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Archive 1Archive 2

Contradiction

Intro states that Mr. Scott was born in Illinois; bio section that he was born in Kansas City, Missouri. Does anyone have a reference to show which is correct? Vgranucci 04:35, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

It states he was born in IL and raised in Kansas City...seems to be ok to me 72.17.254.242 22:52, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Columbia / HCA

There is an awful lot of Columbia/HCA stuff on here that appears to have occurred long after Rick Scott left Columbia/HCA. Reasonable folks can debate all day about how much of that chapter of Columbia/HCA's history should be included in Rick Scott's bio. The fact is, the man was never implicated in anything that the company ultimately agreed to pay fines for - and I'm quite certain he didn't have a say in settling those fines. Had he been at the helm years later, Scott may have chosen to fight the government in court. The point is, we don't know what might have happened because Rick Scott wasn't with the company. Thus, I submit to the Wikipedia community that much of the Columbia/HCA history that is included in Rick Scott's bio should actually be contained in a separate article.

In this way, readers can judge for themselves what the facts were, rather than having a handful of agenda-driven Wikipedia contributors trying to tarnish Rick Scott's reputation when all anyone can say for certain is that he presided over the company at a time when some folks far below him on the organizational chart made some poor decisions that ultimately cost the company billions. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.100.184.192 (talk) 17:34, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

The fraud case involving Columbia/HCA Mr. Scott is simply the biggest and most relevant part of Mr. Scott's public life. It's perfectly fair. The captain of the Titanic should absolutely be mentioned with the sinking of the Titanic, even if it's not clear as to whether it was his fault.
If anything, the treatment of Solantic seems unfair in this article. There's no citation at all as to its condition. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.219.235.234 (talk) 03:30, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
You make my point - certainly the captain of the Titanic must be mentioned in the article about the sinking of the Titanic, and likewise, Scott should be mentioned as the CEO for a portion of the time some of the alleged over-billing occurred, but, like the actual article about Edward Smith, who captained the Titanic, the actual information about the sinking of that ship comprises 10-15% of his Wikipedia entry. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.100.184.192 (talk) 16:36, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
Hello to everyone new to the wiki talk pages! Please start the paragraph(s) of your comments with one colon (':') more than the comment you're replying to to keep the discussion legible to everyone else.
Now, to continue...
Presumably the information you were referring were HCA/Frist matters that *have* been moved to a separate article, as nothing beyond the eventual settlement outcome — pertinent to the laying of charges, thus reasonably mentioned — seems to date from any time after his removal as Columbia CEO. What you seem to have missed is that he had no choice as to whether to 'fight the charges' because he was removed from the helm of the company by HCA as a direct result of those charges, about eight years after HCA acquired Columbia. Apparently HCA didn't feel that someone not charged with a crime was therefore not implicated in it. From what has been written here and today in the New York Times, it seems probable that the fraud was a direct and foreseeable if not necessary consequence of the fundamental business model of Columbia; and, indeed, there was an exceptional (unusual) legal relationship established between Scott and the company such that it would be (as it eventually was) difficult to find him liable for any such fraud, were any to occur for any reason.
I agree with you to the extent that that section of the article does not strike me as well written or carefully-enough NPOV, but please resist the impulse to use... rhetoric, rather than the facts themselves, in making your case about this. As you may know, edits to articles made with reference to what does or doesn't seem fair rather than a careful development of known facts may sometimes lead to an edit war, which can lead to lockdown and a concerned attempt to carefully develop a body of referable facts by several hundred people. Given that R. Scott is currently involved in a media campaign against the current Administration's proposed healthcare reforms, this might have unfortunate political repercussions just in and of itself, regardless of anyone's allegiances or intentions.
The IP address 68.100.184.192 is assigned to Cox Communications, and appears to represent a physical node in Alexandria, Virginia, which is a residential suburb of Washington D.C. 69.49.44.11 (talk) 04:15, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
I would, as a follow up, like to bring attention to the actual edits performed from that IP address soon after the comment was made. It involves the removal of dates and figures, including some from the same year in which Scott was removed as CEO of the company. The details removed pertain to the investigation, subsequent charges, and sentencing. 69.49.44.11 (talk) 04:24, 2 April 2009 (UTC

I was made a partner at Johnson & Swanson in Dallas at the same time Rick Scott was. This was in I think 1986. A minor point but I am sure he wasn't inactive in the TX bar in 1986. He probably became a member in 1978. Rick left the firm shortly after being made partner to work with his client, HCA. The fact of the matter is that the medicare fraud at HCA took place while he was in charge. This is common knowledge. He was thrown out by the board when the fraud was discovered. The then history making fine was negotiated by people who remained at HCA, not Rick Scott. I was always amazed he didn't personally face prosecution in connection with the fraud, but I am a real estate lawyer, not an expert on medicare/medicaid law. He also left with about a $10M severance package, however. I wonder who is posting these defenses of this guy. --FrancisDane (talk) 16:48, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Johnson and Swanson Partner, please feel free to call the Texas Bar yourself. They may advise that Rick Scott was inactive as of 1978 and never became an active member of the bar.

Conservatives for Patients' Rights

I work with CPR and I want to point out an inaccuracy in the summary of policy position and quote of Mr. Scott.

Specifically, the article as presently written states:

Scott has stated he will support any health plan that includes all four of these principles, and has solid support for the national board created by the Obama administration in the stimulus bill. "Any meaningful health care reform must be rooted in the patient-centric principles of choice, competition, accountability and personal responsibility. Any program that doesn't include these free principles and has Washington bureaucrats making decisions instead of the tax dollars flowing to entrepreneurs like myself is not meaningful health care reform."[3]

There are several problems. First, the quote appears to reference a press release on the organization's web site, but some of it has been altered from the original: "Any meaningful health care reform must be rooted in the patient-centric principles of choice, competition, accountability, and personal responsibility. Any program that doesn't include these free market principles and has Washington bureaucrats making decisions instead of doctors and patients is not meaningful health care reform," Scott said.

Second, Mr. Scott has not expressed support for a national board nor an opinion that he would support “any plan” that contains the four principles. In fact, the "National Board" ad featured on the CPR home page directly contradicts the assertion that he favors a national board. Facts1918 (talk) 15:30, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

In terms of being accurate, neutral, and encyclopedic, we're generally best-off using independent, reliable secondary sources as the basis for this (or any) article, rather than press releases and other sources directly affiliated with the subject. The Wall Street Journal and New York Times pieces both cover the broad outlines of CPR's agenda, and we're probably best off using those outlines rather than a verbatim rehash of an organizational press release. MastCell Talk 19:00, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Liberal groups and Wikipedia

Hey - regarding this addition, which is currently the subject of some edit-warring. I think it's reasonable to mention that liberal/pro-Obama groups have been campaigning against Scott. It's probably even reasonable to mention that this campaign has included (per the Times) "unflattering additions to his Wikipedia biography." But the edit by THF stretches the source a bit.

It's not exactly a matter of simply disagreeing with Mr. Scott's politics; the Times article indicates that these groups are driven by a desire to publicize his background (specifically his ouster from Columbia/HCA during the investigation which concluded with a guilty plea for at least $1.7 billion in billing fraud). If we mention Wikipedia, we should probably indicate (as does the Times) that until these "unflattering additions", Mr. Scott's Wikipedia article made no mention of the Columbia/HCA story, which appears to be a relevant part of his biography. My 2 cents. MastCell Talk 20:30, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

The New York Times has no way of knowing that "liberal groups" are posting unflattering items to this article. That is why I stated it is opinion, which it is, and unless someone can prove otherwise, this charge should not be included in the article. --Navy II (talk) 22:29, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
It was reported as fact by the Times, which is generally a reliable source. If you feel they've made an error, the most productive course would be to contact the New York Times and ask that they issue a correction. The Times has a very active corrections department and they generally take reader complaints along those lines quite seriously. Arguing here, along the lines you're attempting, probably isn't going to be as productive. MastCell Talk 23:12, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
MastCell, I think you and I are probably pretty much in agreement, I'm just saying that this is a claim that almost certainly lacks merit. It makes it sound like there's a "vast left wing conspiracy." LOL --Navy II (talk) 23:17, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
If you read the NY Times article, it does not directly claim that liberal groups made the "unflattering additions to his Wikipedia biography". Instead, it says that liberal groups defending Obama's plan are "are seizing on Mr. Scott’s background through" the Wikipedia article's unflattering additions. This can easily be interpreted to mean that the liberal groups publicized rather than made the additions; at least, that is how I interpreted the NYT claim (though I can also see the other interpretation). I suggest that the Wikipedia article be worded more carefully, so as not to infer something from the NYT article that it does not directly say. Eubulides (talk) 23:26, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
Eubulides, excellent point - I inserted the word "citing," which should make all happy. --Navy II (talk) 23:40, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Name in first detailed section (Early life and education)

The criteria for the name in the first detailed section should not be a person "refers to himself"; rather, it should be the name that is most generally recognisable, or, rephrased, the name by which the subject is most commonly known. If Mr. Scott decided to start calling himself "Bubba Scott", for example, Wikipedia would not change the name of the article. The subjects of biographies don't own them.

I'm not sure there is a specific guideline that pertains to the first name that is used in the first detail section of the article (that's rather nit-picky for Wikipedia guidelines, perhaps?), but there are guidelines for article naming that use this criteria:

So, what does Google show?

  • "Richard Scott" "Columbia/HCA": 1,970
  • "Richard L. Scott" "Columbia/HCA": 1,510
  • "Rick Scott" "Columbia/HCA": 1,260

Or searching on "HCA" rather than "Columbia/HCA":

  • "Richard Scott" HCA: 8,750
  • "Richard L. Scott" HCA: 2,020
  • "Rick Scott" HCA: 1,530

"Richard Scott" "Conservatives for Patient Rights": 57 "Richard L. Scott" "Conservatives for Patient Rights": 3 "Rick Scott" "Conservatives for Patient Rights": 44

Both of those searches were for web pages; a search on news pages had similar results.

