Former House Speaker and Republican gubernatorial hopeful Paul Renner is calling for Congress to eliminate the Affordable Care Act and for the Florida Legislature to nix “medical vaccine mandates” and prohibit patients who refuse to be vaccinated from being excluded or segregated from others.
While Florida leads the nation in enrollment in the federal health exchange with more than 4.6 million residents relying on the marketplace (healthcare.gov) for their insurance, Renner, called the law a failure and said its caused the costs of health care to skyrocket.
“I think the key thing is government can, and obviously does, is to go in to help people financially when they need it. Where we get in trouble is when government tries to run things or they over regulate, and that’s the problem with Obamacare,” Renner told the Florida Phoenix in a phone interview.
“Health care costs have gone up since Obamacare, more than inflation, and more than even wages. And that latter part is the problem. It’s that people can’t afford Obamacare. They can’t afford it anymore, which is why then, Congress is looking at more and more subsidies. So the solution is not to keep subsidizing.”
Renner told the Phoenix that when he was in the Legislature he was enrolled in the state group health insurance plan which itself is heavily subsidized by taxpayers while premiums have been kept at the same level for years.
Renner’s platform, dubbed the “Florida Health Freedom and Wellness Initiative,” addresses four broad policy areas: protecting medical freedom; increasing safety and transparency; parental rights and healthy schools; and community wellness and preventative care. Under each umbrella topic, Renner lists the ways he plans on achieving his objectives if elected Florida’s next governor.
Renner faces U.S. Congressman Byron Donalds in the Republican primary, who has been endorsed by President Donald Trump. Donalds is on the record opposing the ACA, but, unlike Renner, he has not released a health care platform. And health care isn’t included in a list of seven issues posted on Donalds’ campaign website.
Renner supports Gov. Ron DeSantis and Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo’s call to eliminate vaccine mandates, though the issue hasn’t gained any traction in the Florida Legislature to date and is not supported by all Republicans.
Renner’s health care platform goes further, ending what he calls “medical mandates for vaccines” and prohibiting exclusion or segregation of patients based on vaccination status. That also is an issue the DeSantis administration supports and worked, albeit unsuccessfully, to pass during the 2025 session.
The push to require physicians to treat all patients fell short after several senators raised concerns, including Sen. Gayle Harrell, who said the move could expose physicians to greater liability. Sen. Jason Pizzo also cried fowl and said the requirement contradicted a law (passed under Renner’s term as House speaker) that guarantees Florida physicians legal protections to not treat patients on the basis of their conscience.
The group Stand for Health Freedom praised Renner’s platform.
“Paul Renner’s Florida Health Freedom and Wellness Initiative embodies what Stand for Health Freedom has championed from the start: empowering parents, restoring transparency, and promoting personal responsibility in health policy. It takes vision and conviction to set moral boundaries around public health authority,” Leah Wilson, co-founder and executive director for Stand for Health Freedom said in a prepared statement. “Renner has both and will work tirelessly to secure a brighter, freer, and healthier future for our children.”
Included under parental rights and healthy schools category includes proposals to remove harmful additives from school meals, expand local farm-to-school purchasing, restore student fitness standards, and promote active childhood development.
That section also includes a proposal to “end all unnecessary medical and mental health interventions performed on minors without prior parental consent, both inside and outside of schools.”
“I applaud Paul Renner for his steadfast commitment to parental rights. With Paul Renner as governor, Florida will continue to respect and uphold the fundamental right of parents to direct the upbringing, care, and education of their children. I look forward to working with
him to protect and strengthen Florida families,” Patti Sullivan, state coordinator for Parental Rights Florida said in a statement.
Specific to community wellness and preventive care Renner says he wants to expand Medicaid patients’ access to chiropractic, naturopathic, nutritional, and integrative medicine medicine. He also said he wants to establish a Florida “Whole Health Advisory Council” to coordinate chronic disease prevention. Also included under the community wellness and preventive care category is “promoting clean water, toxin-free spaces, regenerative agriculture, and local food systems.”
Renner also said he wants to support workplace wellness programs and healthier environments for state employees.
–Christine Sexton, Florida Phoenix
Kat says
So his plan is only for wealthy people who can afford to pay for private insurance or have excellent plans from their employer (Like he enjoys, courtesy of our tax dollars!). Our medical care system is broken because we rely on private Insurers and Employer-sponsored or subsidized coverage. He gets heavily subsidized healthcare on our backs, but we’re not entitled to subsidized healthcare.
This country needs to start seeing healthcare as a right, not a privilege for a select view. Private Insurers and big Pharma are rolling in record profits while ordinary Americans suffer and die. Private practices are going the way of the dinosaur and being bought up by huge hospital systems or medical supply companies and consolidated just like lots of other Mom and Pop businesses in this country.
