Florida’s governor, Rick Scott and Ohio’s governor, John Kasich have done an about-face on embracing Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion in their respective states.  Or have they simply “grown” in office?  

I think they are more like feral hogs.  Domestic pigs that have been released or have escaped their controlled surroundings very quickly assume the characteristics of their primitive ancestors with long, coarse coats, tusks, savage tendencies (some mothers cannibalize their young) and insatiable gorging appetites, destroying everything in their paths.

Rick Scott, implicated in one of the largest Medicaid fraud cases in history while running the healthcare giant HCA, has become a feral politician.  As a governor, he is largely uncontrolled and above the law and has assumed the characteristics of a destructive predator, placing an un-fillable trough in front of Floridians, one from which his old hospital pals will relentlessly feed.  He very cynically said he could not in good conscience deny Floridians access to health care.  What he really means is that he cannot deny his old hospital pals access to unlimited taxpayer loot.  What a pig.

John Kasich makes Scott look like a saint.  Also undoubtedly “influenced” by the big hospital boys, he has invoked his “Christian faith” as a justification for embracing Obamacare!  A pig in a religious blanket.  Saying that the Bible runs his life almost every day, he went on to say, “And I’ve got to tell you, I can’t look at the disabled, I can’t look at the poor, I can’t look at the mentally ill, I can’t look at the addicted and think we ought to ignore them.”  He is clearly implying that you can’t claim to be a “good” Christian without being a socialist.  A true socialist, Kasich fits Bastiat’s admonition quoted earlier this week:  

“Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society.  As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists object to its being done at all.”

Given enough time in the wild and uncontrolled surroundings of politics, we should not be surprised, really, that men like Rick and John will go feral on us, showing us their true character, one of a destructive and predatory nature.  While these hogs gorge themselves on the massive “contributions” from corporate health care, corporate health care will gorge itself on taxpayer loot in the expanded and un-fillable trough of Medicaid.   

G. Keith Smith, M.D.