As importantly, every single source that I added to the article used "Richard Scott"; none used "Rick Scott" (at least that I noticed). -- John Broughton (♫♫) 01:08, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

As I stated in my edit summary, Rick Scott's websites, both Richard L. Scott Investments and Conservatives for Patients' Rights, refer to him as Rick Scott. This is not just "how he refers to himself" but it is his public name. When I Googled him earlier, I got different results than you did, with "Rick Scott" outnumbering "Richard Scott" when paired with Columbia/HCA. I think if you repeat the Google search, you will find it varies greatly. Regardless, as Conservatives for Patients' Rights gets more press, the name Rick Scott will appear more and more. Since this is his latest media push, I feel it's appropriate that we refer to him as he refers to himself in the videos on that site and, of course, on his business site. --Navy II (talk) 03:05, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Alleged medicare fraud

Columbia did not plead guilty to medicare fraud. Look it up -- even the main text of the wikipedia article acknowledges it was a plea to lesser charges. THF (talk) 13:45, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Persistent bias in this article

There are some very real problems with this article, which seems in many ways to be written as an attack on Rick Scott. It happens that I work with him, so I take special interest here, and I am very concerned that this article presents him in an unfair light. Here are just a few of the problems I see here:

  • Shouldn't the first sentence say he is a health care executive, instead of waiting for the next sentence? This seems to be inconsistent with virtually every other Wikipedia bio I have ever seen.
  • Mr. Scott is the founder of Conservatives for Patients' Rights but does the opening need to say "failing in its efforts to block healthcare reform..." as if the group is solely to blame for the passage of this legislation? It should just say he is the founder of the group, period. The rest is another subject.
  • The HCA situation is handled in a fairly cavalier manner, but it is complicated, so I will address it in specifics another time. However, this article once mentioned the Solantic Corporation in the lead section, but it has recently been removed. Why is this? As the rest of the article demonstrates, Mr. Scott has had a long and successful career before CPR and besides HCA. Surely these should be mentioned in the lead section of an article about him? They account for a significant portion of his career, but they are not mentioned.

Well, this article needs a lot of work, but I will leave it there for just now or it could be overwhelming. I understand there are rules which aim to dissuade me from editing this page directly, so I hope I can find at least one editor here who agrees with my concerns and will work with me to make this article more fair. Please make the changes above if you do agree, and I will keep watching this page to discuss further issues. --Thirteenth Florida (talk) 14:34, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Thank you to the editors who have helped so far. It's a good start. --Thirteenth Florida (talk) 18:20, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
Being careful here, I did remove a reference to a mention of Scott's Texas law license.[1] This was patently original research and not significant to his biography or career, so in the spirit of BLP and being bold I have removed it. --Thirteenth Florida (talk) 14:19, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

With respect to Scott's lack of a law license, it may be original research. Hopefully, those opposed to Scott's candidacy in Florida will explore this further in other venues. However, I disagree when you claim that that is not relevant to his biography or career. Indeed, it is quite pointedly significant to Scott's biography or career inasmuch as he appears to have been practicing law without a license to do so. That would mean necessarily that Scott was holding himself out as being able to represent others as an attorney when he was not legally able to do so. In many states, that is a criminal offense. This conduct would have a direct bearing on his current campaign--if he was misrepresenting himself/lying before in such a way as to be performing possibly criminal behavior (i.e. the practice of law without a license) then is he perhaps being dishonest now in his efforts to represent the people of Florida? Another question that comes up: why was his license rendered "inactive"? The matter is pointedly relevant, and I suspect that this discussion here should be preserved and continue here without further deletion. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.161.234.103 (talk) 14:31, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Page Move

 Done

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.
  • This article should be moved to Rick Scott since that's already redirected here. The subject is notable for other aspects of his life than just as a businessman and there's no need for the narrowing (businessman) appellation. Freakshownerd (talk) 16:04, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

*Tentatively opppose the move At this time, I would give a tentative NO, although it may deserve reconsideration within a month or two. Safiel (talk) 23:38, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Proposal to expand Florida governor campaign section

With research from Florida newspapers, official sites and well-known polling organizations, I've written a longer version of this section, about the current governor's campaign. You can see my suggested version here. I think it's neutral and significant and would help anyone who has just heard of him now because of the campaign, but because of my possible COI (see directly above) I'm hesitant to add it directly. Please weigh in, or move it yourself if you like it. Thanks. Thirteenth Florida (talk) 21:13, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Considering how quiet this Talk page is, I asked for some assistance on some relevant WikiProjects, and my suggested version has now been adjusted by User:Scapler to my satisfaction. If there isn't any additional comment, I will move it into place a bit later today. Thirteenth Florida (talk) 12:53, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
After a discussion at WikiProject Florida and assistance from another editor, I have now added this section. Thirteenth Florida (talk) 01:21, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Proposing removal of section "Other corporate involvements"

The section "Other corporate involvements" is an interesting one, because until just a few days ago it included mention of a company Scott was involved with, Secure Computing, whose software was reportedly used by Iran to censor its Internet.[2] The section had been revised down by other editors concerned, as it seems to me, because of BLP issues and the fact that the implications were unclear. At present, the very brief section contains only outlines of the situation,[3] and is probably confusing to anyone who doesn't know anything about it.

The closer one looks at the details, I think it's clear that this is a guilt-by-association claim that doesn't hold water. As written now, it says the company Scott invested in was "accused of ties to Iranian government efforts to block websites" -- and while it appears to be the case that Iran did use this software, what was not mentioned then and is not mentioned now is that this software was apparently stolen or otherwise illegally obtained by the Iranian government, so there was never a relationship between the company and Iran. In fact, in several news articles, the company made clear it did not have "ties" to Iran, and in fact they acted to stop Iran from using their software.

For example, Information Week reported:

Secure Computing said Friday that it is taking steps to prevent Iran from illegally downloading its software. In a report released earlier this year, ONI stated that Iran used software from Secure Computing, based in San Jose, Calif. to operate "one of the world's most substantial censorship regimes" in 2004 and 2005. Secure Computing Public Relations Manager David Burt said Friday that the company is actively trying to stop Iran from using its software. ‘It's illegal to sell to them, so we're not selling to them," Burt said. "They're essentially stealing our products. We're blocking attempts to download from IPs that we know originate in Iran.’”

Here is another, from the BBC:

“Secure Computing did not agree to an interview but issued a statement saying that it "has sold no licenses to any entity in Iran," and that use of its software in Iran has been done without its consent. Secure Computing also said it was actively taking steps to stop what it called this illegal use of their products. The company maintains that it is ‘fully complying with the export laws, policies and regulations of the United States’”

Given these facts, I think it would be very unfair to say that Rick Scott was in any way involved with selling (or giving) censorship-enabling software to Iran. As noted before, there has been some recent activity regarding this section, mostly to reduce it, and given this information, I think it's pretty clear that it just doesn't belong here. In a moment, I will let the editors who have worked on it know about this additional information.

Considering the alleged "ties" are poorly (or erroneously) sourced and obviously contentious on a WP:BLP article, I believe removing this would be a reasonable action. However, because I have a potential WP:COI with Scott, as mentioned in previous comments, I wish to exercise an abundance of caution and invite others watching this page to respond before I do anything. If there is any other relevant information to add which would change the facts, please do so. Otherwise I'll give it about 12 hours (much more than BLP requires) and make the change myself. All comments welcome. Thank you, Thirteenth Florida (talk) 06:59, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

With agreement from one of the editors who had revised the section, I am now going to remove it. (Edit: Never mind, that editor already did.) Thirteenth Florida (talk) 21:41, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

About Columbia/HCA

I am going to have a couple of more suggestions to make here soon; see my disclosure above to see why I don't simply make these edits myself. First, concerning Rick Scott's initial offer for HCA, the first paragraph of the Columbia Hospital Corporation section right now says this:

In April 1987, while a partner at Johnson & Swanson, Scott, along with two former executives of the Republic Health Corporation, a Dallas-based hospital chain, made a $3.8 billion all-cash offer to purchase the Hospital Corporation of America (HCA). HCA's board rejected the offer.[1][2]

Nothing here is incorrect, exactly, but I think this would benefit from a bit more context. Here is my proposed replacement:

In April 1987, Scott made his first attempt to buy the Hospital Corporation of America (HCA). While still a partner at Johnson & Swanson, Scott formed the HCA Acquisition Company with two former executives of Republic Health Corporation, Charles Miller and Richard Ragsdale.[3] With financing from Citicorp conditional on acquisition of HCA,[4] the proposed holding company offered $3.85 billion for 80 million shares at $47 each, intending to assume an additional $1.2 billion in debt, for a total $5 billion deal.[5] However, HCA declined the offer, and the bid was withdrawn.[6]

I think this provides a more complete picture, includes new newspaper article citations, and I've also now formatted the citations with templates. If you agree this is an improvmeent, go ahead and replace this paragraph, or let me know if I can. Thanks, Thirteenth Florida (talk) 15:01, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

What is the benefit of the additional detail? He made an offer with a couple of other exectuvies and it was rejected. I'm not seeing why it needs expansion, but am willing to consider counter arguments. I have no objection to additional cites being added. Freakshownerd (talk) 21:45, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
Well, I think each of these details are significant, individually, and as a whole. More could be said elsewhere about his fellow executives, because just the year before, he was the lead attorney in a leveraged buyout of Republic Health, and I'd like to add that as well soon. The dollar figures are interesting especially because figures are used to describe later sections here. And the offer was considered before being declined, rather than appearing to be an outright rejection, as it sounds now. I'd like to keep proposing more to this article, since a lot of it is underdeveloped, and this is just one place to start. I just want to make this a better article. Does my proposed section make the article less good? I think more context is worthwhile, especially considering the New York Times and other major news organizations considered it important to report on at the time. Please let me know what you think, and thanks for listening. Thirteenth Florida (talk) 01:38, 18 July 2010 (UTC)
I think there is always a tension between including as much detail as possible v. trimming so an article is a tight, but comprehensive account of the most significant aspecets of the subject. I would like to know more about Scott's legal career. What kind of law did he practice? Corporate law? Acquisitions? Is that how he got into the business deals? What are his political positions? Priorities for Florida?
The details of a failed offering don't seem particularly relevant to me, but if someone else thinks it's important and worthwhile I would probably allow that portion to be expanded. How did these lawyers propose to fund these massive acquisitions? That might be interesting to expand on also. Or details on what ki8nd of regulatory environment Scott seeks for medicine, his positions on medicare and medicaid (and any reforms he desires). Are there rules he would get rid of? Those portions of the article seem very signicant given his business experience and advocacy role. That's my 2 cents. :) Freakshownerd (talk) 16:01, 18 July 2010 (UTC)
I definitely agree, all of that should be included, too. And I'd certainly like to write that, but I think this is good and accurate material, and would hate to leave it hanging on the talk page here. And this was not just any failed deal, but the first try at buying HCA, which was then later successful. Because of my potential COI, I just don't feel comfortable making edits directly. Your objections don't seem particularly strong, but since this page has been very quiet, I'm not sure anyone else will come along anytime soon. If you're OK with me adding this, then I could move on to other topics, that would be great. Or if you'd rather I went and found a third opinion, that also sounds fine. Do let me know. Just as much as I would like this article to be better, I want to make sure I am doing it right. Thanks. Thirteenth Florida (talk) 17:57, 18 July 2010 (UTC)
I did go ask the Help desk about this, explained our conversation, and I did receive a thumbs up from the editor who reviewed the situation (see here), so unless another issue arises, I will make this edit a bit later today. Thirteenth Florida (talk) 17:11, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

More balanced 'fraud cases' section

One section that needs particular attention is the one about the fraud case against Columbia/HCA. I’ve prepared an alternative version for comparison, which is available to review in my user space here. There are quite a few things wrong with the current version of this section. Some information in here is simply wrong, and should be replaced. I recognize some aspects here are also matters of public dispute, and in these cases I recommend including more information.

