How Rick Scott Will Help Health Care Providers Make Money

Governor-elect Rick Scott gave a speech to Florida business leaders. Scott gave a sign his tem is going to be less transparent than his campaign. The press was not allowed in the event.

There are savings to be had in our Corrections System. We can bring down the costs per prisoner of incarceration by competitively bidding health care contracts and paying competitive salaries for prison staff. Prison staff should be paid as well, but not better, than comparable private sector employees.

We should drug test welfare recipients to make sure we aren’t inadvertently subsidizing addictions.

We need to get a waiver to reform our Medicaid program and rework our health care benefits for state employees. Consumer directed care will lower the costs and increase the available choices. I have considerable experience in driving down health care costs while maintaining quality. The cost saving measures we put into place at Columbia /HCA drove down national health care inflation from 18% to 8% in seven years.

Scott made some statements that were laughable. We can remember the controversy of former House Speaker Ray Samson inserting an amendment to award a prison contract to Blackwater (now known as Xe Services.) In Naples Florida, the private health care provider Prison Health Services failed to adequately treat a pregnant 24 year-old woman. The woman miscarried in the Collier County jail. The woman sued Prison Health Services.

A story Litbrit, Lindsay Beyerstein and I blogged on in 2007. In Hillsborogh County, a nurse for the private health provider Armor Correctional Health Inc. refused to give a rape victim the morning after pill. Shockingly, the rape victim was arrested trying to report being raped.

There are numerous stories like this. Scott will make a ton of money off privatizing the prison system without actually providing savings for the state. Health care companies will make money drug testing people who are unemployed or on welfare. Scott hasn't provided any data to back that claim. As far as Scott's business background give him the tools to save the government money - anyone whose company Columbia/HCa was fined $1.7 billion for ripping off Medicare as no credibility.