Rick Scott: Florida's Drug Fraud Enabler?

— By Suzy Khimm

| Tue Mar. 8, 2011 7:49 AM PST

In 1997, Rick Scott was implicated in the biggest Medicare fraud case in US history, stepping down as CEO of Columbia/HCA after the hospital giant was fined $1.7 billion and found guilty of swindling the government. As Florida's new governor, Scott is now trying to kill off an anti-fraud database that would track the fraudulent distribution of addictive prescription drugs in Florida, over the protestations of law enforcement officials, Republican state lawmakers, and federal drug policy officials.
Without consulting state lawmakers, Scott snuck a repeal of the database in his budget this year, despite the fact that it will cost Florida no money. (It's funded by federal money and private donations.) The governor claims the database—which allows doctors to search patient drug purchases for potential abuses—would amount to an invasion of privacy, as the New York Times notes in a story about state Republicans who are at war with Scott. Lawmakers from both parties and patient advocates who fought for the creation of the database are flabbergasted: some view the resource as a critical tool in combating black-market drug traffic, the proliferation of pain clinics, and the abuse of prescription drugs.
Florida is at the center of national epidemic of prescription drug abuse. Prescription drugs are estimated to kill seven people a day in the state, and the number of overdose deaths from oxycodone alone doubled to 1,185 between 2006 and 2009. As a result, Scott has received a hailstorm of criticism from all sides, as the St. Peterberg Times reports:

"This is a step in the wrong direction," said Capt. Robert Alfonso, head of the narcotics division of the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office. "We were looking forward to using it…"
"It makes no logical or rational sense," said Paul Sloan, a Venice-based pain clinic owner and president of the Florida Society of Pain Management Providers. "It's absolutely absurd. This is the most important weapon in the fight against prescription drug abuse…"
Sen. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey, who has been a champion of efforts to fight prescription drug abuse and sponsored the drug monitoring legislation, rapped the governor for sliding his proposal into his mass of budget recommendations.
"I'm extremely, extremely disappointed with the governor and his administration for sneaking this into a...bill," Fasano said.

Scott is also taking aim at Florida's Office of Drug Control, which is charged with raising private money for the database. His repeal effort has even caught the attention of the Obama administration, whose "Drug Czar" Gil Kerlikowske is currently trying to meet with Scott to persuade him not kill off the database.
Scott has made it clear that he doesn't plan to stop with the anti-fraud database. As the New York Times adds, he's also making a big push to privatize Medicaid as well—supposedly to save the state money—while trying to give corporations and property owners $1.7 billion in tax breaks.

FOUL

Our dumb state's dumb governor

Illustration by Shan Stumpf

By Billy Manes

Published: March 3, 2011

When Florida Rep. Rick Kriseman, D-St. Petersburg, somewhat quietly scratched out a personal-as-political manifesto on Feb. 16 - filing not one but two bills that would allow for the recall of elected state officials by the public; one by petition, the other by statute - it was not simply in the name of streamlining political procedure in the Sunshine State. Rather, it was a political call to arms for a state left dumbfounded by its own electoral process.
On Nov. 2, by a margin of 1 percent (or roughly 62,000 votes), Florida elected Richard Lynn Scott to its highest office - despite all of the warning signs, in spite of logic. Within a week of his inauguration, Gov. Rick Scott had intentionally flicked the first domino in what would become an inescapable racket of attacks on social services, state employees and the common good. At his first press conference on Jan. 7, Scott stuttered and sweated through a litany of executive orders: a freeze on regulations, an examination of existing rules, a new Floridian order flecked with anti-immigration sentiments. The press took its position behind the newly installed velvet rope, while Scott disingenuously touted the sacrifices he'd be making - he'd be selling the state's two airplanes, for instance (which was fine by him because he had his own personal aircraft). His ineptitude may have been palpable, but the consequences of his gubernatorial reign had yet to be fully realized.
It was on Feb. 16, the same day the recall chatter was consummated in legislative boilerplate, that Scott lurched for the jugular. In an act of ill-informed antipathy, the governor refused to accept $2.4 billion in federal money the state was depending on to fuel its high-speed rail initiative and create sorely needed jobs that could have put 23,000 people to work immediately. It was a gesture that baffled even Republicans, and it indicated a political flippancy that showed that Scott wasn't just a joke - he was a danger to the tentative health of a state already suffering from a bad case of 12 percent unemployment and an outdated infrastructure. Moreover, Scott's predecessor, Charlie Crist, championed the project just last year, leaving some Republicans in Florida's legislature to question whether Scott even has the authority to act on his whim. On March 1, Sens. Arthenia Joyner, D-Tampa, and Thad Altman, R-Melbourne, filed suit against Scott in state Supreme Court over the rail fiasco. What a mess.
Like others in his class of newbie conservative leaders - Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey and Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin - Rick Scott is more ideological than he is gubernatorial, gold leaf for big business interests, but a slap on the face to mere humans. Early in his tenure, he's already a bumbling wagon of horrible mistakes; there's an almost inconceivable list of reasons he's the worst man for his job below - then there are many more lurking around the corner as he prepares to hood-ornament his inaugural legislative session, which begins March 8. Recent indications are that the veto-proof Republican majority might be willing to play ball with Scott despite initial hesitations, meaning even as an ogre with limited political power, Scott will likely set the tone for a session of surface belt-tightening and hidden back scratching.
We are fucked.

