If your ex-con boyfriend slaps you around when you ask why he emptied out your bank account and then you take him back, everyone knows you've given him permission to rob and hurt you again.
That's the message voters gave Republican Rick Scott yesterday when they elected a man to the governor's mansion who oversaw the biggest Medicaid fraud in the nation's history.
Throughout the campaign, reporters asked Scott whether he took credit for the fraud
Columbia/HCA committed while he was its CEO. Scott's answer was that his
underlings didn't keep him in the loop, yet he took credit for the
company's successes during his tenure. At best, that's malfeasance, and
at worst it's criminal.
Yet it appears Scott has clinched the
race. Final results haven't been announced, and Scott has yet to declare
victory. But the remaining absentee ballots and uncounted precincts are not enough to give Democrat Alex Sink a victory.
Update: The state has now tallied almost all votes (2 percent of Broward precincts are
still uncounted), and Scott has won by about 66,000 votes. Sink called Scott
this morning to concede.
Scott
ran Columbia/HCA for ten years before resigning in 1997 amid an FBI
probe. The company's scam was a simple bookkeeper's skim job --
overcharge the government for Medicaid procedures and reap the excess
profits. The company later paid a $1.7 billion fine but avoided criminal
charges. Scott also was never charged, despite overseeing the Medicaid
rigging.
Last night, while Sink refused to concede, Scott told
his supporters he had won.
"Based on the numbers we're seeing
now," he said, "after all the votes are counted, I am absolutely
confident I will be the next great governor of the State of Florida."
It's
true that it appears he will be our next governor, but whether he'll be
"great" or whether he'll rob from us and then blame the auditors --
that's still to be determined.
