WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – Speaking to a boisterous crowd at a retirement community here, President Obama played the seasoned campaign veteran, unbowed by his opponent Mitt Romney’s negative ads even as the two trade barbs over each other's records and rhetoric.

“Frankly, I'd be worried if this were my first campaign. But I've been to this rodeo before,” Obama told a crowd of 675 at the Century Village retirement community on Thursday.

He joked that the crowd should just mute the negative TV ads inundating this crucial swing state, and acknowledged that their visual impact wouldn’t be too appealing either. 

“Some of the pictures of me will be unflattering. Now, my face is all distorted, one eye's all droopy,” he said, imitating what some of the images in the ads would look like. “Right? I'm looking all grim,” he continued as the crowd roared with laughter.

The group of seniors and their family members, packed into a low-ceilinged clubhouse, was particularly rowdy, frequently shouting words of encouragement over the president and breaking into chants of “four more years!” whenever he paused.

The president seemed to feed off the crowd, especially after he made his way to the podium having waded through a crowd of senior women who were particularly excited to see him.

“That’s the most kisses I’ve gotten at any campaign event!” he said as he reached the stage.

Later, as an audience member’s phone rang, the president joked that it was his wife Michelle calling because she heard he was getting so much affection at the event. 

Obama tailored his speech to fit this crowd, hitting similar notes as he did earlier at an event in Jacksonville - criticizing Romney’s plans for Medicare (he says Romney’s changes would cost seniors up to $6,400 more) but also appealing to the group’s strong support for Israel.

He condemned the “barbaric” terrorist attack in Bulgaria that killed five Israelis.

“I know a lot of people in this community care about the state of Israel. And we are heartbroken,” he said of the bombing.

He added that the rapid changes in the Middle East and the bloodshed in Syria meant that “now's the time to make sure we're doing everything we can to protect Israel's security.”

The president continues his campaign swing through Florida Friday with stops in Fort Myers and Orlando.

President Barack Obama wasn't addressing only seniors when he attacked Mitt Romney’s stance on Medicare on Thursday in Florida; he was also focusing on those voters who, he warned, would face a radically different Medicare system if Republican plans were imposed.

At his first event during a two-day trip to Florida, a state where seniors make up 17.3 percent of the population, Obama took aim at Republican proposals to reform Medicare. “Medicare” is a buzzword sure to perk up the ears of the state's retired population, which leans on the program for medical care.

"He plans to turn Medicare into a voucher program. So if that voucher isn't worth enough to buy the health insurance that's on the market, you're out of luck. You're on your own," the president said of Romney’s position. "One independent non-partisan study found that seniors would have to pay nearly $6,400 more for Medicare than they do today."

That particular line of attack is directed at middle-aged voters who will be eligible for Medicare in the next couple of decades. Obama also tied Medicare’s solvency to the current debate over the future of the Bush-era tax cuts.

"It's wrong to ask seniors to pay more for Medicare just so millionaires and billionaires can pay less in taxes," he said. "That's not the way to reduce the deficit."

The focus on Medicare is intentional; Democrats enjoyed a degree of political traction when they first targeted the 2011 budget written by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, a Republican from Wisconsin. In May, the Obama campaign released a web video that claimed Romney would end Medicare in its current form and that a typical 65-year-old woman could be left “with nothing but a voucher to buy insurance coverage, which means $6,350 extra per year for a similar plan.”

That attack was premised on Romney's endorsement of the "Path to Prosperity" authored by Ryan -- who is believed to be on Romney’s shortlist for running mate -- for its proposed changes to Medicare.

At the time, Politifact debunked the claims by the Obama campaign, saying they were based only on Ryan's 2011 proposal, and not the subsequent plan he coauthored with Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, one that offers seniors a more traditional Medicare option. And the non-partisan study the president mentioned was the Congressional Budget Office report from April of 2011, which analyzed Ryan’s original budget proposal. 

But the president’s remarks on Medicare do highlight the lack of specifics in Romney’s plan. As long as the presumptive GOP nominee provides only an outline of what he would do to keep the costs of Medicare under control, Obama can continue to campaign on the idea that seniors might very well pay more in the future under a President Romney.

 “Bottom line: There is a clear choice in this election for seniors between President Obama who has been a strong advocate for strengthening Medicare, and Mitt Romney who supports a voucher system that could increase costs," said Obama campaign spokesperson Ben Finkenbinder.

In a statement, Lanhee Chen, Romney's campaign policy director, disagreed, saying that Romney has "a plan to preserve Medicare for today's seniors while strengthening it for future generations." 

Obama, Chen said, would take "hundreds of billions of dollars from Medicare to spend on Obamacare and will leave seniors with fewer choices."

Expect the Obama to continue hitting Romney on Medicare and taxes later Thursday and Friday as he wraps up his trip to Florida with appearances in West Palm Beach, Fort Myers and Orlando.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott now says Florida will do nothing to comply with President Barack Obama's health care overhaul and will not expand its Medicaid program. The announcement is a marked changed after the governor recently said he would follow the law if it were upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.

"Florida is not going to implement Obamacare. We are not going to expand Medicaid and we're not going to implement exchanges,'' Scott's spokesman Lane Wright told The Associated Press on Saturday. Wright stressed that the governor would work to make sure the law is repealed.

Scott told Fox News the Medicaid expansion would cost Florida taxpayers $1.9 billion a year, but it's unclear how he arrived at that figure.

See the original report at NBCMiami.com

Scott said the state will not expand the Medicaid program in order to lower the number of uninsured residents, nor will Florida set up a state-run health exchange, a marketplace where people who need insurance policies could shop for them.