Read More: http://orlandoweekly.com/news/foul-1.1112978

“Has Florida finally elected a certifiable whack job as governor?”

By Carl Hiaasen

Last week, as drug agents secretly prepared to raid more than a dozen South Florida pill mills, Gov. Rick Scott reaffirmed his staunch opposition to a statewide computer database that would track prescriptions of Vicodin, Percocet and other dangerous narcotics.
Said Scott: “I don’t support the database. I believe it’s an invasion of privacy.”
His statement raises numerous questions, none of them comforting.

Has Florida finally elected a certifiable whack job as governor?
Is Scott himself overmedicating?
Undermedicating?
Why would any sane or sober public official go out of his way — very publicly — to protect pill pushers and crooked doctors?
Thirty-eight states use databases to keep track of oxycodone and other painkillers that are now the most widely abused (and lethal) drugs in the country.
Florida is the largest state without such a database, and the undisputed epicenter of the sleazy illegal pill trade.
In the first six months of 2010, doctors in Florida prescribed nine times more oxycodone than was sold in the entire United States during that same period. Pain mills here have prospered wildly and proliferated – in Broward County alone there are 130.
Two years ago, the Republican-controlled Legislature approved a painkiller database, which would be privately funded. Law enforcement officers say it’s an absolutely essential tool for attacking storefront clinics and the drug dealers who flock to Florida from throughout the eastern United States.
The database should have been up and running by now, but bid disputes with private contractors have delayed implementation. Authorities were hoping to have the computerized system in place this spring, but then Scott took office and announced his intention to kill it, along with the state anti-drug office that conceived it.
No one can fathom why. Conitnue reading Carl Hiassen here.

Gov. Scott Rejects Revised Florida High-Speed Rail Plan

This carpetbagger promises jobs then kills a job-creating program. Typical liar. Ed.

Feb. 7: Florida Gov. Rick Scott announces his new budget during a Tea Party event in Eustis, Fla.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Despite assurances from the federal government that Florida would not be at financial or legal peril, Gov. Rick Scott on Thursday rejected a revised $2.4 billion offer to build a high-speed rail system between Tampa and Orlando. 

Scott said Thursday that he worries ridership studies for the bullet train are overly optimistic and combined with likely cost overruns, the state's taxpayers still would be on the hook to cover any losses. 

Last week, the Republican governor canceled plans for a state-managed project for those reasons and said he would return the $2.4 billion in federal stimulus money. Federal officials then came up with a plan to turn the project over to local governments, but it still needed state approval. 

"We have repeatedly and clearly told Gov. Scott and his staff that Florida would not bear financial or legal liabilities," said Olivia Alair, spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Transportation. "There is strong private sector interest in taking on the risk associated with building and operating high-speed rail in the state."

Gov. Rick Scott exceeds constitutional authority

By Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) - 02/25/11 11:38 AM ET 

 

In one of his most challenging moments, President John F. Kennedy was honest and straightforward in conceding he had erred. When speaking to reporters after the Bay of Pigs, he shared a wise man’s quote.
“An error does not become a mistake - until you refuse to correct it.”

Last Wednesday, Gov. Rick Scott made an error in rejecting high-speed rail. Now, it looks like he’s making a monumental mistake, saying he remains unconvinced there’s no risk to taxpayers. And, I think, the governor in rejecting the project may even be exceeding his constitutional authority.

