appreciate the need to get information directly from the horse's mouth, so I joined fellow Republicans for a luncheon Dec. 2, hoping for the opportunity to get Dr. Dunn to lay out his position on the record. During the Q&A session, I publicly questioned him on his support for Obamacare Medicaid expansion, and he responded that the FMA had only voted to accept $2 billion from the federal government for Medicaid, and only if acceptance of those funds was not conditioned on the state having to set up its own health exchanges.
But I knew something was amiss with this response. . . .
Catch the rest of the story at Sunshine State News!
© Eric Giunta
December 10, 2015
As a concerned citizen and North Florida voter, I attended the Capital City Republican Club on Dec. 2 to hear candidate Dr. Neal Dunn make his case for why Republicans ought to support him over his primary opponent, Tallahassee attorney Mary Thomas. Both are running to unseat Rep. Gwen Graham and represent Florida's 2nd congressional district in the U.S. Congress.
Thomas has repeatedly claimed to be "the only candidate in this race who wants to fully repeal Obamacare." While researching the candidates and their respective platforms, my initial inclination was to dismiss this rhetoric as just so much of the usual primary campaign season hyperbole. After all, how could any self-respecting Republican hope to win a primary in North Florida with such an albatross as Obamacare on his political back? Surely, I said to myself, Thomas was misrepresenting the good Dr. Dunn's position on the matter.
But then I read in several respected media outlets, including Politico, that Dunn, while on the Board of Governors of the Florida Medical Association (FMA), had joined a unanimous vote by that organization's House of Delegates in July 2014 to endorse Obamacare's Medicaid expansion in Florida.
As a former journalist, I appreciate the need to get information directly from the horse's mouth, so I joined fellow Republicans for a luncheon Dec. 2, hoping for the opportunity to get Dr. Dunn to lay out his position on the record. During the Q&A session, I publicly questioned him on his support for Obamacare Medicaid expansion, and he responded that the FMA had only voted to accept $2 billion from the federal government for Medicaid, and only if acceptance of those funds was not conditioned on the state having to set up its own health exchanges.
But I knew something was amiss with this response. . . .
Catch the rest of the story at Sunshine State News!
© Eric Giunta
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