"We care about having a health care safety net for the vulnerable Floridians, but this is an expansion that just doesn't make any sense,'' he told Fox host Greta Van Susteren.

Scott has gone back and forth on the issue after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Congress cannot withhold federal Medicaid funding from states that opt out of a requirement in the overhaul to expand coverage to those just above the poverty line.

On the day of the ruling Scott was cautious about the expansion, saying he wanted to read the ruling first. Then during an interview Friday morning on a Jacksonville radio station, Scott said it was unlikely he would go along with the expansion because of the potential cost to the state.

But the governor told the Tampa Bay Times later in the day that he was still evaluating the ruling and would come up with a plan within a few weeks.

Scott, the former CEO of a hospital chain, has been a vocal critic of the health care overhaul from the start. He made his first foray into politics by forming a group called Conservatives for Patients Rights that ran television ads criticizing the proposal before it was adopted by Congress.

Scott has also complained about the growing cost of Medicaid, the $21 billion safety net program that primarily aids the poor but also picks up nursing home bills for senior citizens. The governor backed a push by the Republican-controlled Legislature to shift Medicaid patients into managed care programs, a move that is still awaiting federal approval.

Scott has rejected federal money in the past, most notably $2.4 billion for high speed rail. His administration has also said no to some money attached to the Affordable Care Act.

But Scott has said yes to money associated with the federal stimulus program and he has changed some of the positions he advocated during his run for governor. Scott also must weigh the political calculations of saying no to Medicaid because of tight budgets, while it is likely he will continue to push for substantial tax cuts between now and his re-election campaign in 2014.

According to Census data released last year, Florida had the nation's third-highest rate of residents without health insurance during the past three years.

President Obama's health care law called for states in 2014 to expand Medicaid eligibility to those making up to 133 percent of the poverty level, or $29,326 for a family of four. While estimates vary, the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration has concluded that as many as 1.95 million more people would join Medicaid and other state-subsidized health insurance programs over the next five years.

Most of the cost, running into the billions, would be absorbed by the federal government. The Medicaid expansion would not cost the state anything until 2017 — although AHCA estimates that changes to other state-subsidized programs would require state money starting in 2014. AHCA estimates that the overall cost to the state would be $2.4 billion between 2013 and 2018 with the federal government picking up nearly $26 billion.

But other groups analyzing the potential changes contend that state officials have ``hyper-inflated'' the potential costs because they assume too many people will enroll.

The ultimate choice, however, won't be Scott's alone. It will also be decided by the Legislature.

PHILADELPHIA, PA - Speaking from the hospital room where he said his ailing 3-year-old daughter is making a "miraculous turnaround," Rick Santorum said that he would resume his campaign on Monday with stops in western caucus states.

"She went through a very tough time the last 48 hours and this afternoon she made really a remarkable turn," Santorum told voters in Florida and Minnesota, via two tele-town halls Sunday night, of his daughter Isabella, who was rushed to the hospital the night before after developing pneumonia in both lungs.

"We've still got a long way to go here but she has without a doubt turned the corner and we are very, very grateful," he said.

Santorum had cleared his Sunday schedule in Florida to be with his daughter but will be back on the trail tomorrow afternoon with stops over the next two days in Missouri, Minnesota, Colorado and Nevada, all caucus states. He will not be back in Florida before its election on Tuesday, having cancelled an event in Boca Raton scheduled for that morning.

Instead, Santorum will hold a primary night party in Las Vegas, an indication the campaign has pulled its stakes from the Sunshine State where a recent NBC/Marist poll had Santorum in a very distant third place.

In fact, turnout at a Sunday afternoon event in Sarasota - at which Santorum's daughter Elizabeth filled in for her dad - served as an indicator to the campaign as to whether they would continue to stump in the state through Tuesday's primary. The rally, held in the same venue where Newt Gingrich drew more than 3,000 people, had a scant showing of fewer than 250.

Santorum also seemed to have already moved beyond Florida during the call with Minnesota voters in which he emphasized the importance of caucus-style contests to his campaign.

"We want the activists of the party, the people who make up the vast part of the Republican Party, to have a say in who our nominee is as opposed to a bunch of people who don't even identify themselves as Republicans picking our nominee," Santorum said, noting that only registered Republicans can participate in a caucus.

"I believe that a state should only allow Republicans to vote in a Republican primary. Why? Because it's the Republican nomination, not the independent nomination or the Democratic nomination."

Santorum refrained from making such a pro-caucus statement in Florida, which holds a primary, albeit a closed one in which only Republicans can vote.

"This is an election that's wide open; This race isn't going to be decided in Florida, it's not going to be decided for quite some time. But Florida can have a big say," he said to voters on the first call.

And while he didn't handicap his finish in Tuesday's primary, Santorum still predicted he would finish strong in the Sunshine State, thanks to an increase in donations which he said began after his victory in the Iowa caucus was confirmed.

"We're going to come out of Florida I think with a pretty good number, certainly dollars per votes we're going to run rings around the other candidates," Santorum said, referring to the amount of money candidates spend in a state divided by the vote percentage they receive.

A decent showing in Florida will allow him, he continued, to "come into states like Minnesota, Colorado and some of the other states that are having their caucuses and primaries and be in a much better position."

Santorum said he was hoping to "do very well" in Minnesota, adding "we're looking forward to getting up there tomorrow and spending a lot of time and trying to get folks in the Land of Ten Thousand Lakes to join us."