{"id":45478,"date":"2025-12-07T12:55:52","date_gmt":"2025-12-07T20:55:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=45478"},"modified":"2025-12-07T12:55:53","modified_gmt":"2025-12-07T20:55:53","slug":"new-face-of-gop-healthcare-fix-is-senator-linked-to-largest-medicare-fraud-scheme-in-us-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2025\/12\/07\/new-face-of-gop-healthcare-fix-is-senator-linked-to-largest-medicare-fraud-scheme-in-us-history\/","title":{"rendered":"New Face of GOP Healthcare Fix Is Senator Linked to Largest Medicare Fraud Scheme in US History"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Sen.<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) talks with reporters after the Senate luncheons in the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday, December 2, 2025. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Photo: Tom Williams\/CQ-Roll Call, Inc. via Getty Images)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sen. Rick Scott is warning fellow Republicans of a \u201cslow creep\u201d toward single-payer healthcare if they don\u2019t craft an alternative to the Affordable Care Act.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Jake Johnson<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dec 03, 2025 (CommonDreams.org)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

US Sen. Rick Scott, former CEO of the company that was at the center of the biggest Medicare<\/a> fraud scheme in American history, has emerged as the most vocal Republican proponent of healthcare<\/a> reform, warning his fellow GOP<\/a> lawmakers that continued refusal to engage with the issue risks a \u201cslow creep\u201d toward single-payer<\/a> healthcare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Thursday, according to<\/a> Axios<\/em>, Scott (R-Fla.) is \u201cconvening a group of House and Senate conservatives on Capitol Hill to pore over fresh polling to develop GOP alternatives to the Affordable Care Act<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

RECOMMENDED…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Medicare<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Medicare for All Backers Argue It\u2019s a Better Solution Than Whatever Trump Is Cooking Up<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"Sen.<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Trump Healthcare Payment Proposal Sparks Fresh Medicare for All Demands to Fix \u2018Broken\u2019 Healthcare System<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Late last month, Scott unveiled his own proposal<\/a> titled the More Affordable Care Act, which would keep ACA exchanges intact while creating \u201cTrump Health Freedom Accounts\u201d that enrollees could use to pay for out-of-pocket costs. Scott\u2019s plan, as the health policy group KFF explained<\/a>, would allow enhanced ACA tax credits to expire and let states replace subsidies in the original ACA with contributions to the newly created health savings accounts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUnlike ACA premium tax credits, which can only be used for ACA Marketplace plans, the accounts in the Scott proposal could be used for any type of health insurance plan, including short-term plans that can exclude people based on preexisting conditions,\u201d KFF noted. \u201cStates could also waive certain provisions of the ACA, including the requirement to cover certain benefits.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhile ACA plans would still be required to cover people with preexisting conditions under the Scott proposal,\u201d the group added, \u201cit is likely that the ACA marketplace would collapse in states that seek a waiver under his approach.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last month, amid the longest government shutdown in US history, Scott leapt at the opportunity<\/a> to champion possible Republican alternatives to the healthcare status quo, despite his ignominious record.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2003, the US Justice Department announced that the hospital chain HCA Inc.\u2014formerly known as Columbia\/HCA\u2014had agreed to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in penalties and damages to settle what the DOJ characterized as the \u201clargest healthcare fraud case in US history.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scott resigned as CEO of Columbia\/HCA in 1997, days after federal agents raided company facilities as part of the sweeping fraud probe. The federal government and company whistleblowers<\/a> said the hospital giant \u201csystematically defrauded\u201d Medicare, Medicaid<\/a>, and other healthcare programs through unlawful billing and other ploys.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn 2000, Scott invoked the Fifth Amendment 75 times in a deposition as part of a civil case involving his time leading the company,\u201d Florida Phoenix<\/em> reported<\/a> last year. A former HCA accountant accused<\/a> Scott, who was never directly charged in the case, of leading \u201ca criminal enterprise.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scott later served two terms as governor of Florida and is now one of the wealthiest members of Congress<\/a>, and he maintains he was the victim of a politically motivated DOJ investigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Clinton Justice Department went after me,\u201d Scott complained during his 2024 Senate reelection campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s unclear whether Scott\u2019s healthcare ideas will gain sufficient traction with President Donald Trump<\/a> and Republican lawmakers, who have seemed content to bash the existing system without proposing anything concrete or viable to replace it. Trump was supposed to unveil his own healthcare proposal<\/a> last month, but the White House<\/a> pulled the plug amid GOP pushback.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some members of the Democratic caucus, meanwhile, are making the case<\/a> for the very system Scott is warning his colleagues about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLet\u2019s finally create a system that puts your health over corporate profits,\u201d Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said earlier this week. \u201cWe need\u00a0Medicare for All<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jake Johnson<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jake Johnson is a senior editor and staff writer for Common Dreams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Full Bio ><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) talks with reporters after the Senate luncheons in the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday, December 2, 2025.  (Photo: Tom Williams\/CQ-Roll Call, Inc. via Getty Images) Sen. Rick Scott is warning fellow Republicans of a \u201cslow creep\u201d toward single-payer healthcare if they don\u2019t craft an alternative to the… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45478"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45478"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45478\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45479,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45478\/revisions\/45479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}