Rick Scott Cited in Business Ethics Textbook for Fraud

Rick Scott says he wasn't responsible as CEO of Hospital Corporation of America for the $1.7 billion in Medicare, Medicaid and Tricaid upcoding fraud. This college Business Ethics book says otherwise.

Tampa bay released an article this morning of a Rick (Richard) Scott textbook citing under the title Business Ethics: Ethical Decision Making and Cases. Rick Scott is featured specifically in Case #13: The Healthcare Company: Learning From Past Mistakes.

More on Rick Scott

The I-Word: More Than a Pejorative

Voters (in Florida) will be turned away if they are wearing campaign apparel and Other Voting Myths

Election Myths vs Facts

 

MYTH: Voters will be turned away if they are wearing campaign apparel.   

FACT: “Voters may wear campaign buttons, shirts, hats, or any other campaign items when they enter the polling place to vote; voters may not otherwise campaign there.” (From the Polling Place Procedures Manual incorporated within Rule 1S-2.034, Florida Administrative Code) So, merely going to the polls wearing campaign paraphernalia is OK, but, by statute (s. 102.031(4), Florida Statutes), one cannot solicit voters within 100 foot of the entrance to any polling place. 

MYTH: The address on the driver license must match the address in the voter registration record in order to be able to vote.  

FACT: The address on the driver license does not need to match the address in the voter registration record. If you have moved and haven’t changed your driver license to reflect your new address, that’s okay. What is important is that you vote in the precinct where you currently live, no matter what your driver license says. 

MYTH: If your house is under foreclosure, you will not be able to vote.  

FACT: A foreclosure notice does not necessarily mean that a person no longer resides in the home, as people often remain in the home after foreclosure begins and are sometimes able to refinance the home. Voters whose homes have been foreclosed but who remain in their homes may continue to vote in their assigned precinct. Voters who have physically moved from their foreclosed residence with no intention of returning to that address as their residence may still vote, but should provide a change of address to the supervisor of elections. You must vote in your correct precinct.  

MYTH: If you are florida college student, you have to change your permanent residence to your college address.  

FACT: If a college student registers with a legal residence in a Florida county, then no further proof of residency is required, regardless of where the college student’s parents reside or whether the student intends to move back to where the parents are located.  

MYTH: Provisional ballots are only counted when there is a close race.  

  FACT: A provisional ballot is always counted when the voter is shown to be registered and eligible, regardless of the closeness of the outcome of the election. A person who votes provisionally simply because he or she forgot ID at the polls will not have to do anything else. If the signatures on that ballot certificate and the voter roll matches, the provisional ballot is counted.  

MYTH: Absentee ballots are only counted when there is a close race.  

FACT: All absentee ballots are counted if properly executed, which includes making sure that the return envelope is signed and that the signature matches the voter’s signature on record.  

MYTH: If a voter owes child support or has pending warrants against him or her, the police will arrest the voter at the polls. 

  FACT: The voter registration rolls at the polls have no indicators whether a voter owes child support or has outstanding warrants against him or her. Furthermore, law enforcement personnel are not allowed in the polling place without the permission of the election board, so ordinarily there will not be any law enforcement personnel in the polling place to identify a voter who may have outstanding child support payments due or warrants against him or her.  

MYTH: If the voter is homeless and has no legal residence, the voter may not vote. 

FACT: State registration laws may not discriminate against the homeless in voter registration as long as the homeless applicant for voter registration intends to remain in a locale and has either a place where he can receive messages or an effective mailing address. The homeless person will vote in the precinct where the applicant receives messages (e.g., rescue mission) or the precinct in which the applicant‘s effective mailing address is located. 

Source: Florida Division of Elections

Terror of Tallahassee - Now even scarier than before!

West Gaines Street could be the epicenter of Tallahassee's indie scene, so much that I am surprised it hasn't shown up yet in the look at this f*cking hipster photo series. Independent stores sell vintage clothing and alternative music in old school LP and cassette tape format. There's a tattoo shop, a Quonset hut bookstore, a couple of active venues and the railroad art park (the new home to Cosmic Cat comic books), buzzing most during First Friday art show events. Open annually in October, the Terror of Tallahassee haunted house is on Gaines Street too - and this year it's scarier than ever.

