Rick Scott got petulant, and then Rick Scott whined: Charlie Crist broke the rules by using a fan to cool himself during their debate! The usual Beltway media clowns are playing their usual false equivalency enabling game, by claiming that somehow Crist is just as bad as Scott, because rules!
Of course, if Rick Scott actually gave a damn about rules, perhaps he wouldn’t have overseen his health care monster’s Medicare fraud that resulted in a then-record fine.
HCA-The Healthcare Company (formerly known as Columbia-HCA), the largest for-profit hospital chain in the United States, has agreed to plead guilty to criminal conduct and pay more than $840 million in criminal fines, civil penalties and damages for alleged unlawful billing practices, Attorney General Janet Reno announced today.
Today's agreement is the largest government fraud settlement ever reached by the Justice Department.
And just
to be clear:
Rick Scott was co-founder and CEO of Columbia/HCA in the 1990s, when the FBI launched a massive, multi-state investigation that led to the company pleading guilty to criminal charges of overbilling the government.
And just to be
more clear:
Rick Scott's company, Columbia/HCA, paid a $1.7 billion settlement after pleading guilty to several charges. The fraud was so rampant under Scott's leadership that some documents were brazenly "stamped with warnings that they should not be disclosed to Medicare auditors," "some hospitals were knowingly inflating the numbers reported to the government in the cost report to improperly raise total compensation," and they "improperly included expenses for employee picnics, Christmas gifts and food for nonemployees at social functions as expenditures related to patient care in the cost report for its headquarters."
Columbia/HCA pled guilty to "overcharging the government," "exaggerating the seriousness of the illnesses" of patients, and giving doctors kickbacks in order to receive higher Medicare payments. Well done. It takes a special kind of person to steal money from a program that helps hardworking Americans.
Rick Scott claimed he wasn’t responsible. Just because he was in charge didn’t mean he was responsible. Apparently, personal and professional responsibility about his own company massively defrauding the government are less important to Scott than following rules about using fans during political debates.
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