  • It gives the New York Times a lead role in "scrutinizing" the stories, but this isn’t demonstrated by the article. The Times is not cited here, and the Business Journal article provided as a citation does not mention the Times either. I am not sure where this comes from. Corrected: I have provided citations to Forbes[4], the Baltimore Sun[5] and a US government press release[6] which give context: HHS dramatically increased its enforcement of Medicare regulations, which snared HCA and many other well-known hospitals. That's been included.
  • The current version describes "crimes uncovered" by the investigation. Again, these were not uncovered by the Times, but by federal investigators. As the Forbes article points out, describing HCA and other hospitals: "More and more, simple mistakes and misunderstandings are being labeled as fraud." Corrected: The word "violations" is a more neutral way to describe the same thing, so that is used in the version I propose.
  • The uncited assertion that Columbia/HCA changed its name back to HCA in 1999 is just a factual error. Corrected: I've provided a citation to a Modern Healthcare[7] article which shows this happened in the summer of 2000.
  • The section correctly notes that Rick Scott was not himself charged with a crime, but there is no citation provided. I have added one. The section also includes plenty of detail about the resolution of the HCA case, which is fine. I am also suggesting a reference to an issue over $500 million paid to whistleblowers who were themselves not injured by any HCA action. More importantly, the section currently has no information whatsoever representing Rick Scott's perspective. The WP:NPOV guideline states that articles should present "all significant views fairly, proportionately, and without bias." Corrected: Therefore I have included an additional paragraph which includes quotes from Scott in the Tampa Tribune about his departure from the company. It also includes information from a website associated with Rick Scott that states he received severance and continued to consult for the company. This is attributed to the website, so that readers understand it represents Scott's perspective, not a flat declaration attributed to Wikipedia.

That is what I see wrong with this article. I realize this is a sensitive subject regarding Rick Scott, but especially given WP:BLP I think it is very important that his viewpoint be included, and the additional errors of fact be corrected. I think my suggested alternative version accomplishes this. If you agree, feel free to make the change. I'm also open to discuss this section more, if you have questions. Thanks. Thirteenth Florida (talk) 03:45, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Seems reasonable to me. Freakshownerd (talk) 17:07, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
OK, that is great, I appreciate your feedback. I'm removing the "request edit" banner above and I'll add this shortly. Thirteenth Florida (talk) 17:49, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
Absolutely, making everything accurate in sensitive sections of BLPs is always a good thing. All of the changes you propose look good, especially the addition of more sources. かんぱい！ Scapler (talk) 18:09, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm new to this article, so I won't edit right away, but this section since recent editing now seems overtly sympathetic to Scott. The three biggest problems I see:

1. The paragraph: "In the mid-1990s, the Department of Health and Human Services increased its enforcement of Medicare regulations and compliance, increasing its allocation of agents to such cases from 100 in 1992 to 375 by the first half of 1998.[14] Prominent targets of federal investigations included Harvard-affiliated Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center,[15] Johns Hopkins University hospitals,[16] and Columbia/HCA..." seems totally irrelevant and appears to have been inserted to deflect criticism of the Columbia/HCA settlement. Mentioning Harvard and John's Hopkins in the same sentence suggests that many respectable institutions were being pursued by a zealous regulator. Did Beth Israel and Hopkins pay similar settlements as a result of their investigations? If so, this information should be included, and the passage would be more relevant.

2. use of the word "controversial" in this sentence: ,"including payments of more than $500 million paid in 2003 to two whistleblowers, under controversial qui tam provisions of the False Claims Act" is not appropriate. The False Claims Act has been in place in one form or another in the US since 1863 including the qui tam provision. Given its long standing, any claim of being controversial should be well substantiated.

3. in this sentence, "and later revealed that he had argued that the company should fight the government's charges" the word "revealed" lends credence to the validity of Scott's statements. "said" or "stated" are more neutral words ("claimed" on the other hand would be skeptical and should not be used).

I'll wait a few days for any comment on these points, and edit if I hear no objections. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Boondoggle15 (talk • contribs) 04:17, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Suggesting some changes in opening section

Hi there. So, I've been meaning to discuss the third paragraph of the opening section. It currently says this:

Scott was ousted by Columbia/HCA's board of directors in 1997 in the midst of the nation's biggest health care fraud scandal. The company ultimately settled the Medicaid and Medicare fraud allegations and paid out a total of $1.7 billion dollars in fines and civil claims.[7][8] After his departure from Columbia/HCA, Scott established Richard L. Scott Investments, a private investment firm based in Naples, Florida that owns stakes in health care, manufacturing and technology companies.

Two principal changes to suggest. First, while it has certainly been reported that Scott was ousted, this is a matter of public dispute. What is clear is that there was a disagreement over how to handle the charges, the board won and Scott left, but he also did so with a severance package and consulting contract, as is also covered below. That's why I think the more neutral "parted ways" makes more sense. Second, my issue with "nation's biggest health care fraud scandal" is not that it is not true, but that it's misleading. [Update: Actually, it is also inaccurate. See below] The phrase is actually quoted verbatim from the New York Times article used as a citation here. As explained in the section in this article about the scandal itself (based on the Forbes story) Columbia/HCA was the biggest case of many against other hospitals. Columbia/HCA did indeed pay the most money in fines, but it was also the biggest health care company in the world. The phrase that's in there now strikes me as sensationalist, and I think the section would be better served by stating instead that it occurred in the "midst of an industry-wide crackdown." A third, smaller point -- Medicare was the principal focus so including Medicaid presents a disproportionate view of the case. So here is my suggested version of the paragraph:

Scott parted ways with Columbia/HCA's board of directors in 1997 in the midst of an industry-wide crackdown on Medicare fraud by the federal government. The company ultimately settled the Medicaid and Medicare fraud allegations and paid out a total of $1.7 billion dollars in fines and civil claims.[2][3] After his departure from Columbia/HCA, Scott established Richard L. Scott Investments, a private investment firm based in Naples, Florida that owns stakes in health care, manufacturing and technology companies.

Looking forward to any feedback. If you agree this is worth exchanging one version for the other, please go ahead and do so or let me know if you're OK with me doing so. But also willing to discuss anything if necessary. Thanks, Thirteenth Florida (talk) 23:15, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Regarding the change above, I had missed this when I posted comment, but this report indicates that it is only the third-biggest, so this is another reason why this should be changed. Thirteenth Florida (talk) 00:28, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
Those changes don't seem constructive to me. "Parted ways"? The board ousted him over a disagreement. And the source you note indicates it was the biggest medicare fraud case. That there was a bigger one later in 2006 doesn't seem very relevant to me. Freakshownerd (talk) 16:50, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
Frankly, Thirteenth, these edits you suggest just reinforce our belief that people with a conflict of interest are bad editors in a situation like this. "Only" the third biggest? The guy has an astroturf operation pretending to represent the consumer, when he was intimately involved with a major swindle in that field; and you want to suppress this information. Yeah; right; like that's gonna happen. --Orange Mike | Talk 20:50, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
Let's not go on the war path; Thirteenth has not tried to suppress anything; he has not edited the article once without bringing it to this talk page of the WT:FLA page first. Seriously, he is trying very hard to make sure all his edits DON'T fall afoul of conflict-of-interest. かんぱい！ Scapler (talk) 13:47, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Scott's Role in the HCA Case

The article now uses the term "after Scott's departure in '97" without detailing the "departure". Why has this important point been removed? Scott was removed by the board, regardless of any arrangements involving severance, etc. that went along with it. For what it's worth, the current sources regarding said compensation are the site for Scott's re-election -- not particularly impartial. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jspoto (talk • contribs) 05:11, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

I feel a line establishing this point (which used to exist as part of the article, before it was removed for some reason, needs to be re-added and re-sourced, whatever the terms of his departure.

Referring to a point of time after the departure, but never detailing or addressing it directly, would appear to be poor writing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jspoto (talk • contribs) 05:26, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Business Career Section - Question

"It has been reported that Scott got into the medical field because of his early contraction of G.R.I.B.S."

What is GRIBS? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.237.153.202 (talk) 13:16, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

It's a homophobic vandalism you'll find defined in Urban Dictionary. Vandalism reverted. --Orange Mike | Talk 13:22, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

there should be some way to point out in a reasonable fashion that he has an obvious conflict of interest between his political stance on heath care and his business.

first, he helps found a company who's entire business model is dependent on people without health insurance then he founds a foundation who's entire existence is dedicated to fighting legislation who's main goal is to reduce the number of uninsured people.

personally, i think this is astoundingly unethical and improper, but i'm sure his backers aren't as concerned about it.

still, i think there needs to be some non accusatory way of putting these 2 things next to each other so people can say for themselves whether their ok with it or not.

these are facts. encyclopedic facts. his business as founded and currently run depends on uninsured people AND he founds an organization that actively seeks to guarantee a steady supply of uninsured poor people that will walk by the clinics he has in wal mart.

