Rick Scott Target of the Left, Hero of the health debate

[Tracy]

There has been a lot of discussion over Rick Scott lately so I wanted to do some research myself and see if I could clear up some misconceptions and outright falsehoods. And also I wanted to try and understand exactly why the left despises him so vehemently(almost like their Palin derangement syndrome).I've found some really interesting things that I thought I would share.

Rick Scott founded CPR or Conservatives for patients rights. He has led the fight against Obamacare since it started and used 5 to 6 million of his own money in ads against it. Robert Gibbs the Obama press secretary has attacked him publicly because of this and dredged up the case against his hospital while convienently leaving out the fact that many other hospitals and providers faced the same charges and fines. http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/11/06/rick-scott-unsung-conservat... But what I didn't know is that he also fought against Hillarycare as head of Columbia/HCA. http://www.redstate.com/erick/2010/05/27/milquetoast-mccollum-vs-the-hillarycare-killer/ He coordinated with private health providers to fight and they won. After the defeat of Hilarycare,some have alleged that the Clintons may have wanted some payback. The rules for reimbursement were rewritten. The new rules were vague, and subject to many interpretations. Every healthcare company interpreted the rules differently. The Clinton justice department, of course, interpreted the rules yet another way to the benefit of the government. So the government went after not just Rick Scott’s company, but also the Mayo Clinic, John’s Hopkins, Duke, the Cleveland Clinic, Yale University Hospital, the University of Pennsylvania Health Services Center, and the Beth Isreal Deaconess Medical center to name a few. At the initial trial, the government won against all the health providers and assessed huge fines which all of the health companies settled .Rick Scott was never charged with any wrongdoing ,he was never even personally contacted by investigators and it was later revealed that he had argued that the company should fight the government's charges, saying, "My belief when I was there was that if we did something wrong, then we would live up to any of our mistakes. If we didn't do something wrong, we should not settle things."
Scott's firm was the largest in the country with the most hospitals and patients. So it was subject to “the largest fine against a healthcare company in history”.
But later a federal appellate judge said the rules were too ambiguous, and people could differ on the interpretation, and the companies’ various interpretations were all just as valid as the Justice Departments ,so he threw out the bulk of the fines, and overturned all criminal convictions. Here is an example http://www.sptimes.com/2002/03/26/TampaBay/Court_clears_ex_HCA_e.shtml

From Charles B.Lembcke,P.A. criminal defense attorney http://www.cbllaw.com/CM/Custom/TOCNotableCases.asp

"United States v. Whiteside, 285 F.3d 1345 (11^th Cir. 2002). This was the criminal prosecution arising out of the federal government's healthcare fraud investigation into Columbia/HCA. We were both trial and appellate counsel. Upon appeal, the Eleventh Circuit reversed Mr. Whiteside's conviction. The court held that, where the truth or falsity of a statement centers upon an interpretive question of law, the government bears the burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that the statement is not true under a reasonable interpretation of the law."

That he opposed both Hillarycare and Obamacare gives me a small window into why the left has made it a personal mission to destroy him.Obviously he is extremely effective at opposing the policies they put forth and anyone effective is a real threat.

I also wanted to add a thought on the Republican Party and the treatment of Rick. What's really amazing to me is the same people who were championing his cause against health care legislation just a few months ago are now the very same lot that are twisting the knife in his back. My take is that it is first and foremost an entitlement attitude and second a sort of sour grapes mentality that the establishment lost. McCollum ran an extremely lackluster and negative campaign,so negative in fact that a lot of people had no idea what he actually stood for besides opposing Rick. It was a disgusting primary filled with more than the usual political ploys and dirty tricks. McCollum used talking points from the left-wing Center for American Progress site to attack his opponent and the republican establishment stood by it as far as I can tell and even joined in the populist line of rhetoric that he was throwing his money around and won because of the money he spent. It seems that the prevailing attitude in the republican party was no new blood at any cost. I've seen many comments around that Rick was given the nomination over McCollum by McCalister as if McCollum was somehow prechosen by the establishment and McCalister and Scott were messing up the plan (McCalister still garnered 10% of the vote despite the mainstream party or media making barely a mention) . If anything McCalister probably siphoned more votes from Scott than McCollum. If the Republicans lose the governorship of Florida it will be their own fault and something of their own making. First for the entitlement attitude and second for participating in slash and burn politics. They put the slanderous talking points out there and now they are going to be forced to somehow walk them back. It's going to be interesting. And there is a lot riding on the governorship,the new governor will get a chance to redistrict the congressional districts this year after the November election from what I've heard. So if the Republican party is not willing to kiss and make up and at least try to work with their candidate then they deserve to lose and to keep losing,which they will after Mrs. Sink redistricts.

Note comments on this blog post are disabled so that I may continue updating info as I find it.

[Tracy]

http://www.review.net/section/detail/10-15-2010-the-real-rick-scott/