I am disappointed and – quite frankly – think it pitiful that Scott would turn down $2.4 billion in allocated funding for high-speed rail in the nation’s fourth largest state. Such a decision will cost Florida 24,000 new jobs and will obstruct economic growth along the I-4 corridor, and eventually all the way from Orlando to Miami.

For the past week, Scott has cited so-called economic realities that led him to first turn down the money. He claimed Florida taxpayers would be on the hook for possible cost overruns. He claimed that ridership and revenue projections were overly optimistic. He claimed the state would have to repay the federal government all of the $2.4 billion, if the project faltered.

His claims were hasty and ill-informed when he first announced his decision a week ago.  Today, they’re untrue.

Train wreck of a governor

 Thursday, February 17, 2011

Gov. Rick Scott rashly acted in his own political interests and sacrificed the best interests of Florida Wednesday by rejecting federal money for a high-speed rail line between Tampa and Orlando. It is a reckless, devastating decision that has nothing to do with the merits of rail and everything to do with Scott's obsession with courting the tea party movement and fighting the Obama administration. Florida's state legislators and members of Congress should explore every option in salvaging a project that holds so much promise for the state's economy and Tampa Bay's future.

The consequences of Scott's grandstanding are clear. More than $2.4 billion from Washington? Gone. Five thousand construction jobs? Gone. A modern transportation link between two of the largest cities in the fourth-largest state? Gone. Thousands of additional jobs serving the line; billions of dollars more in private-sector investment; and the chance for an ever bigger bang by extending the system from Orlando to Miami? Gone, gone, gone.

After barely a month in office and no serious review, Scott killed an effort that a bipartisan group of the state's political and business leaders pursued for decades. He consigned motorists and commercial carriers along the Interstate 4 corridor to bigger traffic jams. He put taxpayers on the hook for expensive highway projects as the only way to improve moving people and goods between Tampa Bay and the theme park capital of the world. And he sent a message to the global business community that Florida lacks the vision and courage to invest in its future.


Read More: http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/editorials/train-wreck-of-a-governor/1152035

Florida's Governor Can't Count, Even When Shafting State Employees

In a private video conference, billionaire Rick Scott tells employees it's time to tighten belts...with extremely fuzzy math.

By Adam Weinstein on Tue. January 18, 2011 3:22 PM PDT

For several weeks now, since billionaire Rick Scott was inaugurated as governor of Florida, I've been wanting to spotlight some of the Sunshine State's political insanity. We here at MoJo are busy putting together the next print issue, however, so you'll have to wait just a bit longer for in-depth reporting on sketchy political appointments, criminal investigations of Republicans, misadventures in deregulation, and gruesome soft-money trails. In the meantime, though, one tipster told MoJo today of a new low in Scott's tenure: his inability to appear marginally competent, even when bringing the hurt to state employees.

According to the source, Scott held a video conference with selected state employees today, including career law-enforcement officers. Its purpose: Scott wanted to personally inform state workers that they'd have to cut back to 13 paid holidays per year. This news was apparently met with total silence from the state employees. The reason? They currently only take nine paid holidays, a fact that's easily discernible from the state's own website. After the conference, state employees reportedly emailed and called each other furiously, laughing over the miscalculation: "Did he really say that? Does he really not know?"

Mind you, Mother Jones' source for this information—who deigned to work yesterday, a federal and Florida state holiday—is no big-government-loving pinko. "Rick Scott is such a fumbling idiot," the source said. "He thinks he's running the federal government!"

We don't know about that, but we do know this isn't the first time Scott's had no idea what he was talking about as the state's chief executive. (Direct quote from a press conference: "It has to go through the Legislature, is my understanding...That's not my understanding. I'm not sure. I have to check into that, but that's not my understanding. It's not my understanding right now.") And he also has plans to slash more benefits for state employees, including a retirement pension system that was already pared down by then-governor Jeb Bush.

Perhaps that's why he's limited media access to government officials in an unprecedented manner, in a state that has one of the nation's most expansive sunshine laws. Be that as it may, rest assured, dear reader, MJ will bring much, much more on the sordid state of affairs in this politically vital appendage of the union.

From: http://m.motherjones.com/mojo/2011/01/floridas-governor-cant-count-even-when-shafting-state-employees