Jackhammer111 (talk) 20:49, 28 October 2010 (UTC) help me find a way to find a less provocative way of putting that in his page before i do it my self. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jackhammer111 (talk • contribs) 20:45, 28 October 2010 (UTC)


It is not the task of WP editors to engage in original research to assert any impropriety about any living person. Nor is the the proper function of any WP BLP to act as a campaign vehicle for or against anyone at all. Collect (talk) 21:01, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

severance definitively stated

Definitively The agreement with the executive, Richard L. Scott, provided for a one-time payment of $5.13 million, as well as a five-year annual consulting fee of $950,000, for a total of $9.88 million, according to a copy of a severance agreement included in the company's quarterly filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. From the NYT [8] 14 November 1997. HCA stock was very low in value - and for it to have been #350 million would imply that Scott has current assets of a $billion or more - instead of his reported total assets of just over $200 million. The SEC filing showed no stock as part of any severance, by the way. Collect (talk) 22:15, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

i agree with what you showed about stock not being included in what they agreed to pay him when the fired him and i changed what i wrote to reflect that. so there's no longer a need for the times reference and i'm removing it.

i don't know where you get the impression that the stock "very low in value". you site no source for that. my sourced given for the 350 million value of his stock the day he left the company is Knight-Ridder Tribune News Wire article archived in thefreelibrary.com. the article gives the price as $35.94 a share on the exact same day he was "ousted". Jackhammer111 (talk) 02:52, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

As he already owned the stock, there is no reason at all to imply in any way that it was part of his severance. Period. I would ask you revert to the singly NYT reference as being directly based on the SEC filings. Thsnks. Collect (talk) 11:28, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

fraud case convictions and settlements

in the fraud case section, the claim that it was a settlement "that avoided criminal charges against the company" is false. scott avoided criminal charges, the company was convicted of 14 criminal charges and i'm going to include that with 5 references including justice department documents, and could add a dozen if need be. and i'm going into what they pleaded guilty to in detail. the section is about the fraud case and is in no way complete without accurately stating the legal conclusions.

i also don't see the relevance in the mention of how much the whistle-blowers got paid. they got paid in accordance to law. what they got paid has not relevance to the fraud case or rick scott. they are not the ones that broke the law. if fact, i'm removing it. someone else can explain why they think it belongs here.Jackhammer111 (talk) 03:37, 30 October 2010 (UTC) not only is it not relevant, it appears according to the justice dept website to be nowhere near 500 million. http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2003/November/03_civ_613.htm Jackhammer111 (talk) 04:18, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

in this section the part supposedly footnoted by 12 mentions some of the same charges that i detail them being convicted of and is therefor probably not needed. i'm deleting the sentence as a way to reduce duplicated information and actually, more importantly because the source given does NOT say anything about the specific charges mentioned in the sentence.

plus what i added is more detailed. lists pretty much all of what they were convinced of. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jackhammer111 (talk • contribs) 06:38, 30 October 2010 (UTC)


What criminal charges was Scott convicted of? Collect (talk) 11:29, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

scott was not convicted. i didn't claim scott was convicted. htc was convicted of 14 felonies and it is in the section about the fraud case that i made the reference to what HCA plead guilty to. and i provided 4 sources corroborating that fact. someone replaced that with the completely false claim that "The settlement allows HCA to close the civil cases without admitting guilt in the accusations." i show the justice press release that said "The settlement announced today resolves HCA's civil liability for false claims...." and goes on to list the guilty pleas in each section of the settlement. the things they admitted to are mentioned in all my references. there is not mistaking the fact that they admitted guilt. but again, it doesn't say or imply that scott was personally convicted of crimes. us of "they" clearly refers to HCA in the section about the fraud case. the only mention of scott is reference to his resignation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jackhammer111 (talk • contribs) 05:51, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

burial of relevant history via large amounts of generic content

I first put this page up for restricted editing many months ago knowing that when he ran for governor his people would attempt to bury his well documented business fraud issues (that's an understatement - remember the firm he headed paid the LARGEST FINE IN HISTORY as mentioned on the Justice Departments OFFICAL PAGE and clearly sourced in the article).

While they haven't been able to wipe the article of those well documented and sourced facts (although they have tried) we have seen instead repeated successful attempts to front load the article with generic verbiage while forcing the relevant issues as far down the pages as possible to be "below the fold" where the average person will not perhaps even see it.

Forcing the bad down "below the fold" is the same as censoring the article. If the flavor of the first paragraph of the article is significantly different than the flavor of the documented history of the person then the first paragraph is wrong and against wikipedia policy (remembering wikipedia sourcing rules apply to generic positive statements as well as negative.)

Calling someone an "entreprenuer" who "married his sweetheart" and taking multiple paragraphs to do it does not effectively represent this person and is an abuse of wikipedia.

This man is running for the governor of the state of Florida. This bio article (as well as all others) needs to follow the time honored jouranlist practice of posting the relevant public impact information first and digressing to minor or publicaly less relevant information later.

There is no place in wikipedia for the bland generic statements liek someone is a "business man" or "entrepreneur". Those are generic , unsourced statements of generality and thus against wikipedia policy statements. If the person is a businessman state their largest business which made their fortune at the top. In this case it is Columbia/HCA.

This is a clear effort by some to abuse wikipedia and obscure and bury the RELEVANT facts of this person's bio and is every bit as aggregious as censoring it all together.

Facts posted only in 10th paragraph after paragraphs of fluff are NOT the same as facts in the first paragraph.

Adding endless headers and subdividing paragraphs to move and isolate all mentions of negative histories after prior postings of positive history are not in accordance with wikipedia requirements that articles represent the truth IN WHOLE AS WELL AS IN PART. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.169.230.87 (talk) 00:13, 31 October 2010 (UTC)


WP:BLP is the policy involved. Personal dislike or like of a person has no place in any article. Collect (talk) 01:11, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

my reponse Collect:

Your edit war is in violation of policy against understatement.

All statements regarding the Columbia /HCA are reliably sourced. There is no personal "like or dislike" involved with the priority facts of his involvement and that's fact's higher relevance than those trivia you are posting above it.

I quote the BLP policy against your trivialization and understatement. "BLPs should be written responsibly, cautiously, and in a dispassionate tone, avoiding both UNDERSTATEMENT and overstatement. Articles should document in a non-partisan manner what reliable secondary sources have published about the subject, and in some circumstances what the subject has published about himself. BLPs should not have TRIVIA SECTIONS."

Burying his involvement in the largest fraud in history below a comment about him "marrying his sweetheart" and generic comments like he is a "businessman" is posting TRIVIA. Provide your sources for his status as a "businessman" (I beleive he is currently a attempting politician) . Provide your sources for him "marrying his sweetheart." ( what his political website? is THAT a reliable source? Provide your argument for their higher relevance than his involvement in the largest fraud in justice department history.

I AGAIN CALL FOR THIS ARTICLE TO BE LOCKED TO PREVENT TRIVIALIZATION AND CENSORSHIP OF THIS MAN'S CLEARLY DOCUMENTED AND SOURCED INVOLVEMENT IN THE LARGEST FRAUD IN JUSTICE DEPARTMENT HISTORY UP TO THAT TIME (IN THEIR OWN WORDS AS SOURCED ON THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT PAGE. http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2003/June/03_civ_386.htm)

WARNING EDIT WARS ARE NOT PERMISSIBLE You may not simply revert old edits without clear and thoughtful addition or subtraction of relevant statements of better quality. you did no such thing.

Trivialization of a BLP by burying sourced facts deep in an article with nonsense meaningless rhetoric and trivia is AGAINST BLP POLICY.

Priority in a BLP (Biography of a living person) is given to the sourced and RELEVANT facts to the public interest. his "sweetheart" is not sourced nor relevant and therefore should not be higher in the story than his involvement in the COlumbia HCA Scandal.

You aren't fooling anyone by pretending to hide behind BLP policy. BLP policy does NOT support your actions.

There is no rational explanation for your edits except to bury relevant facts. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.169.230.87 (talk) 02:05, 31 October 2010 (UTC)


READ -[-[WP:BLP]]. The material is in the article - all you do is REPEAT IT in the lede. Verbatim. Collect (talk) 10:31, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Provided relevant detail to the the lead which some are repeatedly trying to bury before an election. more detailnot less is better in the lead following standard publication protocol. removed bizrre double reference to scott history with "donuts shops" as donut shops no matter how many times there ar ementioned cannot possible be as relevanat as the man's involvement in tyhe largest fraud case in US history (per Justice Department) regardless of how many times dounut shops are mentioned or put ahead of those facts. Obfuscation of negative facts by front loading a lead with generic references and trivial details is against WIKI BLP protoocl and doesn't serve Wikipedia. Collect your repeated abusive attempts at manipulating the meaningful content of this article in defiance of all rationality put your motives in suspect.

Collect Please explain now how you will once rationalize pushing the man's involvement in the largest fraud case in US history down below his donut shop business in college or generic terms like his being an "executive" or "businessman" without actually mentioning the business which provided him with the greatest portion of his wealth. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.169.230.87 (talk) 17:00, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Jennifer Carroll story

I've added a brief mention about a recent story about Jennifer Carroll. As I said in my edit summaries, I don't know if this is something that needs to go in Rick Scott's encyclopedia biography, ultimately, but in the spirit of keeping up to date we need to at least discuss its appropriateness (and in fairness, the story broke on the 29, so it's now several days old. Fastidious editors need to keep an eye on this to make sure it is updated per any new developments.--Cúchullain t/c 03:33, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Not related to the BLP. Collect (talk) 11:04, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
Please explain your thoughts. It is a story that involves him and his campaign.--Cúchullain t/c 11:17, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
It involves a third party - we do not have enough room in any BLP to include every statement a person makes about a third party. Ought we include his statements about Alex Sink in detail? About Obama? About Crist? We could have a pretty good tome - but the fact is that all the bit is not actually relevant to the topic of the BLP. The gist of the story is "I don;t know about the allegations" more-or-less. Which is exactly what you or I would have said. Not even newsworthy. Meanwhile, the allegations touch on another living person - which means we need an strong source to make those allegations here. Collect (talk) 11:22, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Today's legendary manipulation of wikipedia on this election will be the stuff of history books

Never in all my years with Wikipedia have I seen such blatant scrubbing of clearly relevant information to help a candidate bury his past that was clearly sourced and clearly relevant.

This story will be a legend and a lesson to all in the future.

I wonder what Floridians will think when they see this edit history and learn that every effort was made to keep them from learning the relevant history of the candidate on this election day.

