Gov. Scott of Florida takes the cake with his brazeness. First he invests over 40 million of his own personal wealth to run for governor but almost anyone with a brain knew he had some sort of a plan to get that back. http://www.politicususa.com/en/rick-scott-taxpayers-clinics The law to privatize the state's medicaid has now been passed by Scott and his state GOP buddies and now his wife stands to reap the profits on the 62 million shares that he forked over to her before the election. Sly dog......that Rick Scott. :roll: "A few years after the major fraud debacle, Scott started Solantic, a chain of urgent cares that quickly became one stop shopping for healthcare, sort of like the Wal-Mart of healthcare (an irony here is that urgent care clinics have grown as people are not able to take time off of work to see their regular doctors). Then Scott ran for governor, won, and refused to sell off his stock options or exclude his company from profiting from his legislation. Cue the stock transfer to his wife. By the way, Solantic is currently under investigation by U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for alleged Medicare fraud."
.....now I see where you get your material. Perhaps somebody should tell them that Scott sold his interest in the firm a month ago..... http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/04/13/2166115/scott-closes-deal-on-solantic.html
Good call... But given his statements as summarized below I'll bet he is not done yet: "Asked on March 29 whether he would sell his interest or bar the company from receiving state contracts, Scott said, “As I’ve told you, I’m not involved in that company.” Six days later, Scott announced the state would not contract with the company. Then he acknowledged for the first time on Tuesday he was interested in selling. By selling his shares, it appears that Scott cannot prevent the company from bidding — or winning — state contracts under Florida law, said Brian Burgess, a spokesman in Scott’s office." I dunno.....I just have a feeling we haven't seen the last of this. It's very similar to the Cheney-Haliburton debate in Iraq.
....and no doubt you're using equally credible sources. The Cheney/Halliburton debate was no debate. It too was the product of conspiracy-minded blogs that feed off of those that can't or won't think for themselves.....for those with the wherewithal either intellectually or otherwise to do a little research, it's a matter of fact based upon public information easily accessible on the web these days. It's not as if Scott can call his broker and place a market order to sell the controlling interest in the company.....it's private. The stock is not traded on any public exchange and private transactions of this size take some time to get done.....unless of course you expect him to give it away? It seems as if you'll believe anything you read on these things.....it's absurd. These guys look for a boogey man around every freakin' corner....jeezus. Use your noodle man.....
It's not that simple with Rick Scott: "In the 1990’s, Scott headed Columbia/HCA Healthcare, the largest for-profit hospital in America. Under Scott’s leadership, Columbia/HCA committed major Medicare fraud. They had to pay the government 2 billion dollars in settlement fees and interest, which made it the largest fraud case in history" From the article I posted that I'll bet you didn't read. He has given many reasons why he cannot be trusted.
Well, let me say this about that.....HCA was headquartered in Nashville and the company I worked for was their lead bank and had an extensive relationship with them in the 90's during my tenure as Treasurer.... I knew its founders and most of its executive leadership. There is likely nothing of a material nature that you can tell me about HCA and/or Rick Scott during his time at HCA of which I'm unaware and it's doubtful if I'm going to learn anything new from a magazine article.....and certainly not from those wacko liberal/socialist blogs whose inane rants you seem to accept like gospel.....
It's no rant. It is gospel that Scott's company was guilty of one of the largest fraud cases in U.S. history......and they paid a huge sum as penalty for it. So.....you think Scott based on your knowledge of him and his old company is of high moral fiber and he has no ulterior motives whatsoever in pushing through legislation that privatizes medicaid administration here in Florida?
As I recall there were several HCA execs that were charged and convicted of fraud in the case and if memory serves sentenced to prison.....Scott was neither charged nor convicted. However, the Board felt it best for the company to clean house and in fact, Scott was given a handsome settlement upon his departure. He is one of the most knowledgeable executives in the country on the health care system and, as are many of us, is philosophically opposed to the government performing any activity that would be better served in the private sector.....if Scott believes it best to privatize certain activities related to health care services, my bet would be it's because he believes it to be in the best interest of Florida taxpayers...... some of whom will be thankful that he's looking after their interests, others will find a boogie man and it won't matter what he says or does, they will always think they're getting screwed and , want the central government to do everything for them....just guessin'. Could be wrong.....
Precisely because Scott is a businessman first it makes one wonder why in the hell would such an astute aggressive businessman invest 40 million dollars of his personal wealth for no return? When that same guy was the one in charge of a company FINED 1.7 BILLION DOLLARS FOR MEDICARE FRAUD it makes one wonder again when that guy spearheads legislation to turn over 2 billion dollars in healthcare management revenue to the private sector.......and his most recent company stands to profit considerably in the interim while chances and public concerns are that the people needing this healthcare will play hell trying to get it.
The other shoe will drop on this guy before it's over I'm sure. It's a matter of time before he makes the recently deposed Illinois governor Blagojevich look like a choir boy..... :wink: Before I go though I do have a question for BT since he knows HCA and their operations so well. How is it BT that the energetic......seemingly hands-on Scott knew not a sliver of his company's fraudulent medicare billing practices.....so extensive they resulted in such a massive fine?
