I did Google Richard L. Scott and this is just the tip of the iceberg.
HCA, nation's largest hospital company, reaches agreement in principle with Justice Department to pay more than $880 million to settle government's longest-running inquiry into accusations of health care fraud; HCA will pay $630 million in fines and penalties to resolve all outstanding civil litigation with department; additional $250 million will be paid by HCA to Medicare program to resolve expense claims submitted by company to government
December 18, 2002
And:
But the deal announced yesterday does not bring an end to the sprawling investigations into the health care company, some of which have lasted more than seven years. Criminal and other civil investigations into some of the company's business practices remain unresolved.
The settlement addresses civil allegations that the company fraudulently increased patient billings to the government from its hospitals and home health care businesses, and charged for unnecessary laboratory tests. The allegations that remain unsettled have long been at the heart of the case: whether Columbia hospitals fraudulently overstated their expenses to increase reimbursement from Medicare and other federal health programs and engaged in illegal financial relationships with doctors.
OK so now that we know Republicans see the government as a cash cow to fund their money grabbing fraudulent schemes and high tech thefts, Texans need to pay close attention to lawmakers who agree with Scott on health care. Naturally some Texas Republicans will be in totally passionate love with Scott.
Folks in TX-26 should be very worried. Friends, your U.S. Rep. Burgess is a cheerleader for Scott.
Mr. Scott is showing more support from some Republicans in Congress, though. Representative Michael C. Burgess, Republican of Texas and a member of the House health subcommittee, said in an interview that he had invited Mr. Scott to meet with him on Tuesday because he liked what Mr. Scott had been saying.
Folks might also find Scott's sudden concern for health care reform as farcical and laughable as I do.
Mr. Scott has said his sole policy interest is to see to it that whatever overhaul Mr. Obama and Congress consider does not move the country toward a socialized system and away from what he calls his four pillars of reform: "choice, competition, accountability and personal responsibility."
"Accountability and personal responsibility?"
ROTFLMAO.
"After spending over two decades in the health care provider industry, I've seen these principles work firsthand," Mr. Scott said in a recent statement in which he also criticized Mr. Obama for seeking a $634 billion reserve fund for unspecified changes to the health care system.
Translation: These principles allowed me to gorge myself on money bilked from the federal government. The $634 billion reserve fund will be off limits to fat cats like me.
Mr. Scott's supporters say that he has been unfairly attacked over the years for challenging the longstanding orthodoxy of the nonprofit health care establishment.
As Tom Delay, Karl Rove and Alberto Gonzales would say: "I did nothing wrong."
For all their fear mongering over the evil and dreaded "socialized medicine" I wonder what Republicans have to say about for-profit HMOs that deny benefits to patients because of the company's bottom lines? I wonder what they think about the insurance company doctors who are paid bonuses to deny care to seriously ill and dying patients?
My in-laws live in France, which according to W. Doctrine, is an evil place with evil doing socialized medicine.
My in-laws receive excellent care, every bit as good as that in the U.S., at far less cost. They have to wait a shorter period to see a specialist than most Americans insured by HMOs. Contrary to conservative wisdom, doctors there are not quacks with fake degrees. My brother-in-law is a retired physician whose education is on par with that in the U.S. When my now deceased mother-in-law needed in home nursing care, she could afford it without going broke. When she finally had to move into an assisted living community, her health care needs did not bankrupt her or the family.
All of this nonsense about the evils of socialized medicine is nothing other than nonsense, ignorance, and greed of course.
If Republicans want to bear the full impact of renewed populist rage, they should go right ahead and keep on lying about health care and block efforts to reform it.
Come on, Republican protectors of greed mongering fat cats, step up and make our day.
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