Following Hurricane Helene’s catastrophic damage throughout Florida’s gulf coast, U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) met with the Florida Farm Bureau as well as local agricultural producers, farmers, and growers to discuss the storm’s impact. Photos are courtesy of...
Following Hurricane Helene’s catastrophic damage throughout Florida’s Gulf Coast, U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) met with local officials and volunteers from the barrier islands to discuss the storm’s impact and current recovery efforts. Photos are courtesy of...
Hurricane Helene made landfall as a Category 4 storm, causing catastrophic damage along Florida’s Gulf Coast. It’s crucial for the federal government to expedite state-requested resources and authorize key policy flexibilities in order for Floridians to make a swift...
U.S. Senator Marco Rubio’s (R-FL) office will host two in-person events to assist constituents affected by Hurricane Helene and help navigate applications for FEMA assistance. Food, water, and additional resources will be available at the events. Event...
U.S. Senator Marco Rubio’s (R-FL) office will host in-person and virtual Mobile Office Hours next week to assist constituents with federal casework issues in their respective local communities. These office hours offer constituents who do not live close to one of...
Following the impacts of Hurricanes Helene and Debby, some local governments in Florida face looming budget shortfalls that could disrupt disaster recovery efforts. If these local governments receive reimbursements for past hurricanes from the Federal Emergency...
Sen. Marco Rubio may have dealt the biggest blow in the GOP’s five-year war against ObamaCare.
A 2014 budget measure inspired by the Florida Republican… is pushing some insurers to drop out of the ObamaCare exchanges, experts say.
“I think this is one of the most effective things they’ve done so far in terms of trying to undermine the Affordable Care Act,” Tim Jost, a healthcare law professor at Washington and Lee University, said of Republicans in Congress.
This fall, more than a dozen health insurers representing 800,000 people have dropped out of the ObamaCare exchanges, many out of fear that the administration no longer has the cash to cushion their losses in the costly early years of the marketplace.
The nation’s largest insurer, UnitedHealthCare, specifically mentioned the specter of a funding shortfall last week when it threatened to end its participation in the exchanges after 2016.
The angst in the industry centers on an obscure program in the healthcare law known as “risk corridors” that was designed to shield insurers against losses.
Rubio in 2013 went on the warpath against the program, decrying it as a “taxpayer bailout.” He penned op-eds against it, testified about it as the star witness at a House Oversight Committee hearing and even made his case to top House Republicans including then-Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio).
“There is a problem with the way [ObamaCare] exchanges are now designed that have not yet received the attention they deserve, but I promise you’re going to be hearing a lot about it in the days to come,” Rubio said in a Senate floor speech in early 2014.
While Rubio’s attempt to scrap risk corridors altogether was unsuccessful, his push contributed to a policy rider that was inserted into a 1,603-page spending bill passed at the end of 2014.
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