Those who participated in the manipulation of Wikipedia to bury such clearly sourced info about the single biggest fraud IN US HISTORY and this person's involvement in it, should be banned for life from any editing on wikipedia ever again. But thankfully the candidate's irrelevant involvement in the donut business after college was thankfully kept at the forefront of the wikipedia bio (SARC). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.169.230.87 (talk) 06:09, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Nonsense. The Columbia information is all included in the appropriate section of the article. If anything, it needs to be written to a neutral point of view.--Cúchullain t/c 14:33, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

The data concerning the election results is incorrect. He won by fewer than 53,000 votes. Please correct this misinformation! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.186.46.44 (talk) 15:33, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Actually, the count is not complete. Collect (talk) 15:35, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Fraud case

The section on the fraud issue is confusing. I don't know enough about the facts of the case to argue one way or the other whether the section is biased or neutral, but one thing stands out like a t**d in a punch bowl. IF Columbia/HCA was guilty of such execrable crimes, how could Rick Scott avoid prosecution? What possible defense did he use not only to escape the long arm of the law, but to walk off with a golden parachute? Not knowing any details, I've got to figure that 1)he had a good defense, and 2)this article purposefully avoids referring to any data that supports his innocence in the fraud scheme. Can someone please fill in the missing elephant-sized gap? How did Rick Scot defend himself so effectively? Thanks98.170.213.7 (talk) 04:36, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Scott was not even charged with any crime, nor did anyone allege he was guilty of any specific crimes, - so the case likely belings in the article on the company only. Microsoft has had heftier fines overseas - but those do not make it into Gates' BLP, and so on. If a person is not charged, why should he have to prove innocence, by the way? Collect (talk) 12:07, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
The Columbia/HCA fraud case appears in many, many reliable sources about Scott, in a neutral fashion. We can find a neutral way of explaining Scott's part in the matter here. The current treatment is not acceptable, but it would also be unacceptable not to mention it at all. One doesn't have to be charged with a crime for something to be a notable part of their biography.--Cúchullain t/c 14:38, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
IOW, Bill Gates' BLP should include the Microsoft convictions? Collect (talk) 14:53, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
I couldn't say. Edits at this article do not necessitate edits to unrelated articles. But this is a significant point in Scott's bio, and it needs to be discussed in the article, though it does need to be rewritten.--Cúchullain t/c 17:40, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Cúchullain, you keep making these "neutrality" comments without saying what you object to. someone changed the part about the HCA convictions to read they hadn't admitted guilt to anything. that person didn't bother to read the sources that all mention guilty pleas and what they added was completely easily provably false. if that's your idea of neutral i'd have trouble with it. the truth of that part of his career is brutal. running a company that commits by far the larges fraud against tax payers in history is a big deal. he's not accused personally of any crime in that section of his bio. there are no known facts i know of about what he was personally responsible for re the fraud if anything at all, but, which is worse? he was ceo and knew what was going on? or he was ceo and didn't know what was going on. either choice and all in-between are damning to him as a leader. yet nothing in that section personally damns him. it's about the fraud case and the harsh details regarding it. if you want to introduce a version that you think is more neutral and still includes the facts i'm sure i and more experienced others would be glad to see it. Jackhammer111 (talk) 06:43, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

also, regarding bill gates convictions, point out a large scale fraud case involving defrauding taxpayers of hundreds of millions and i'd be happy to research and write it for the gates page. Jackhammer111 (talk) 06:49, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

[9] $1.35 billion anti-trust fine from EU. [10] $290 million fine in US. [11] patent infringement fine. and so on. Governments are substantial customers - hence any improper profits made by Microsoft certainly are from taxpayers. Scott was never charged with any crime at all regarding HCA, hence allegations about HCA should not be in the BLP, which implies criminal culpability on Scott's part. Collect (talk) 08:53, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
That's where you're wrong. Simply saying the company was fined does not imply criminal culpability on Scott's part. All it indicates is the objective fact that the company was fined for things it had done during his tenure as CEO. The activities of the company during his leadership are what led to the investigation, which led directly to Scott being pressured to resign by his board. After he resigned the company was fined massively for those same activities. Columbia/HCA was Scott's major claim to notability before his gubernatorial campaign; it is inconceivable that we shouldn't talk about his time there in his biography.--Cúchullain t/c 21:29, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

collect.. i suspected but could not prove your partisan attitude on this until now.. it clear now.. take a look at the charges hca was convicted of.. now go find me similar fraud against the government by microsoft.. i think if you could, you would have instead of your false equivalency attempt at corporate disputes over patent law and crimes that directly bilk the US treasury. i'm no fan of gates and microsoft but that is a false comparison. not to mention the fact that bill gates is not running for high government office. actually, collect, i don't think there would be anything wrong with mentioning microsoft major problems on bill gates site. i'll even offer to help. Jackhammer111 (talk) 05:28, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Partisan? I have not been involved in any campaigns at all for many years - and I also removed scurrilous material from his opponent's BLP Alex Sink. I suggest that the problem is that I hold the exact same position about all BLPs, whilst some do not. And the fine from the EU was for criminal anti-trust violations by Microsoft. Not "patent law" for the massive fine. Collect (talk) 11:14, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
We need to avoid talking about editors and what we assume their intentions are. Comment on the content, not on the contributor, and all that]]. We also need to drop the discussion of Bill Gates. It's a red herring; this is not an article about Bill Gates, it's about Rick Scott.--Cúchullain t/c 14:03, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

collect..it's nice to know the british are enforcing their antitrust laws given how we largely are not enforcing ours.

i said partisan attitude. you have used red herring, and a false equivalence. my response was about the American fine.

in the spirit of fairness i want to point our that somebody copied much of what i modified and added in the section about the fraud added it into the head of the bio and i don't have any problem with it being removed or modified in that section. i wasn't able to find where it happened. after my edits i was too busy to help monitor things and i see there were people that were claiming information had been scrubbed from the head and buried below. that is false and my feeling is that everything after winning the election should be moved to it's appropriate section.

also, regarding the first 2 sentences of the fraud section, i've researched the NYT site and find no series of articles in 96 that "began scrutinizing" columbia. my bad i guess for not checking the source given for that as i wrongly assumed it linked to some investigative piece by the times. it does no such thing and there are no such articles. then it says the "These culminated" in the fbi raids. there are no articles "scrutinizing Columbia/HCA's business and Medicare billing practices" that i can find and therefor they can't culminate in any thing. the first mention of wrongdoing by the times is an article that simply reports on the raids on march 27 1997, not 1996. so, that part is wrong in about every way imaginable and i'm actually shocked that this got past scrutiny from editors especially since the source given supports none of it. i've learned a lesson about how closely i should look at things here if i'm going to get involved editing. someone got away with wording this as though all this began with the liberal times going after a company, and it stood that way for a long time. the section will now begin with the march 23 97 raids with a link to the times reporting on the raids. that is of course unless someone can source time articles before that and link them to the raids. Jackhammer111 (talk) 02:34, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

"correction needed becuase cited articles and new articles referenced are counter to statement he was not implicated"

first excuse the typos - no time to correct for my typing handicap.

Effort s continue to white wash Rick Scott's involvement in the HCA fruad scandal.

The current edit says " he was not implicated" and then list two sources. Those don't support that and

I have found several other sources and a court case which clearly states that the evidence IMPLIES he did know and IMPLYIMING IS IMPLICATING by definition.

forexample

http://miamiherald.typepad.com/nakedpolitics/2010/10/state-once-sued-rick-scott-for-insider-trading-court-raised-questions-about-him.html

"the ‘participation of Scott and Frist implies knowledge of the arrangements that allegedly violated health care laws and regulations.’"


the one current source was previously attached to the stronger statement about the fraud and is a driect link to the Department of justice website notice which used to be attached to the previous statement about the size of the fruad which has also been watered down ( and the mooving of the link to the other statement stops people form seeing how bad the fruad was)

it was the largest fraud in history. the fine was 1.7 billion not 600 million.

the reference should remain attached to the previous statement and not attached to the made up statgement that rick Scott was not implicated which makes it look like the false statement is being supported.

the second reference http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2003/June/03_civ_386.htm clearly shows rick scott was DIRECTLY IMPLICATED both in his promise to increase billing and by the stockholders of the company Sen Bill Frist who FORCED RICK SCOTT TO RESIGN.

Forcing someone's resignation is a clear implication of their conplicity. In fact Senator Bill First defended HIMSELF by blaming Rick SCOTT.

I quote it directly: "The investigation and the plea is an obvious blow to a company that became a Wall Street darling by promising to bring first-class business practices to the hospital sector, still dominated by not-for-profits. Under former Chief Executive Richard Scott, it bought hospitals by the bucketful and promised to squeeze blood from each one.

Scott was forced to resign in the wake of the initial fraud charges in 1997. Dr. Thomas Frist Jr., a founder of the original Hospital Corp. of America and the brother of U.S. Sen. Bill Frist, R-Tenn., was brought in to replace him as chairman and CEO. " this reference article clearly states Rick Scott signed corporate documents that said he was aware the company may bwe committing faud.

http://nomadicpolitics.blogspot.com/2012/06/rise-and-fall-of-businessman-rick-scott_15.html

I quote again: (He refers to Rick Scott) "since the evidence of fraud was overwhelming. (He had, after all, signed corporate reports, noting that he was aware of the possibility his company was committing fraud, at the same time, widespread fraud was found to be going on.) "


I have foubnd another mopre clear impication of Scott's direct invovlement quoting the Tampa http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/rick-scott-touts-ceo-experience-in-run-for-florida-governor-to-a-degree/1105385

"However, federal investigators found that Scott took part in business practices at Columbia/HCA that were later found to be illegal — specifically, that Scott and other executives offered financial incentives to doctors in exchange for patient referrals, in violation of federal law, according to lawsuits the Justice Department filed against the company in 2001.

The doctor payments were among 10 different kinds of fraud identified by the Justice Department in its 10-year probe of the company, records show. Three years after Scott left Columbia/HCA, the company admitted wrongdoing, pleading guilty to 14 felonies — most committed during Scott's tenure — in addition to paying two sets of fines totaling $1.7 billion."

I haver found another quote clearly IMPLICATING Rick Scott. (remember IMPICATION is not PROVING but it IS IMPLICATING. from

http://www.healthbeatblog.com/2010/10/rick-scott-and-the-florida-gubernatorial-race-nurses-are-for-sink-doctors-are-for-scott-voters-still/ quoting this direct source

http://miamiherald.typepad.com/nakedpolitics/2010/10/state-once-sued-rick-scott-for-insider-trading-court-raised-questions-about-him.html

"The Miami Herald reports; “According to the evidence presented in the lower court, Scott and his colleague, Thomas Frist, were active in the company's mergers and acquisitions operations. The appellate court said in its 2001 ruling that while there was ‘nothing improper or illegal per se’ about 'expansion by acquisition'…the ‘participation of Scott and Frist implies knowledge of the arrangements that allegedly violated health care laws and regulations.’

The appellate court added there was not enough evidence to support an insider trading complaint. But, it concluded, that the members of the Columbia/HCA board, many of whom had experience running other hospitals, could have known that the goals Scott set out for the chain's hospitals—achieving a 15- to 20 percent growth in reimbursement from Medicare—would have been unrealistic. The Miami Hearald adds: "As a result of those profit targets, critics say, the company helped encourage fraud that ultimately led to the federal investigation."

In its written opinion, the court indicated that the facts "are sufficient to create a reasonable doubt that "at least five of Columbia's directors, including Scott, should have known their actions could have drawn a federal investigation.”

