Alex Sink also said that she thought that the text message was from a family member. However, supporters of Scott indicate that if you listen carefully, the makeup artist does identify the text as from her campaign. Basically, Rick Scott is accusing Alex Sink of cheating AND lying about it.
Pretty heavy stuff, huh? What do you think of the Alex Sink controversy?
she didn't need any help exposing Rick Scott as a fraud/opportunist - check out Maggie Mahar's Health Beat Blog - In 1997, the FBI raided Columbia/HCA offices in seven states. A few days later, the Board of Directors ousted Scott. Ultimately the company pled guilty to no fewer than 14 felonies and paid a total of $1.7 billion in criminal and civil fines, making this the biggest case of Medicare fraud in U.S history.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, whistle-blowing nurses at Columbia/HCA hospitals charged that, in an effort to hike profits, Columbia/HCA didn’t just cheat Medicare. It downsized its nursing staff, putting patients in danger. As I reported in Money-Driven Medicine, “in California, some nurses protested ‘filthy conditions’ and being ‘stretched to the limit’ as the hospital slashed the ratio of nurses to patients . . . ‘I sometimes had to watch 72 patients’ heart monitors at a time,’ one nurse explained. ‘I was told, either do it, or there’s the door.’” In Indianapolis, nurses complained to state authorities that babies in the neonatal unit were left unattended for as long as three hours. Once, the only nurse caring for seven ill infants was so busy she failed to hear an alarm when a baby stopped breathing. A parent dashed to the baby and stimulated breathing, the state report said. Columbia settled the case without admitting any wrong-doing, paying a $12,500 fine.
Scott was never charged with any wrong-doing either. Instead, he walked away from Columbia/HCA with cash and stock worth over $300 million. Years later, he would use that money to win the Republican gubernatorial nomination in Florida.