Rick Scott has had his fair share of controversies over the years. From his early days at Colombia/HCA and financial frauds, Rick Scott has shown that he has no problems with bending the rules a little bit if he stands to gain financially from whatever situation he’s in. Now, will his controversies ever come to an end? We don’t know. But, what we do know is his greatest hits so far, so let’s talk about those for a minute.
Ice Rod Vs. Mannequin
Before we proceed any further, we do have to say that it wasn’t Rick Scott that was involved in this controversial attempt at being funny. As you can see from the Scott Cooper Miami report on this incident, it was one of Scott’s people that pulled out a giant, phallic-shaped ice rod and dry-humped a Rastafarian mannequin.
Just by reading this, you can probably tell that this was nothing more than a frat guy joke, but that’s exactly the problem. You’d expect this low-level sense of humour from an always-drunk 20-something-year-old that is in a fraternity, but from a high-profile political consultant, not so much.
To be fair to Scott’s consultant, the only thing we have is a semi-blurry photo of him standing in front of a mannequin. Whether he was actually trying to be funny or was it like he says, “A snapshot taken at exactly the wrong moment” – we don’t know. What we do know is as far as controversies go – this one is mild.
All About Green
You probably know of Florida’s incentives to lower carbon emissions, so it must come as a surprise that the former governor of Florida would push for a large-scale gas pipeline while everyone else is trying to go green. What people don’t seem to understand is that Rick Scott loves green, as well. The only problem is that the green he loves has dead presidents’ faces on them. Be that as it may, that still doesn’t count as controversy, right? Well, not until you realize that Scott owns a stake in the company that’s building the pipeline. Now, if that doesn’t smell sketchy – we don’t know what does.
Biggest Fraud In History
Before he was the governor of Florida, Rick Scott was a very successful businessman. His Columbia/HCA company had made billions offering private health care. But, how did a company found in El Paso go from being worth basically nothing to having over 900 health care institutions and an estimated worth of $20 billion? Well, the FBI wanted to know the same thing, so they launched an investigation in 1997.
Pretty soon, Rick Scott was pressured to resign as the CEO and chairman of the company, and by the time case was closed in 2002, Scott had pleaded the Fifth Amendment 75 times. In the end, Scott’s company had to pay out over $600 million, plus interest, to the US government, which was at that point the largest health care fraud settlement in history. In all, it took more than $2 billion to settle everything once the case was closed.
Conclusion:
Compared to a $2 billion fraud settlement, all of the other controversies surrounding Rick Scott seem meaningless, but you can’t say he doesn’t have a knack for being in the spotlight for the wrong reasons.