Herein is the most frightening addition to this years festivities. Although now 2 or more Rick Scott signs are missing from last week, two of them still remain - this one near the entrance flimsily sulking below a human skull. When I contacted the haunted house they claimed no part in the decision of these signs to be put up, adding

"You can't pay attention to anything politically because it's right at the same time as the haunted house."

Sources have led though that the owner of 826 West Gaines Street gave strict permission to the Rick Scott campaign to have the signs placed on the building walls. Property owner Brian S. Webb is listed as a Republican Party contributor under the Florida Division of Elections campaign finance database. 

But just being a Republican doesn't completely herd you in as a Scott supporter - Bill McCollum after the primary wouldn't endorse Scott for the main election and he on the subject said,

"I still have serious questions ... about issues with his character, his integrity, his honestly, things that go back to Columbia/HCA ..."

No, you would have to be more daft to support Scott - a candidate who is backed by the tea party regiment and repeats that we should lessen government interference generally and when it comes to health care regulation in particular. Rick Scott has reason to be worried about government regulation; He was the CEO of the Hospital Corporation of America.

Tax Payers Against Fraud released the HCA ranking 3rd under a list of 100 of the most notable cases of exploiting tax payer funds - in this instance the Medicare, Tricaid and Medicaid fraud amounted to 1.7 billion dollars, one of the largest government fraud settlements in history. Rick Scott was with the company when this happened and even though he was informed, he ignored it, even pocketing $10 million after the settlement was made. Too bad for Scott, maybe lessening government interference would have let him get away with it.

Scott's hospitals are accused of upcoding - treating patients with minor remedies than filing the procedure for something more expensive than what the patient was given. His employees complain that he was buying cheaper than standard medical supplies. Scott has also been denounced for buying up several nearby medical facilities to then close all but one to create a single Hospital with backed up waiting rooms and understaffed personnel and nurses.

So how will the Republican party or even the Tea Party willingly back Rick Scott, partly funding his own campaign on stolen tax payer money from the same social services his constituents are picketing against, to be a spokesperson for healthcare reform? How is Brian Webb, who is also also owner of the Patients First clinic building on North Monroe street, able to ignore Scott's healthcare mismanagement? It's like having BP as the spokesman for oceanography.

At least we're going to be entertained at the haunted house this year - they may be including gruesome silent-hill-style nurses armed with whipping stethoscopes, a spiffy zombie death panel and yes, even Rick Scott himself.

Courtesy of the Reid Report

BC Rave Rape - What Now?

The rape of a 16 year old girl in Pitt Meadows BC is yet another story to embed an uneasy chill in all of us, at best. Some will be raged, somber and maybe even feel nothing at all. In a perfect world we aught to be motivated.

Preventing rape has to be pro-active, we can't ignore the circumstances and be passive observers to our surroundings. Once at the ends of a fraternity party, a girl was laying on a couch after passing out from inebriation. Someone tried to lift her and take her into her bedroom but a friend of his made the right decision. He told him his car was being towed. When he put the girl down in rushed panic, his friend expressed to some girlfriends of the potential victim to get her out of there. This is definitively courageous for someone who was able to put bravado aside and find that compromising his ego was less important than the life altering affect of rape.

We can't tolerate the justification of masculinity to objectify others - men, women or transgendered. In this case particularly there was a party of dozens - people who could have noticed, called the police or took note of their own intuitions. No, I am not blaming the entire party for what happened but just because it's "too late" for this victim doesn't mean it couldn't happen to someone else or even the same girl, again. The people involved are more than still liable..

We have to watch out for each other. There was a time when I attended a many local punk shows and would take pride that if someone were to fall down when they were dancing, they would instantly get picked back up again. They wouldn't go ignored or stepped on, everyone would notice and there was always more than one outreached hand to help.

Libertarians like to say they're not Anarchists...

Libertarians like to say they're not anarchists when many seemingly have this debate among themselves as of whether minimal state is necessary or for total Anarchism.

"DO WE EVER REALLY GET OUT OF
ANARCHY?"
by Alfred G. Cuzan
Department of Government
New Mexico State University

Introduction
A major point of dispute among libertarian theorists and thinkers today as
always revolves around the age-old question of whether man can live in total
anarchy or whether the minimal state is absolutely necessary for the maximization of freedom.

Marco Rubio, what do you think about all of this? Since your base is many libertarians and tea party sympathizers, maybe they can give you a straight answer. Given the Tea Party's lack of identity, with the single exception of advocating the reduction of the federal government, I would confidently say that it would probably be the first time.