The Paradise Where Millions of Floridians May Go Hungry and Lose Their Insurance

By Diane Roberts

Another day in Paradise, where 3 million Floridians may soon go hungry.

SNAP, what we used to call Food Stamps, is out of money.

Head Start centers, which serve about 45,000 Florida children, plus pregnant women, are mostly closed. That’s not merely a blow to medical screenings and critical early childhood education, it means the kids won’t get the meals Head Start provides.

And no, churches and food banks can’t fill the gaps. Nobody has those kinds of resources.

Nobody but the federal government.

Veterans’ services have been curtailed, and the National Flood Insurance Program suspended.

That means you can’t close on that Florida dream house unless you buy private flood insurance, which can cost nearly twice as much, especially if you’re near water.

There are already longer lines at airports and flights delayed as some TSA officers and air traffic controllers, all deemed “essential employees” but not being paid, call in sick.

(And who can blame them?)

ICE agents, on the other hand, are still getting their paychecks, arresting cleaning ladies and using tear gas near children on their way to a Chicago Halloween parade.

A judge, incredulous that she had to remind federal agents children in Halloween costumes “do not pose an immediate threat,” told them to knock it off.

Our tax dollars at work.

Some national parks and refuges may be open, but without visitor centers, rangers to tell you how to avoid alligators or escape an irate wild hog, or anyone to pick up litter or clean bathrooms.

As of last year, there were approximately 95,000 federal employees in Florida. It’s unclear how many there are now, what with DOGE slashing and burning, dumping anyone and anything “not consistent with the president’s priorities.”

NASA and NOAA, for example, apparently fall into the “not consistent” category: about 1,700 have lost their jobs.

Who needs satellites to help us track hurricanes? It’s more sporting to guess where the storm might go.

Even if there are, say, only 90,000 federal workers left in the state, they’re not getting paid, which means they’re not spending money in their communities.

Shops, restaurants, services–all taking a hit.

Grocery stores, appliance stores, clothing stores will be hurting, too.

Hitting what the current occupant of the White House calls “Democrat programs” is more important than the 42 million across the country who might not have enough to eat.

Taking away the subsidies which help millions get health care, which is at the heart of the shutdown fight, is not just owning the libs, it’s an act of calculated cruelty.

Florida has 4.7 million enrollees in the Affordable Care Act, the most of any state.

Many are service workers, gig workers, people who have decent, lower-middle class jobs which don’t offer health care, or those who’ve retired but aren’t quite old enough for Medicare.

Instead of paying a few hundred dollars a month, many will see their premiums rocket up to more than $1,000 a month, in some cases trebling or quadrupling.

Don’t be poor and don’t get sick

Gov. Ron DeSantis is unmoved, suggesting that all most people need is a catastrophic plan, the kind with high deductibles – like around $10,000 – which many can’t possibly afford.

DeSantis and the Legislature have refused to expand Medicaid to Floridians who make less than $21,000 a year.

The message: don’t be poor and don’t get sick. If you’re poor, it’s probably your own fault, and if you get the flu or COVID-19 or the measles, well, either suck it up or go to the emergency room.

And you wonder why health care costs in this country keep climbing while Americans’ get sicker and fatter and more susceptible to disease?

Pretty much every other developed nation on earth offers universal health care. These countries pay on average half what Americans do and get better health outcomes.

Don’t you hate that “socialized medicine?”

Our government likes to remind everybody the U.S. is the richest nation on the face of the earth. Yet we pretend we cannot take care of our most vulnerable citizens.

WIC, the federal nutrition program for women, infants and children, got some extra money in October, keeping it afloat in some (but not all) states, but that money’s running out. 

Last week more than two dozen state attorneys general and governors sued the USDA, demanding they release the money for food assistance.

Fun fact: the US Department of Agriculture has a $6 billion emergency fund, but the Trump regime denies there’s an emergency.

Two federal judges disagree. Massachusetts Judge Indira Talwani said  “Congress has put money in an emergency fund, and it is hard for me to understand how this is not an emergency.”

Judge Jack McConnell in Rhode Island ordered USDA to cough up the contingency funds “as soon as possible.”

Talwani hasn’t gone quite that far, but has directed USDA to say whether it’ll release the money Monday.

