Today's story:  WellCare Health Plans became an extraordinarily profitable managed care company, in part — it now admits — by shortchanging children on Medicaid out of critical mental health services. Rather than spend most of the money it got from the state to provide such services, WellCare officials skimped on care, inflated expenses and kept the difference.

We're not as cynical as some about big-time campaign donors and bundlers -- First Amendment and all -- but this week's WellCare news should remind us why we should be seriously wary of many of the major campaign bankrollers in Florida. WellCare and its subsidiaries pumped $2.4-million into the Florida political system in the '04 and '06 cycles, more than 90 percent of it to Republicans (top recipients were the RPOF, Ken Pruitt, Tom Lee and Frank Farkas, according to an AP analysis). A day after lawmakers convened to consider sweeping changes to Florida's Medicaid system, WellCare wrote a $100,000 check to the state GOP, which received $1.2 million from the company all told.

WellCare stopped making political donations after major problems and an investigation subsequently erupted, but thankfully the state GOP found other major donors to help pick up the slack. Like Jay Odom.

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