Daniel TilsonI want to serve on Gov. Rick Scott’s Commission on Hospital and Healthcare Funding. I mean, poetic justice aside, I’m uniquely qualified to help the cause.
Not the governor’s cause, not the crusade to turn Florida’s healthcare system into a hardcore conservative model for what could replace the Affordable Care Act after he’s helped elect Marco Rubio or Jeb Bush president and succeeded Rubio in the United States Senate.
Settle down and take a deep breath; that’s still just a long-winded hypothetical, for now.
The cause I’d push is to get lots more reasonably intelligent and relevantly experienced everyday people sitting on commissions like this one. Because the more we get folks from all walks of Florida life involved in public policy development, the less that hidden agendas in high-priced suits can control the process.
Speaking of controlling the process…Have you heard the one about Hospital Corporation of America (HCA) contributing $100,000 to Gov. Scott’s cause (campaign committee, same thing), the same day he created the commission? It’s no joke, but it sure is “funny business.”
You see, back when HCA was called Columbia/HCA, Scott was its CEO. Under his leadership it became the biggest, fastest-growing hospital chain in America – and also the most aggressively cutthroat, criminally fraudulent and heavily fined.
In pursuit of ever-higher profit margins the company broke the law for years, cheating the Medicare reimbursement system out of billions via illegal billings. Then there were the legal but ethically questionable business practices, the “profits over people” cutbacks to frontline medical staffing, services and patient access to care.
All were part of what, according to New York Times coverage of Scott’s forced resignation as CEO in 1997, people close to Scott characterized as “an arrogance and aggressiveness that permeated the company.”
In Scott’s next big business healthcare venture, he went toe-to-toe with the hospitals. His Solantic chain of walk-in “urgent care” clinics competed with emergency rooms all across Florida. And it too became the subject of fraud allegations, before Scott sold his interest in the company after getting elected governor in 2010.
His political career took flight on the wings of anti-Obamacare advertising and the promise to put Florida back in the black by running government like a business. But now Scott’s unabated anti-Obamacare activity has landed us in a tough budget spot, where the black could turn red if his gamesmanship with the feds goes wrong in the weeks ahead.
So…he created this commission. And all those hidden agendas in suits and the organizations advancing them have been lining up to take a seat at the table. The insiders know Scott’s history. They know his ultimate agenda is to create an alternate health “reform” plan capable of competing with if not replacing the Affordable Care Act. They know he puts profits over people when it comes to the healthcare delivery business. They just want to protect, preserve and perhaps enlarge their slice of the pie.
That’s where plain old peeps like you and me come in. We need to be the watchdogs at the table, the checks that balance their powers. Not two or three of us as token “consumers” but as more than half of that commission.
Hey, I’m ready, able and willing, um…as long as I get travel expenses and a little time to ask the governor why his FDLE investigated me over a sarcastic Beatles song reference in one of my columns a couple of months ago. But seriously, before opening my first video production company in 1995, I spent eight years in public affairs for Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield in NYC.
Interestingly enough, those were the years when they were New York’s “insurer of last resort” – the only company selling individual coverage to the most seriously ill people. Empire kept crying poverty because of high claims costs and regularly demanded and got big rate hikes…until investigators discovered they were keeping a second set of books that told an ugly story of bad healthcare business practices gone wild.
So like I said, I’m ready. Rick…call me.
Daniel Tilson has a Boca Raton-based communications firm called Full Cup Media, specializing in online video and written content for non-profits, political candidates and organizations, and small businesses. Column courtesy of Context Florida.
