TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) -- An aide to Florida Gov. Rick Scott is defending the Republican's opposition to expanding Medicaid under the federal health care overhaul to cover another million state residents, even though the federal government would pick up most of the initial costs.

Spokesman Brian Burgess on Thursday said the state cannot afford the millions it would take to attract billions in federal funding every year that Florida is eligible to receive through the expansion. The governor, a former hospital chain executive, has been a leading opponent of the federal health care overhaul that would extend coverage to millions.

Burgess also said the state has other programs to help low-income people who don't qualify for Medicaid.

"We have to figure out how to pay if we are going to do this, and we don't see a way," Burgess said.

He was reacting to preliminary figures reviewed this week by state economists. They show turning down the expansion would cost Florida nearly $40 billion in federal money to save at most $2.5 billion in state funds over 10 years.

"Where does it come out of?" Burgess asked. "What programs get sacrificed?"

The expansion could eventually cover in excess of 1 million more Floridians, but the economists don't believe all those eligible will participate. They are revising the dollar estimates downward, but Burgess said Scott is worried the costs, instead, will increase in the future.

Critics say Scott is being penny-wise and pound-foolish to oppose adding billions in federal money to Florida's economy. Many Republican governors favor the repeal of what they call "Obamacare," even though the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the constitutionality of the so-called individual mandate.

Among those critical of Scott's stance are the Florida Center for Fiscal and Economic Policy, a liberal think tank in Tallahassee. The center released a report this week disputing Scott's claim that Florida's Medicaid program has been growing more than three times as fast as the state's general revenue.

It says Scott's statistic is inflated due to the recession and contrived to make any Medicaid growth appear as extreme as possible.

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Aide defends Scott's stance on health care dollars