We need universal healthcare, whether you want to call it Medicare for all or something different. How many people could get decent medical care and affordable medications if we funnel all of those premiums/subsidies/profits into a one payer system? How many patients would be covered with the cost of the big beautiful ballroom alone? I am so sick of people voting against their own needs. Keep Florida Republican, keep Floridian sick and dying.
Laurel says
When it comes to health and vaccines, most politicians are reckless and foolish. I don’t listen to them and their absurd “parental rights.” They behave as if parental rights are something new. I listen to the health experts.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/history-disease-outbreaks-vaccine-timeline/polio
Make these silly politicians go away, please.
Thank goodness my parents had common sense, and I avoided the diseases of the time.
Taxpayer says
The Republicans continue to complain about Obamacare but they have yet to come up with another plan. Stop bad mouthing Obamacare until you come up with a better plan and affordable one.
Pogo says
@”Obamacare” the Affordable Care Act
… the genesis of which was a Heritage Foundation (makers of Project 2025) proposal meant as a bargaining bluff in the hundred years of haggling about national healthcare; but president Obama, and representative Pelosi, called the bluff. Then Roberts and the other whores on the SCOTUS gutted the ACA by defunding it (the individual mandate) — their reliance on American selfishness well-placed. And here we are: back of the line of developed nations in terms of life expectancy, maternal mortality, medical cost caused personal bankruptcy et cetera.
As stated
https://www.google.com/search?q=obamacare+the+genesis+of+which+was+a+Heritage+Foundation+proposal
Ask yourself — this, and the rest, are knowable
https://www.google.com/search?q=What+countries+use+the+individual+mandate+for+health+insurance
Ignorance and laziness are costly indeed; the life expectancy of Americans, in contrast with expenditures, alone, ought to have sobered the understanding of this matter. It has not. Well-educated, practiced, and adroit liars, some believers of their own lies, but mostly mercenary pricks who would pull the plug on their mother to save a dime — can, and do, say anything for a coin. Their success is a direct result of our own unknowing, uncaring, AND, exhaustion from the battle to merely survive one more day — our entire life.
And so it goes.
S. Peters says
Well for me, I lost my job a week before being diagnosed with cancer. After a year of paying COBRA premiums and my mortgage left me hanging by a thread financially. Come 2014 when the ACA became a reality, I was able to keep treatments and handle my mortgage. The ACA literally saved my home. Now at my age, with my parents long gone, I have no idea if I’ve had the measles or rubella when I was a kid. If parents are irresponsible enough not to vaccinate their children because they don’t have to, I will ask my primary Dr to do titers on me to see if I have immunity to those childhood diseases. Republican legislators in this state are as helpful as a hernia!
Pierre Tristam says
My story exactly. Diagnosed in 2014, would’ve been bankrupt but for the ACA. Irony: Renner was my Rep in Tallahassee.
Laurel says
And I am glad both of you are still around!
R.S. says
Contributions to healthcare according to ability; benefits according to need! And all insurance companies held to non-profit standards! That would be the ticket; that would be the route to go. Unfortunately, there are blockheads who just won’t collaborate with one another.
Sherry says
@ R.S. We are experiencing the horrific “downside” of capitalism. GREED now makes all the decisions! Follow the money to complete “corruption”!
JW says
The real problem is lawyers and parents who are not educated enough to make proper judgments about healthcare.
Unfortunately, our government is mostly run by lawyers and politicians/parents who know little about healthcare and it becomes worse under DJT and RFK . The healthcare system in the US stinks when compared with Europe and the rest of the world. We need more regulation if not deprivatization of health insurance to the public sector as with Medicare. It will result in lower cost for all and better outcomes. Why are many Americans opposed to that? Lawyers and ignorant parents!
Joe D says
I’ve told my adult children and grandchildren to do any Florida theme park visiting now, before the lack of mandated vaccines drops the community immunity rate, and these controllable “childhood” diseases come ROARING BACK! 2 of my grandchildren are still too young to have completed ALL their normal childhood vaccinations yet!
Thank you very much Governor De Santis, and our Florida “Surgeon “ General (that was sarcasm for those that didn’t catch it).
I’ve had all my vaccinations and boosters, so it will be about 3-4 years for any current “herd immunity” protection offered by current large percentages of vaccinated citizens drops off and people start succumbing to those “old” diseases AGAIN…with the youngest getting sick (dying) FIRST!
c says
bbc.com – Nov 10th, 2025
“Canada has lost its measles elimination status, said the Pan American Health Organization (Paho) on Monday, after failing to curb an outbreak of the virus for 12 consecutive months.
Because Canada is no longer deemed measles-free, the Americas region as a whole has lost its elimination status, although individually the other countries are still considered to have stamped out the disease.
The US, however, risks losing its status as well if it does not stop an ongoing outbreak by January. Related cases have now been reported in Utah, Arizona and South Carolina.”