By Eric J. Lullove, DPM — Corresponding Medical Editor for Blue Amp Media
Just a couple of weeks ago, this publication laid out what the reporting then supported about the Hope Florida affair and drew a careful line around what remained unproven. The central question—whether $10 million clawed back from a Medicaid contractor had been lawfully redirected or improperly converted to political use—could not be answered from the outside. A grand jury had reportedly weighed it. Its findings sat sealed. We wrote that a complete evidentiary record was the only thing that would settle it, and that the officials with standing to open that record were the ones staying quiet.
That record is now public. And it does not equivocate.
A Florida statewide grand jury found that state officials misappropriated $10 million in taxpayer money—funds owed back to the program that insures Florida’s poor children—and routed them, through a charity tied to First Lady Casey DeSantis, into political committees that spent the money to defeat a 2024 ballot measure. The panel called it “a sophisticated scheme to fund political activities.” Then, having found the money was taken, it declined to charge anyone.1,2
The report was filed under seal on January 28 and stayed hidden for seven months. It became public this week only because CBS News Miami investigative reporter Jim DeFede obtained a copy, and the Florida Center for Government Accountability—which had gone to court seeking merely to confirm the case existed—published it. For a health-care policy audience, the substance matters more than the drama of its release. So let’s take the substance first.1
Cliff’s Note:
Eric Lullove is a practicing physician. He is not a political reporter, and nobody assigned him to spend his week reading a grand jury presentment that the state of Florida kept sealed for seven months. He did it because $10 million that belonged to poor kids’ Medicaid ended up in a political committee, and because somebody ought to explain what that means to people who actually understand how health care gets paid for.
That’s the whole model. No advertiser asked for this piece. No corporate parent had to bless it. No one had to worry about access. You paid for it, and that is the only reason it exists.
Our Democracy 101 back-to-school sale ends Monday night. This is the last weekend to get 40 percent off your first year — $36 instead of $60. Three dollars a month for every investigation like this one.
What the grand jury actually found is below.
—Cliff