"


from findlaw and a legal lawsuit

http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-6th-circuit/1047152.html 

filed against rick Scott and other HCA officers and directors we have

first a reversal by the judge who examined the evidence and found sufficient casue for the case agaisnt Scott and others at HCA to NOT be tossed out (this means he said there was evidence they acted badly PERSONALLY

"After careful review of the record and the applicable law, we reverse in part and find that the plaintiffs sufficiently alleged demand futility with respect to their claim for intentional or reckless breach of the duty of care." ] that's reckless breach of duty of care PERSONALLY BY SCOTT and the other defendents.

note the people named as defendents are specifically including Rick Scott (and Frist)

" National Industry Pension Fund, Plaintiff, v. Richard L. SCOTT;  Thomas F. Frist, Jr., M.D.;  R. Clayton McWhorter;  T. Michael Long;  William T. Young;  Frank S. Royal, M.D.;  Donald S. MacNaughton;  Magdalena Averhoff, M.D.;  David T. Vandewater;  Columbia/HCA Healthcare Corporation, a nominal deft, Defendants-Appellees."


what was the breach by these people like Scott PERSONALLY?

in summary knowledge of the criminal wrongdoing whioch was the fraud including setting up the system to creat the wrong doing and not stopping it.

see here:

"Columbia's senior management, with Board knowledge, devised schemes to improperly increase revenue and profits, and perpetuated a management philosophy that provided strong incentives for employees to commit fraud"

or the full quote:

"Plaintiffs alleged that Columbia's senior management, with Board knowledge, devised schemes to improperly increase revenue and profits, and perpetuated a management philosophy that provided strong incentives for employees to commit fraud.   Plaintiffs averred that management set growth targets at 15 to 20%, or three to four times the industry average, which could not reasonably be attained without violating Medicare and Medicaid laws and regulations.   Results were monitored using a “score card,” and good results were rewarded with cash bonuses.   Fraudulent practices allegedly included:  (1) “upcoding” by providers, which refers to billing for services under DRG (diagnosis related group) codes for illnesses with a higher degree of complexity and severity than a patient's condition actually warranted;  (2) improper cost reporting, such as seeking reimbursement for advertising and marketing costs, “grossing up” outpatient revenues, allocating costs from one division to another, and structuring transactions to disguise acquisition costs as reimbursable management fees;  (3) offering financial incentives to physicians to increase referrals of Medicare patients to Columbia's facilities (i.e., equity interests, fees, rents, or other perquisites);  and (4) acquisition practices that offered inducements to executives of target companies and interfered with existing physician relationships.   Plaintiffs also asserted that some of the defendants engaged in illegal insider trading since they traded while knowing of Columbia's fraudulent activities.   Damages were alleged to include, among other things, the consequences of federal and state investigations, stockholder and whistleblower lawsuits, loss of good will, and declines in the value of Columbia stock.

Needing to overcome the failure to make a pre-suit demand, plaintiffs alleged that a majority of the Board of Directors had an interest in the wrongdoing or could not exercise independent judgment with respect to the asserted claims.   Plaintiffs challenge the disinterest and independence of all but one of the Board's ten members;  the one exception being Sister Judith Ann Karam." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.87.42.90 (talk) 19:50, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

This whole insertion of the phrase "he was not impicated" is just one more effort to dilute this article with unsupported non factgual denials of rick scott's complicity which are completely contrary to the evidence.


What needs to be done to correct the article

The phrase " Scott was not implicated" needs to be removed.

It needs to be replaced with Rick Scott WAS impicated personally in both documents he signed and newspaper articles and subsequent court cases which held up under appealate review by a judge.

i tshould also be replaced with what the referenced articles say " "Scott was forced to resign in the wake of the initial fraud charges in 1997."

and "He had, after all, signed corporate reports, noting that he was aware of the possibility his company was committing fraud, at the same time, widespread fraud was found to be going on."

those exact quotes as appearing in the referenced articles should be use in place of that flase phrase that he was not impicated. which is unsupported and factually wrong and a clear whitewash attempt.

Additonally whoever added that phrase before the article was locked should be banned form editing this page as they clearly are whitewashing without evidence .

Also the article used to say that the fraud was the largest in us history. That is factually stated in the supporting Department of Justice press release linked inthe article and IS THE FACT and IS IMMENSEL:Y RELEVANT.

a speeding ticket is different that intentionally driving over 30 people.

The largest fraud in history is different than a random statement of the fines paid which the average person has no relatable scale to judge.

Look at some point wikipedia has to decide whether it wants to be accurate or if it always wants to be defense\ive leaving false soft ball statements not supported by the cited articles.

It was the largest fruad in history and rick Scott was clearly impicated by Senator bill Frist who forced him to resign according to the articles.

There should NOT be a statement that "he was not implicated" he clearly was. that's why he was forced to resign.

Also as anyone knows before the last election there was a deperate effort by Scott supports to ee\rase any mention of his involvement with that fruad or any mention of the fraud at all. the edits were crazy and I called for locking the page.

this page is probably one of the most PR pushed pages on Wikipeda.

This page is a test of whether Wikipedia is going to be clear andf truthful or a manipulation of PR forces .

If you are afraid just quote the articles direclty in the text. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.87.42.90 (talk) 19:10, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Neither blogs nor opinion posts on newspapers are reliable sources. Unless you can produce sources that meet our guidelines, this info cannot be included. Qwyrxian (talk) 23:13, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Qwyrxian, what you say about the above post is not applicable to the Justice Department press release. It states in caps: "LARGEST HEALTH CARE FRAUD CASE IN U.S. HISTORY SETTLED." Ignore this at your own peril; in the meantime this remains is an anemic wikipedia page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.186.158.197 (talk) 20:42, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

"His Excellency"

It goes without saying that a 160-year-old book can't be used to establish that Scott has ever been called "His Excellency". This is an irrelevant factoid and needs to stay out of the article.--Cúchullain t/c 20:39, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

High Speed Rail "Debacle"

I think this is a noteworthy event in Scott's tenure as governor, partly because this rail line was supposed to be the demonstration for Obama's rail initiative, partly because the previous governor already approved the funds, and partly because the Florida Senate was so quick to disagree. The original person writing this section didn't cite anything. I've tried to match the facts and the cites as much as possible while removing some of the emotion-laden words like "debacle."— Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.147.177.19 (talk • contribs)

The material is Synthesis of published material that advances a position. That source doesn't discuss Scott's decision, and including it hear casts a particular light over it that is absent from the source. This is not acceptable in a biography of a living person. You're also edit warring. If you add it back again you will be blocked from editing.--Cúchullain t/c 22:33, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
I reject that including relevant economic impacts of a policy decision cast the acts in any specific light. As I said on your page, Scott's rejection of conditional federal funds for only 50,000 jobs with potentially hundreds of millions for Florida could be an economic win or lose. You're unreasonably inferring an intent on my part to imply Scott's decision was a negative one. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.147.177.19 (talk) 22:38, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
You still need to provide reliable, verifiable sources for the material. Without those sources your edits are original research and synthesis, as stated above. --Alan the Roving Ambassador (talk) 22:45, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
(edit conflict)Sorry, but the wording is clearly negative. You [the anonymous user] were previously citing this article, where those numbers are given by a detractor of Scott's in order to criticize him. It also remains original research by synthesis. And of course, edit warring is not appropriate.--Cúchullain t/c 22:46, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
We can agree to disagree on that. If you have a more-neutral way to include the relevant information, then do it. Had you looked earlier, you would have seen I was using a prior editor's source. The critical website provided those figures from a FDOT survey. The subsequent editor linked to the FDOT website. You deleted the cite to the FDOT website claiming it's original research. I reinstated it because the FDOT site does not meet the criteria for original research, and because the FDOT is a reliable source for the economic impact of transportation policy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.147.177.19 (talk) 22:53, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
My edits also do not meet the criteria of synthesis. Each thought is expressed in an independent clause (separate sentences), and the sources for the information are clearly referenced in each sentence. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.147.177.19 (talk) 22:58, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
All other editors here have found your editors to be irrelevant and synthesis. The burden of evidence is on you to find consensus for your edit. You've been edit warring against several other editors for the last two weeks, which is not appropriate.--Cúchullain t/c 23:01, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
Okay, the page has been protected with pending changes due to the edit warring. If a consensus develops on this talk page that the material should be included, we can include it. Obviously that will take more than one user pushing for the change.--Cúchullain t/c 13:36, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
Concur. There's no question that Scott's decision is contentious. How to discuss that decision in the article will require careful wordsmithing to avoid WP:NPOV problems. For starters, I'd like to see the heading of "High Speed Rail 'Debacle'" go away, because the heading by itself is non-neutral. A "Controversy" header would be more appropriate, but again, subject to consensus. --Alan the Roving Ambassador (talk) 14:40, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
There is clearly consensus emerging that the issue is highly relevant to Scott's tenure as governor and thus necessary to include in the wikipedia entry on him for it to be taken seriously as such. The title of the subsection has been amended to "High-Speed Rail," so the previous comment is now moot. I'm concerned that references to what's at stake in the issue (namely, an expansion of jobs and the state's transportation network, in addition to costs associated with them) has been elided by those sympathetic to Scott's decision. Such tendentious proselytizing has no place in the entry. I vote to revert.128.186.46.171 (talk) 16:24, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
It is improper in any WP article to advance arguments regarding any issues. All we do is report precisely the facts as reported in reliable sources. And extensive sections on issues do not belong in BLPs, but, at best, in articles specifically aimed at those issues, and worded in an NPOV. Collect (talk) 16:28, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
But see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WELLKNOWN#Public_figures As governor, Scott is a not just a living person, but a public figure. Under Wikipedia policy, even "negative" information on public figures should be included so long as it's relevant and well-sourced. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.147.177.19 (talk) 23:13, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
The key is that it actually has to be "relevant and well-sourced". This is irrelevant original synthesis and has no place in an encyclopedia article. And the idea that all those who think it should be left out must be "sympathetic to Scott's decision" is as irrelevant as it is baseless. We're supposed to be writing an encyclopedia here, not cataloguing every detail of every controversy surrounding a subject.--Cúchullain t/c 00:00, 27 February 2011 (UTC)
Re: "relevant and well-sourced." The information provided was the original justification for the project. I'll let you explain why that isn't relevant. The website to which the footnote directs readers is run by the Florida Department of Transportation, a bureau of the Florida State government that reports to the governor. I'll let you explain why that doesn't fit the definition of "well-sourced." I'm not sure you quite understand what synthetic argument is, as there there isn't one iota of it in providing such information.128.186.46.171 (talk) 21:53, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
Look, various editors find your edit inapporpriate, to the point that the page had to be protected from your continuous edit warring. The reasons are all highlighted above. This is synthesis because you are taking one source making one claim ("the DOT estimated high-speed rail would create xx thousand jobs") and appended it to the paragraph making a different statement ("Scott rejected money for high-speed rail") to make an implication that doesn't appear directly in either ("Scott rejected money that would have created an estimated xx thousand jobs"). You're arguing including that statistic doesn't imply that conclusion; unfortunately, no other editor has agreed with you.--Cúchullain t/c 00:00, 27 February 2011 (UTC)
I haven't been involved in the editing or even seen this page before today, but I am a Florida resident and can attest that the DOT jobs estimate and similar information (which has been widely reported in reputable sources (major newspapers)) is certainly germane to an article about Rick Scott, as Scott's claimed raison d'running for governor was to create jobs, but the first act he performed as governor was to kill a project that all published information from sources other than him agreed would create jobs, and doing so against existing law and the express wishes of the state legislature. It may well be that the phrasing that was rejected was problematic, but the connection to jobs seems clear - if the DOT study indicated that xx thousand jobs would be created by doing the high speed rail project, then it seems to logically follow that rejecting the money and therefore killing the project (especially without Scott offering an alternative) would fail to create those jobs. I don't know the political leanings of the various editors that found the edit inappropriate, but as an outsider, seeing the DOT job information (which is clearly well sourced) deleted rather than rephrased to meet any objections certainly smacks (perhaps unfairly, but perceptions matter) of Rick Scott supporters using their position as editors to impose their own view of the facts.108.74.28.81 (talk) 04:01, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

