David Jolly on Florida's Health Care Crisis: Expand Medicaid, Deliver Care in Every County
Key moments
"We have a health care crisis in the state of Florida. More people are going without health care than ever before."
Two packages to the Legislature: expand Medicaid, and scale up primary care delivery in all 67 counties.
"Budgets are values. Let's invest in the value of delivering health care to more people and save Florida's taxpayers money."
Context
Florida is 1 of 10 states that have not expanded Medicaid, and roughly 266,000 Floridians sit in the coverage gap, earning too much for the state's narrow Medicaid and too little for marketplace subsidies.[1] This video lays out how David Jolly would close that gap as governor.
What's said
The plan is two parts: expand Medicaid, and scale up the direct delivery of primary care in all 67 counties using community health centers and county clinics. Jolly frames it both ways. Lead with your heart because more people need care. Lead with your head because community health centers cut downstream costs and return money to the state.[2] See his full health care plan on the health care issue page.
Transcript
Auto-fetched transcript of the video above.
Related questions
Has Florida expanded Medicaid?
No. Florida is one of 10 states that have not expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. As of May 2026, 41 states (including DC) have expanded; the holdouts are Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. The federal government pays 90% of the cost of the expansion population in perpetuity, but Florida has declined.[3] In the video, Jolly says Florida should commit to expanding Medicaid.
Why isn't Medicaid expansion enough on its own?
Because it takes time, even after a state expands, to enroll people and connect them with primary-care providers. Expansion would cover the roughly 266,000 Floridians in the coverage gap, but those Floridians still need somewhere to get care.[1] That is why Jolly pairs expansion with scaling up community health centers in every county. See his framing of the two packages in the video at 0:12.
What are Federally Qualified Health Centers, and why does Jolly want more of them?
Federally Qualified Health Centers are community-based primary care clinics that serve patients regardless of insurance status, using a sliding-fee scale for low-income patients. Nationally they serve over 32 million Americans annually, and a 2023 analysis estimates they save the U.S. healthcare system about $24 billion a year by reducing ER visits and avoidable hospitalizations.[4] Jolly's plan would scale up that delivery model in every Florida county, building on the state's existing network of 67 County Health Departments.[5]
How much would Medicaid expansion cost Florida?
Much less than people think, because the federal government pays 90% of the cost permanently and the state pays only 10%. Florida already pays a $2.17 billion Low Income Pool every year to partially offset hospitals' uncompensated-care costs from uninsured patients. Expansion would shift much of that burden to the federal government at 9-to-1 match.[6] This is the "economic return" Jolly references at 0:30.
How many people are uninsured in Florida?
About 1 in 7 Florida adults (ages 19-64) lacked health insurance in 2024, an uninsured rate of 15.5 percent compared to 11.3 percent nationally. The overall Florida rate of 10.9 percent is one of the highest in the country and rose in 2024 from 10.7 percent in 2023.[7] This is the crisis Jolly names in the opening line of the video.
Sources
- Kaiser Family Foundation, Coverage Gap , https://www.kff.org/medicaid/issue-brief/how-many-uninsured-are-in-the-coverage-gap-and-how-many-could-be-eligible-if-all-states-adopted-the-medicaid-expansion/ · 2025-02-25
- David Jolly, As Governor, Healthcare affordability , https://davidjolly.com/videos/healthcare · 2024-01-01
- Kaiser Family Foundation, Status of State Medicaid Expansion Decisions , https://www.kff.org/medicaid/status-of-state-medicaid-expansion-decisions/ · 2026-05-06
- National Association of Community Health Centers, Economic Impact Report , https://www.nachc.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Economic-Impact-of-Community-Health-Centers-US_2023_final.pdf · 2023-06-01
- Florida Department of Health, About Us , https://www.floridahealth.gov/about-us/ · 2026-04-24
- Florida Agency for Health Care Administration, Low Income Pool Background , https://ahca.myflorida.com/medicaid/medicaid-finance-and-analytics/medicaid-program-finance/lip-dsh-gme-operations/low-income-pool-lip-program/low-income-pool-background · 2025-07-01
- U.S. Census Bureau, Health Insurance Coverage by State 2023 and 2024 , https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/2025/demo/acsbr-024.pdf · 2025-09-01
This isn't a coverage problem. It's a care problem.
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