By Ragnarok.Blindphleb 2011-01-14 00:05:31
Not really. I disagree with shooting the man, but after having worked at the hospital he ran I agree the man is no hero. He over saw the largest medicare, medicaid, and VA fraud in history. Then jumped ship with a golden parachute and proceeded to start "Conservatives for Patients' Rights" (CPR) to fight against health care reform and government regulation of the health industry. CPR happens to employ the same PR firm that was responsible for the swift boat adds during the Kerry presidential campaign.
The fallout at the hospital that he left was the company going private and cutting workers to the point that nurses and respiratory therapists were having to pull double duty as housekeeping. Patient rooms were constantly filthy and supplies weren't always available. For years after the workers go through an annual ethics refresher course. Not a bad idea really, but the subjects we cover never correlate with what happened. HCA didn't get sued because some patient gave me a very large gift for services rendered or because we discussed the famous patient we took care of today with our family. I have never heard them once talk about why we have to have the ethics refreshers or what happened in '97 and the outcomes and why that's very bad for our mission of providing excellent care to the community.
In the end of the griswald christmas special, the crook CEO realized his mistake and gave the griswalds their christmas bonus. He claimed that "sometimes things look good on paper, but lose their luster when you see how it affects real folks. I guess a healthy bottom line doesn't mean much, if to get it you have to hurt the ones you depend on." Rick Scott must not have noticed how his actions affected real folks, and that's too bad.
