October 25, 2010

Sink, or Scott?

Who should be the next governor of Florida, Alex Sink, or Rick Scott?  It's a no-brainer; Alex Sink is the only viable candidate running.

Let's look at the recent debate:

Sink points out that when Scott was the head honcho of the company he founded, the company he was running committed Medicare Fraud, and the company wound up paying $1.7 billion in fines for ripping off taxpayers

Scott rebutted that the company Sink worked for was fined $6.7 million dollars for misleading investors.

Let's compare those two fines for a moment:

SCOTT - $1,700,000,000
SINK   -           $6,750,000

Notice anything?   If the size of the fine is commensurate with the size of the crime, it's obvious whose crime is bigger.

But consider:
Scott was the founder of Columbia/HCA.  He ran the company. He was the top dog.  He set policies.  Those policies included committing Medicare fraud.

Sink worked for Nations Bank. She was an employee - a highly situated employee, but someone hired on nonetheless.  Policy was set by the home office, and didn't go through Sink.

Neither was charged with a crime.  But in a civil suit, Scott claims that although he signed all the reports and letters that indicated he knew about his company's crimes, he never actually read what he was signing.  His defense was he didn't know what his company, the one he founded, and the one he was running, was doing.

From The Miami Herald:
"I don't know what the document said..."
From the Palm Beach Post:
"It was a legal dispute that was settled," Scott said of the lawsuit against the Solantic health clinic chain. "It has nothing to do with running for governor..."
Actually, it has everything to do with running for governor; the governor is responsible for signing bills into laws, and to sign budgets to make them official.  And Scott is on the record stating that he can't be bothered to read everything he puts his signature on.

In The Miami Herald, he claims that he "took responsibility" for his company's actions.
"What happens in companies is that you have to take responsibility for what happens under your watch.  Mistakes that were made you take responsibility as CEO and you do everything you can to make sure those things don't happen. What I tell people is that's what I'll do as governor.''
Footage from his actual testimony:

The man who started with nothing and ended up running a multi-billion dollar hospital chain doesn't know what "predecessor" means.  Or "chain" (as in his hospital chain).  Or "occupancy."  Or "market." 

He'd have us believe that he didn't know anything about what his company was doing; and he's running on the strength of his administration of that company.

And what about Sink, and the fines her company paid?  Investigators didn't find her to be involved in it in any way.

Sink has been very open, meeting with all 16 of Florida's major daily newspapers, and answering questions posed by their editorial boards.  Scott refused to sit down with any of the newspapers' editorial boards. And his childish response, when it was pointed out that all 16 newspapers are endorsing Sink?
"Most of them endorsed Barack Obama. You're an Obama liberal. That's why they endorsed you," he said.
- Palm Beach Post.
Interesting theory, but I have a better one; since you wouldn't talk with any of them, they went with the candidate who came across as open and honest: the one who bothered to talk with them.

I have no doubt that Rick Scott would run Florida the way he ran Columbia/HCA; defraud taxpayers as a matter of course, sign anything put before him, and claim not to know why Floridians are paying through the nose.

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