Columbia/HCA reports warned Rick Scott of potential legal problems (FL Governor's race)

[seafan]

Source: St. Petersburg Times

Rick Scott has said he would have immediately stopped his former hospital company from committing Medicare fraud — if only "somebody told me something was wrong."

But he was cautioned year after year that the financial incentives Columbia/HCA offered doctors could run afoul of a federal antikickback law that seeks to limit conflicts of interest in Medicare and Medicaid.
They were contained in the company's annual public reports to stockholders that Scott, now the Republican candidate for Florida governor, signed as Columbia/HCA's president and chief executive officer.

The reports said the company believed it was complying with the spirit of the law. But as far back as 1994 — three years before the FBI began scrutinizing the company — Columbia/HCA acknowledged that it might not be following the letter of complex health care rules.

.....

Scott signed his last SEC report as a hospital executive on March 27, 1997 — eight days after the FBI raided two El Paso, Texas, hospitals in what became the largest Medicare fraud case in U.S. history, spanning six states during a seven-year criminal probe. Scott resigned from Columbia/HCA four months later and he was never charged with a crime.

Read more: http://www.tampabay.com/news/health/columbiahca-reports-warned-rick-scott-of-potential-legal-problems/1122581

---

And, much like the belligerent protestations of failed Senate candidate in Florida, Jeff Greene, Scott claims he doesn't remember the warnings he received, the documents he signed off on, and the feds' descriptions of Scott's dealings with physicians as "shams".


It just didn't happen that way in Rick Scott's mind, you see.


Right now, this Republican crook is focused on becoming Florida's next governor.

[nannah]

1. criticism of medicare is that they are vulnerable to fraud

it has always been amazing that it is a blight on the medicare program that businesses cheat them... and not so unusual that is a reppublican owned business doing the cheating. remember bill frist's father's business that paid huge fines for cheating medicare and medicaid.

The irony is that republican cheaters blame the program they are cheating.

[ladywnch]

3. which is why repubs won't let the tea party and company to get rid

of Medicare or Medicaid.....they would lose too much money.

[smuglysmiling]

5. It is the Republican way...

to tell people government doesn't work, rob it blind and screw things up beyond comprehension, then say see...told you government doesn't work.

[DCKit]

2. Scumbags are still running for office...

on the chance that "low-information" voters don't know who they are.

Just saying. No slight of Rick Scott, who I'm sure has never come under federal investigation.

[EJSTES2005]

6. haha

yeah, this guy is a real piece of work...this was in the local paper this week.

"Scott was criticized during his primary by Bill McCollum for saying he would “fight all of the stimulus money” even though he had invested nearly $5 million into a company called XFONE, Inc, which had received $63 million in stimulus loans and grants to build fiber-optic networks..........


Pride is a wholly owned subsidiary of XFONE. And according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings, Scott remains a large shareholder, although he has been trying to liquidate some holdings in the company this summer....................................

Scott owned 3.44 million shares of stock in the company heading into 2010, which was a 15 percent ownership stake. But he put 1.6 million shares up for sale, according to an Aug. 10 prospectus the company filed, which would leave him holding a 4.8 percent ownership stake in the Texas phone company.

At the same time, Scott’s campaign is airing an ad attacking Democrat Alex Sink for backing a ”failed stimulus bill” that ”created debt, not jobs.”


http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_politics/?p=18463

[Mojorabbit]

4. He has a lot of money

and his commercials are very well done

[Hubert Flottz]

7. Rule of thumb number one...

If it is a republican, it is a damned liar!