This article is a poor place for campaigning. Scott did not, however, violate existing law. Nor are the editors who are here "Rick Scott supporters". We just use WP:BLP as policy on all BLPs. BTW, for fun look at the jobs creation projections from the various stimulus bills. Collect (talk) 06:15, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

I explained how the material violated Wikipedia policy: it synthesized publish material to make a claim not stated directly in the sources. End of story.--Cúchullain t/c 13:17, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

School

What high school did Rick Scott graduate from? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.22.109.17 (talk) 10:38, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Rick Scott Did Not Live In Naples Since 1972

This SHAMEFULLY Biased and Censored Article just glosses over about 30 years of Rick Scott's Life and then lands him directly in Naples, FL as though he's been here all along. One of the most scandalous things about Rick Scott is that he questions the citizenship of those who oppose him but there is NO INFORMATION in this article that even hints at the fact that he probably doesn't even have a Florida Driver's License himself... Because he didn't even fully move to Florida until his campaign was in full swing. There are countless sources for this all over the web. I added some a long time ago and I won't keep doing work that Propagandizing Wiki Editors are just going to undo out of spite. 98.203.17.49 (talk) 20:23, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

poll results

Posting of poll results is pretty much worthless unless an article is to consist primarily of weekly polls. Wikipeida is not a daily newspaper concerned with what is, at best, surveys of people's opinions on a topic, rather than facts about a topic. Collect (talk) 13:12, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree and I have removed it. Truthsort (talk) 09:17, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Strong disagreement here: It is certainly significant that, at the peak of Scott's popularity, only 38% of those polled approved of the job he has done. If proper dates are given for the polls and contextualized, they can by all means be included. As such I have added recent polling numbers, provided the date and source, and contextualized them. I also assume the burden of updating them as needed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.187.63.160 (talk) 21:41, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

It's not a matter of making sure someone keeps it up to date. It's that Wikipedia does not want to include up to date poll numbers--see WP:NOTNEWS. A politicians poll numbers for any given week are not relevant to his life-long biographical story. I agree that if you had a news article that said "the polled approval rating ever achieved for X survey Scott has ever achieved is Y%." However, I'm guessing such a story doesn't exist. Qwyrxian (talk) 21:46, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
Actually the one that got deleted had that.... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 140.254.10.21 (talk) 21:11, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
Yes, you're right, it did. It might, possibly, be reasonable to include a sentence that said, "As of 2011, the highest approval rating Scott had received was 39% according to surveys conducted by Quinnipac University. (ref)" The problem is, it shouldn't have its own section, as that isn't DUE. Unfortunately, that whole section is (wrongly, in my opinion) chopped up into sections. Any thoughts from others? I'm not 100% certain it belongs anyway, so more consensus would be good. Qwyrxian (talk) 22:02, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Drug screening controversy

Shouldn't there be mention of the fact that Rick Scott has, since becoming governor, championed and eventually signed laws requiring drug screening for state employees and welfare recipients? And the criticism he's received for doing so while owning the company that would do the screenings? 24.214.230.66 (talk) 01:33, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

No, this is wikipedia! The wikipedians who dominate this place have a strong libertarian/conservative bias. Jimmy Wales himself is actually an Ayn Rand inspired Objectivist / right-winging libertarian. Wikipedians act as if they are vehemently AGAINST including controversial content into ALL articles unless "entirely necessary", but do not seem willing to apply this philosophy equally and fairly to both sides of the political spectrum. (ie: the Sarah Palin article's complete absence of a controversy section)

So there isn't a single mention in this article that his wife owns the company that administers these drug tests.. Even if it is changed to include this information, these conservative activists have the liberals and moderates so outnumbered here that the change will be overturned within a few hours.. so its pointless..

--69.125.144.46 (talk) 19:25, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

But there should be. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.10.90.15 (talk) 12:33, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

I think we should change the last part that reads "...of Americans do drugs overall." to "...of all Americans use illegal drugs." "Do drugs" is slang. We don't say "Hey, do you do alcohol?" Furthermore, it is inaccurate to state that only "6% of Americans use drugs" because that figure is closer to 99% because caffeine, alcohol, tobacco, and prescription meds are all drugs too. Also the citation for this stat needs to be updated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.119.138.42 (talk) 07:03, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

test for Rick Scott

I would like clarification on why my addition to Rick Scott article was reverted. My addition (with two references) was "At a press conference on December 7, 2011 The Daily Show's Aasif Mandvi asked Rick Scott to submit urine for a drug test, but Rick Scott refused.". Edit summary of revert was "way too trivial to be mentioned here per WP:UNDUE". Should I have provided more references? Should I have made the importance more explicit? I do think I should have used better wording for the end (perhaps: "Rick Scott replied “I’ve done it plenty of times”, but did not provide a urine sample.") --EarthFurst (talk) 18:05, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Approval ratings

I know things are supposed to be nuetral on here, but as a Florida student, I see on the news constantly about Scotts critisms and low approval ratings. Shouldn't some of this be mentioned? --168.213.7.230 (talk) 14:50, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Scott's low approval ratings are frequently remarked upon by reliable sources, and would seem to be a relevant part of a neutral, encyclopedic biography. Strangely, though, such information is consistently removed (e.g. [12]). I can't say I care enough about this article to fight about it, but I agree with you that it features some notable omissions. MastCell Talk 20:39, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

This "consistent removal" you speak of is nothing strange at all.. you are simply touching on wikipedia's biggest and most fatal flaw..

MANY (but certainly not all) Wikipedians seek to deliberately deprive the public of information that would reflect poorly on their own political party or ideology. This is very dangerous in my opinion, since wikipedia entries are usually in the top 5 of all google results on any given search.. so it would be nice if we could actually provide the public with the most accurate and up-to-date information.

But the wikipedians will constantly defend themselves in these situations by stating that wikipedia is not supposed to include "controversy" .. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.125.144.46 (talk) 19:37, 10 November 2011 (UTC)


Wikiopedia is not a newspaper or tabloid - it is not the place for every poll and letter to the editor getting into print - it is intended to be relevant long after Scott is dead. Cheers. Collect (talk) 14:27, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Unemployment (a major problem)

Dear Governor Scott:

My name is Flozell Stewart {7599} I recently went to the VA hospital in Miami for an necessary operation on 08-02 thur 08-06-2011. I was discharged without problems. I did not claim that week, and explained why. I found out today, my benefits had been cut off as of 08-18-2011 for orbitration for four to six weeks. I do not understand, this action will send me under the bridge. Is there any help for a fellow service man? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Floydover60 (talk • contribs) 16:35, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, but this site has absolutely nothing to do with Rick Scott or his office. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia that collects information about people from Reliable soruces, so we can't put you in contact with Scott. Qwyrxian (talk) 06:39, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
I don't know, would it totally shock you that someone big in the administration kept deleting the controversies of his? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.10.90.15 (talk) 14:07, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Columbia/HCA fraud case details

"Columbia/HCA plead guilty" should read "Columbia/HCA pleaded guilty" or "Columbia/HCA pled guilty." Biggerbuzz (talk) 22:20, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Got it, thanks. Qwyrxian (talk) 11:49, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

It should also not tell a direct lie (with 5 references that do not reference the statement at all). That lie is the idea that, as the article currently states. "Scott was not in any way implicated." Of COURSE he was implicated. He was the pinnacle of the federal investigation! He was interviewed ON VIDEO which is available EVERYWHERE. It was a major campaign snafu that he managed to suppress back then and is obviously still suppressing now. If the writers/editors had simply written "Rick Scott was not found personally guilty of any charges but his corporation was found guilty of [a multitude of] felonies." then THAT would be a different story. But to say that the center of an investigation "was not implicated in any" of that investigation is just total LYING PROPAGANDA. 98.203.17.49 (talk) 20:37, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

No charges laid against him. 'Nuff said. That you "know" that he must have been guilty is fine and dandy, but not how WP:BLP requires we act. Collect (talk) 21:29, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

very bold edits

Two were made by Greywolfactivist (13 edits) today. I suggest that unless there is consensus, that they do not meet the requirements for addition here.

[13] primarily sets forth an editorial case that Scott has a conflict of interest wrt drug-testing.

[14] duplicates and expands the claim that Scott is a criminal regarding this.