The problem is, even if USDA is forced to use its emergency funds in what is an actual emergency the money won’t stretch very far: SNAP costs $8.36 billion per month.

The regime responded with partisan snark on USDA web page blaming Democratic senators for supposedly continuing “to hold out for health care for illegal aliens and gender mutilation procedures [refusing to] reopen the government so mothers, babies, and the most vulnerable among us can receive critical nutrition assistance.”

That is, of course, nonsense–and probably a violation of the Hatch Act, too. The ACA does not provide health care for the undocumented, and while some states allow for gender-affirming care for youth, others restrict it. The Trump administration is working to outlaw it altogether.

Other spending priorities

Here in Florida, Democratic members of the Legislature have written to the governor, urging him to use his emergency powers to help those dependent on the now-suspended SNAP funds: “For families already struggling under record food and housing costs, the loss of this critical support would be catastrophic,” they said.

“Local food banks and pantries have already reported overwhelming demand and depleted supplies. . . . The state cannot stand by.”

Oh, but the state can indeed stand by. And often does.

DeSantis’ response was predictably snotty: “Did those Democrats write a letter to Chuck Schumer asking him to stop filibustering the spending? Come on.”

Last I looked, Republicans control the government. All of it.

They could release those allotments any time, just as they could negotiate a solution to our outrageous health care costs.

Maybe if the state hadn’t spent $50 million of taxpayer money in 2024 to defeat ballot measures DeSantis disliked or untold millions of bucks suing over providing health care to children or giving upper middle-class families vouchers so they can send their kids to private schools without breaking a sweat, or flying asylum-seekers to Martha’s Vineyard, we might have a little extra cash to spend on the needy.

The federal government could pay for SNAP, Head Start, flood insurance, heating assistance, WIC, and all the rest of it if the regime weren’t so busy wasting your money on Trump’s expensive whims, such as bailing out his friend, the right-wing fruitcake president of Argentina, to the tune of  $40 billion.

Or retrofitting his Qatari gift-jet as Airforce One, which reportedly could cost  us about $1 billion.

Trump’s buying Homeland Security Spokesmodel Kristi Noem not one, but two new private jets, costing in the region of $200 million, in case Delta first class is sold out and she needs to get to El Salvador for a photo-op.

As for the tax cuts, the ones overwhelmingly benefitting the rich, well, they will cost the nation a big, fat $4 trillion over the next 10 years.

A billion here, a trillion there: pretty soon you’re talking real money.

Extending the ACA enhanced premium tax subsidies would cost us $350 billion over 10 years.

Even if you practice good old Republican voodoo economics, it’s pretty obvious that $350 billion is way less than $4 trillion.

Insured people go to the doctor, get preventative treatment, and expert help when they need it.

Uninsured people either never get the care they need or go to the emergency room, which costs us all a lot in increased hospital costs and insurance premiums.

Here in Florida, we’re pretty much guaranteed a sickness boom: the anti-science fanatic running U.S. Health and Human Services pushes raw milk and unproven Covid treatments while cutting money for genuine medical research, and Florida’s surgeon general demands the state do away with vaccine mandates.

Trump and congressional Republicans want us to believe that if the Democrats will just pass a “clean” Continuing Resolution to fund the government, they can all sit down and have a nice chat about healthcare.

Remember how they said they’d never touch Medicaid? And Trump promised he wouldn’t touch the East Wing to build his trashy new ballroom? The Ukraine war would end? The price of eggs would drop?

If you buy the cozy image of Republicans “negotiating” ACA subsidies with Democrats, I have a lovely piece of Florida swamp land to sell you.

Diane Roberts is an 8th-generation Floridian, born and bred in Tallahassee. Educated at Florida State University and Oxford University in England, she has been writing for newspapers since 1983, when she began producing columns on the legislature for the Florida Flambeau. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, the Times of London, the Guardian, the Washington Post, the Oxford American, and Flamingo. She has been a member of the Editorial Board of the St. Petersburg Times–back when that was the Tampa Bay Times’s name–and a long-time columnist for the paper in both its iterations. She was a commentator on NPR for 22 years and continues to contribute radio essays and opinion pieces to the BBC. Roberts is also the author of four books.