The guy may turn out to be a crook or the finest leader the state of Florida has ever seen, I dunno, but I would suggest that those are questions for the FBI who conducted the investigations.....but wait, that was during the Clinton administration and he was in charge of the Department of Justice. So, in light of the fact that Bill Clinton has been charged and convicted of more crimes than Scott, I would suspect that the Clinton's were in cahoots to whitewater, er, whitewash the crimes so that they could all share in the ill-gotten bounty? Clinton did it.....put that one in your blog and smoke it, eh? :roll:
I know no details of the case...but I do know about billing medicaid and medicare. The rules are convoluted and complex...and subject to different interpretation by different attorneys and accountants. Billing either involves trying to maximize your profits based on your interpretation of the rules, or else being so afraid of the gov't coming after you that you actually under-code and under-bill just to be safe. Given the huge size of this case, it wouldn't surprise me if there were shenanigans going on...but what is fraud to one expert may be honest billing to another...and guess who always wins when the gov't accountants come after you? I also agree that as head of the company he by default shares in the guilt...the buck stops here and all that...but his background is in business...though he does have a law degree. It is quite possible that he listened to the wrong advisers... Maybe he is a crook...I know nothing of the factual details except for the huge dollar amounts and the fact that the Feds did not go after him (but they did others in the case).
Like to get a straight answer from you BT since you are a businessman yourself and may have insight as to why Scott.....so successful and as I say aggressive.....could be so in the dark and so unaccountable for such fraud under his watch. Then there is this little decision of Scott's that has further eroded his approval in Florida down to a meager 35% and slipping: http://blogs.miaminewtimes.com/riptide/2011/05/new_york_times_editorial_rips.php
The straight answer is that I have no idea as to why the FBI after an extensive and lengthy investigation that saw charges filed and convictions realized against several HCA execs did not think that charges against Scott were warranted.....perhaps you should suggest to them that after your extensive and lengthy reading of socialist blogs that you believe that they made a mistake...... As to the rail system, there are other Florida residents here on this board that disagree with your views on the subject. That said there is already a rail service in Florida, how is that one working out for the Florida taxpayers? How many deficit-laden rail lines do you think the Florida taxpayers should subsidize? Is there a limit? If every state Governor exercised the same discretion that Scott did in this case, the federal budget would be in a helluva lot better shape.....
Uh....ok then. I guess Scott just wasn't paying attention when all that fraud went down..... :roll: On the rail....it would have created thousands of jobs here in Florida and brought more tourism dollars into state coffers.....especially the Tampa Bay area beach communities. Since Scott has taken office he has passed on this job creation opportunity and he has authored in thousands of job cuts throughout the state including the 1100 first and second year teachers here in Pinellas county alone that will lose their jobs. His tag line to every campaign statement he ever made was "let's get to work". :lol: :lol: Maybe there has been an uptick in fruit pickin jobs.....I dunno.... :roll:
The ******** meter is going off the map. There is plenty of evidence that the jobs estimate is overflated, the benefits of this "high-speed " (bullcrap) rail are nonexistent, and the only people pushing for them are those who would profit ...to the tune of billions. I though you were against that stuff. That isn't the role of government my friend. To spend a everybody's money to benefit a few. Hey, I know you are against that kind of stuff...you just can't get past your partisanship ...something you continuously accuse us of.
Are you suggesting that Department of Justice committed a fraudulent investigation while Clinton was the Chief Executive? Or incompetent? Looking the other way or just in cahoots? That's fantastic.....if the good citizens and taxpayers of the great state of Florida are clamoring for another high speed rail system to link a couple of major metro areas in the state they are certainly capable of using their own taxing authority to raise the necessary development funds....there is no need to forcibly take it from taxpayers of other states who will derive zero benefit. If it is such a great idea and Scott is such a bad American for not wanting to borrow another couple of billion from the Chinese to gorge at the federal government trough then continue to burden the taxpayer to subsidize its operations as the system can't stand on it's own two feet then why don't you run on that platform in the next gubernatorial race in FL and kick his crooked fraudulent a$$....
High speed rail here in the counties surrounding Indianapolis make a ton of sense. However, the local communities have shown overwhelmingly that they have no interest in spending extravagant amounts of money for it. The costs are astronomical just to build the infrastructure from scratch, not to mention the continuous funding of the operating expenses. I know nothing about Florida politics and don't care, but it seems to me that any governor who declines federal funding to pay only a portion of the total cost of building a high speed rail system is doing his taxpayers a huge favor.
From Tampa Tribune......not a blog: http://beta2.tbo.com/business/business/2011/jan/07/scott-getting-pressure-to-turn-down-rail-money-ar-17122/ "he current proposal calls for a $2.7 billion project, of which the federal government would pay $2.4 billion, with the state on the hook for the rest. State officials, though, have said Florida's share would be paid for from a special rail fund the Legislature established in a special session in December 2009." "support among business people and downtown residents crosses political party lines. "It's very important we have a thoughtful discourse as a community on the project's merits - not just that it costs an amount of money, but what it does for us," she said. "Too often decisions are made on the basis of sound bites - if it's expensive it's bad, but that's not necessarily true." Christine Burdick, president of the Tampa Downtown Partnership, said she was surprised by the opposition some have to accept federal funds that Floridians already have paid for with their taxes." Already paid for......what a dumbass.