On the day Rick Scott became Florida’s chief executive, the Independent’s Travis Pillow laid out what to expect from the Sunshine State’s new governor.
Rick Scott’s 2010 campaign strategy, which mirrored that of many conservative candidates around the country that year, was rooted in the media maneuvers of right-wing movements, and Scott’s campaign in fact shared DNA with both the press management of the district attorney who prosecuted Kansas abortion provider George Tiller and the public relations company that promoted Swift Boat Veterans for Truth in the 2004 presidential campaign.
Two weeks before Florida’s 2010 primary, new allegations of improper Medicare billing by Solantic, a health care company co-founded by Rick Scott, surfaced, in addition to charges made by former Solantic doctors that their names and licenses were used without their consent. Within hours of being pressed for answers by The Florida Independent, Solantic officials and Scott held hastily arranged press conferences to rebut the charges.
Rick Scott’s record as a businessman is controversial. He is famous for earning a fortune in for-profit hospitals, until he was ousted as head of the country’s largest hospital chain in 1997, during an investigation that led to a criminal indictment of the corporation for massive Medicare fraud. To rebound, in 2001, Scott launched Solantic, a statewide chain of walk-in clinics based in Jacksonville. From the beginning, Scott and Solantic were dogged by lawsuits that accused the chain of serial discrimination.
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