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When Rick Scott threw his little Tea Party hat into the Florida Governor's Race, I thought for sure Floridians would remember the Columbia/HCA debacle, which he managed to escape from with a resignation and no criminal charges. Basically, he bailed out and let the company pick up the pieces by paying the heftiest fine for Medicare fraud assessed in history.
After moving on from Columbia/HCA, he started Solantic, another health services company. Unsurprisingly, Solantic also faced fraud charges, this time for submitting falsified medical records to the state.
As part of the lawsuits against Solantic, Scott gave a deposition. The video above is a compilation of that deposition's greatest hits, courtesy of Rick Scott.
There comes a point where it isn't mere coincidence anymore, where lawsuits aren't just "part of the cost of doing business", and where a pattern emerges. What that pattern tells me is that Rick Scott is not qualified for public office, because he is a scofflaw who has no problem breaking laws to pump up his bottom line. How would that square with governing a state like Florida?
It boggles my mind that Florida would elect this guy to be their governor, yet the polls show him neck and neck with Alex Sink. Imagine the fraud he could perpetrate on the taxpayers of Florida with that office. Imagine him trying to fight health care reform while making money from it.
In the words of none other than Rudy Guiliani:
"
This is not a guy who should be governor, it is as simple as that ." Giuliani said about Scott, the former head of the Columbia/ HCA hospital chain that in the 90's was immersed in the largest Medicare fraud case in history. Scott's former company ended up paying 1.7 billion dollars in fines and penalties.
"If we nominate somebody who has had serious fraud problems in the health care system that is going to be a big mistake," Giuliani said to reporters outside a Boca Raton Republican event.
" There is not going to be a lot of credibility fighting (President Obama's )health care with somebody who has had very very serious problems: one of the largest Medicare frauds in the history of this country," he added.
Seriously, Florida. Get a clue here.
