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Florida Gov. Rick Scott, a longtime opponent of “Obamacare,” made a startling announcement shortly after his mother’s death, going on TV two years ago to explain that he had dropped his objections to President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul. ... Scott’s allies, opponents and the press corps in Tallahassee were incredulous over his change of heart, asking if his support for Medicaid expansion could be a calculated move designed to win Obama administration approval for his long-sought proposal to hand control of the existing Medicaid population’s health care over to private insurance companies. ... he soon got the federal waiver he had been pressing for, and private companies now manage Medicaid benefits for more than three million Floridians. Scott’s gratitude didn’t last. (Fineout and Kennedy, 5/8)

Gov. Rick Scott’s decision to embrace Medicaid expansion in 2013, an idea the former health-care executive now opposes, was, as speculated, simply to get what he wanted from the feds. As the governor engages in negotiations with the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services over $2.2 billion in funding for the Low Income Pool, or LIP, program, he was asked Thursday why he agreed to support expansion of Medicaid under the federal Affordable Care Act in February 2013. “It was the day that we were able to get our waivers done from CMS for a Medicaid program that was revised,” Scott bluntly replied to reporters at the Capitol. (Turner, 5/9)

Florida legislators may have ended their stalemate last week when they agreed to convene a three-week special session to resolve the budget crisis in June, but they didn't agree on the hard part: how to resolve stark differences over health care. Some compromise ideas are emerging — from using $600 million intended for tax cuts to bail out hospitals that treat poor patients, to seeking a one-of-a-kind federal waiver, to drawing federal money without passing it through Medicaid. But finding the middle ground won't be easy. (Klas, 5/10)

Gov. Nathan Deal shed a little more light on what Georgia officials are seeking with a special Medicaid waiver that will be used to conduct what they’re calling an experiment — and not an expansion. Deal said in an interview that the waiver would “explore the possibilities of covering people who are now uninsured,” including some of the estimated 650,000 people who would be covered if Georgia expanded the Medicaid program. The charge is being led by Grady Memorial Hospital, which is working with struggling rural hospitals and other healthcare facilities around the state to craft the plan. (Bluestein, 5/8)

Grady Health System realized it couldn’t count on Medicaid expansion anytime soon, so it went looking for a different path. ... So Grady officials began to envision a smaller-scale insurance program that could avoid the political and financial pitfalls that accompany a Medicaid initiative. What they and state officials are proposing is a plan where federal matching Medicaid dollars would be used to help set up pilot sites that would give coverage to the uninsured, then manage their care and potentially improve their health. (Miller, 5/8)

With gridlock continuing on the budget, the House Finance Committee is slated to set to work on a Medicaid expansion and reform bill next week in Anchorage. After three days of budget overviews this week, the committee announced four meetings in Anchorage next week to hear Gov. Bill Walker’s Medicaid bill, one of three bills the governor put on the special session agenda. (Buxton, 5/9)