I suggest that UNDUE applies, as well as the BLP requirement that contentious claims be strongly sourced. Solantic is curently in the BLP. Collect (talk) 12:10, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Agree. He was not personally charged as far as I can tell from the text. We have to be careful re WP:LIBEL et al to protect Wikipedia. Collect: fix as needed. Quis separabit? 20:26, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

role in purging the voting records

Nothing on this at all and the article locked from edits? Hmmmmmmm. Curious. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.184.82.35 (talk) 00:06, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

If the article is locked (page protected from unregistered IP editors) it must be due to vandalism -- there's nothing curious about that. Quis separabit? 17:52, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
Find one or more good cites. Suggest some wording. Candleabracadabra (talk) 00:10, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 4 November 2012

Fix broke links in External links, Govlinks template, washpo = gIQAxUjQKP and nga = current-governors/col2-content/main-content-list/rick-scott.html and delete natgov

184.78.81.245 (talk) 21:26, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Done. Minor and uncontroversial. —KuyaBriBriTalk 15:41, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Florida law requiring drug screening for welfare applicants

In the section of the article above, it would be of paramount importance to note that this law was enjoined for being unconstitutional by the 11th US Court of Appeals in April 2013. Here is a source to confirm such.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/02/26/court-rejects-florida-law-requiring-drug-testing-for-welfare-recipients/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.54.247.176 (talk) 15:38, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

Rick Scott bans the Internet

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2421487,00.asp

Here's another source on Scott's war on the 1st Amendment. Hcobb (talk) 16:46, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Intro

Why is the following statement appropriate for the lead, if he was not implicated?

"He resigned as Chief Executive of Columbia/HCA in 1997 amid a controversy over the company's business and Medicare billing practices; the company ultimately admitted to fourteen felonies and agreed to pay the federal government over $600 million; Scott was not implicated."CFredkin (talk) 19:50, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
The intro should cover the notable events of his career: I'd say his headship of the company and subsequent resignation are highly notable. Ruby Murray 20:04, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
After looking again at the sources. I agree. Sorry.CFredkin (talk) 20:23, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Fraud

After reading the article, I'm amazed that this isn't covered in more detail. Seems like a huge deal and only gets a passing mention. Anyone agree? LessThanEvil (talk) 11:00, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

No charges of fraud were made about him, and so, if anything, the current sections dealing with it may actually be of undue weight. Cheers. See WP:BLP to see why such may not even belong in this BLP. Collect (talk) 12:57, 19 December 2013 (UTC)
On further reading I have to say I agree with you on some levels. The content on the page briefly described the case, and as no charges were brought it needs to more accurately discuss his involvement. I've made a couple of edits to hopefully improve the article. LessThanEvil (talk) 14:29, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Lieutenant Governor appointment

Added some information on this, as it seems very current in the media. LessThanEvil (talk) 18:15, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

I see no encyclopedic value to the BLP - and it looks like WP is being used for "current news" where any suit will not be settled for a long time -- at such time if the suit becomes noteworthy then it might belong. We do not include every lawsuit brought against people as many times nothing actually happens from it. Cheers. Collect (talk) 18:43, 13 January 2014 (UTC)
So, current events are not noteworthy? So do we need to wait a few months before putting information about Christ Christie and the lane closure incident (Chris Christie#Fort Lee bridge lanes closure) or even creating a separate article for Fort Lee lane closure scandal. In fact, there is a tag that can be used to denote that it is a current event (see the page on Fort Lee lane closure scandal). Looks like people want to keep this page clean. Unfortunately, there are many reliable sources on the topic and it belongs in the article. I just put in an edit (which was previously reverted) summarizing the current information. --SPniner55 (talk) 00:34, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

The proper content should simply reflect the appointment just made - and the putative lawsuits are not really relevant to the BLP IMO. Collect (talk) 01:26, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

Rather than turning this into an editing war, I would like to try and be constructive. The appointment in my opinion needs mentioning, I agree that the lawsuit shouldn't be included at this time. This isn't current news, if you go onto Google and type in 'Florida Lieutenant Govenor', its everywhere. Proving to me this is highly notable and has been for a long period of time. This isn't just a passing mention, if you scroll through the news, its been discussed constantly over a 9 month period. I included the lawsuit with plans to build it out, but am unable to do this if it keeps getting reverted. As far as I can see over his time in office, this is one of the most notable topics in the media. LessThanEvil (talk) 17:00, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

When I do a Google search on "Rick Scott", the News results don't include a mention of the appointment (or the lawsuit) in the first several pages of results. CFredkin (talk) 17:30, 24 January 2014 (UTC)
Yes I agree when you google "Rick Scott" that the links to the appointment are not listed everywhere. However, I'm sure all 72 references on his page aren't all listed in the first several pages, it just means we need to look further. If you google "Florida Lieutenant Governor", you will see what I mean. It has been discussed for months and months in major media outlets. I'm not saying we need to discuss the lawsuit as I originally thought, but think this was a major topic and therefore should be included in some way. LessThanEvil (talk) 11:28, 28 January 2014 (UTC)
My point is that this article isn't about "Florida Lt. Governor", it's a bio of "Rick Scott". The fact that it took Scott several months to appoint a replacement Lt. Governor doesn't seem notable (nor does the fact that someone filed a frivolous lawsuit in that regard).CFredkin (talk) 16:51, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Common Core and land conservation funding

It would be good to have some content added on these subjects. Candleabracadabra (talk) 23:46, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

2014 Gubernatorial election

I've recently added a new section about the potential re-election of Scott as it's a pretty big deal currently. I also added some content which was reverted a couple of weeks ago, but I do think it could be discussed in some way. Not sure if my approach is the best. Feel free to discuss further. LessThanEvil (talk) 23:43, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

I agree with previous post from Collect indicating that this is not relevant given the subsequent appointment of a Lt. Governor. CFredkin (talk) 23:50, 23 January 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for the feedback, I actually missed Collect's comment above when posting this new section, but have to say I agree. My thought in order to expand the section out regarding the lead up to the 2014 election would be the latest small section I have just added. Obviously if it needs toning down further then please let me know. LessThanEvil (talk) 16:30, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

Ballotpedia and Further Reading

There's been an attempt to include Ballotpedia in a Further Reading section for this article. I'm not sure that Ballotpedia qualifies as WP:reliable and Further Reading items must be WP:reliable (especially for a WP:BLP).CFredkin (talk) 23:02, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Fine amount in lede

The total amount of the settlement was not $600 million. The settlements in 2006 were $631 million and $250 million. However, that doesn't include the fines already imposed during the course of the investigation. The fines that were already placed in 2000 are considered part of the same investigation and total up to $1.7 billion. Why is this different in the lede? The justice department apparently considers them to be the same. Ayzmo (talk) 21:42, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Infobox photo

Goredog (talk · contribs) has repeatedly replaced the infobox photo with an older, and in my opinion inferior, photo. Since they never leave an edit summary, I'm opening this section so that can explain why the older photo should replace the newer one.- MrX 00:45, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

Fangate

According to a few hundred news sources, fangate is indeed noteworthy. It seems CFredkin was a bit hasty with the revert.- MrX 23:38, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

I believe this is merely trivia.CFredkin (talk) 23:44, 16 October 2014 (UTC)
A fan is trivial, but Scott's unusual reaction to the fan is hardly trivia. Trivia would be "Rick Scott" wore a red tie to work today.- MrX 00:04, 17 October 2014 (UTC)
It's certainly well covered in reliable sources, but pretty much every newsworthy minutae in a political campaign gets that. To argue that this is a significant point in an encyclopedia article on Scott as a whole doesn't make much sense -- perhaps it would be more fitting in the page for the race.--Yaksar (let's chat) 00:23, 17 October 2014 (UTC)
Agreed. At present it's a perfect example of WP:NOTNEWS. If it turns out to have a significant impact on the election and contributes to his defeat, add it to his page. But for now, given that the entire section on his page about the 2014 election is 2 lines long, it would be WP:UNDUE. Tiller54 (talk) 14:58, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

therichest.com

Fails to be WP:RS. See discussions at Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_162#CelebrityNetWorth.com_and_TheRichest.org.2FTheRichest.com, Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_151#therichest.org.

Where the front page of a "source" has such tidbits as "9 Most Mysterious Deaths In Adult Entertainment" and "10 Most Interesting Animals To Break A Guinness World Record" there is a slight clue. Collect (talk) 11:56, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

I agree, and have fixed it with solid sourcing and updated information.- MrX 12:24, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

Climate change

This content about Rick Scott's administration banning the term "climate change" has been removed:

[9] Members of Scott's administration directed employees of the state Department of Environmental Protection to avoid using the terms “climate change” or “global warming” in official communications, according to four former employees.[10][11][12][13] Scott denied that his administration banned the terms.[14][13]
References

References

  1. ^ "Hospital Corp. Bid Is Dropped". New York Times. April 22, 1987.
  2. ^ "The Hospital World's Hard-Driving Money Manauthor=Milt Freudenheim". New York Times. October 5, 1993.
  3. ^ "Hospital Corp. Bid Is Dropped". The New York Times. April 22, 1987.
  4. ^ Milt Freudenheim (5 October 1993). "http://www.nytimes.com/1993/10/05/business/the-hospital-world-s-hard-driving-money-man.html". The New York Times. {{cite news}}: External link in |title= (help)
  5. ^ "Bid for Hospital Corporation Withdrawn". The Washington Post.
  6. ^ "HCA Board Takes No Action on $3.85 Billion Takeover Bid". Associated Press. 17 April 1987.
  7. ^ Rutenberg, Jim (April 1, 2009). "Health Critic Brings a Past and a Wallet". The New York Times. Retrieved April 2, 2009.
  8. ^ Richard L. Scott, The New York Times
  9. ^ Kruse, Michael (September 3, 2014). "Cut short by Gov. Rick Scott, climate scientist finishes his thought". Tampa Bay Times. Retrieved March 17, 2015.
  10. ^ Korten, Tristram (March 8, 2015). "In Florida, Officials Ban Term 'Climate Change'". Florida Center for Investigative Reporting. Retrieved March 17, 2015.
  11. ^ McCoy, Terrence (March 9, 2015). "Threatened by climate change, Florida reportedly bans term 'climate change'". Washington Post. Retrieved March 17, 2015.
  12. ^ McCoy, Terrence (March 10, 2015). "Fla. scientist told to remove words 'climate change' from study on climate change". Washington Post. Retrieved March 17, 2015.
  13. ^ a b Allen, Greg (March 11, 2015). "Florida Gov. Scott Denies Banning Phrase 'Climate Change'". National Public Radio. Retrieved March 17, 2015.
  14. ^ Mazzei, Patricia (March 9, 2015). "Florida governor denies environmental agency banned term 'climate change'". Miami Herald. Retrieved March 17, 2015.

The content was removed along with six sources. I would think that this content should be included to present a balanced view of Governor Scott's position and his administration's actions with respect to climate change. His denial (a fact) is also noteworthy and relevant, in my opinion.- MrX 11:52, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Given that there is no Governorship of Rick Scott article (as it is the case with other governors, e. g. Governorship of Chris Christie) where it would be more appropriate to include it it existed, this material should be included in this article. - Cwobeel (talk) 15:28, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

This is a total mess:

Although Scott denies banning the term "climate change" from official use by Florida state officials, there is evidence that a ban exists and there has been one recorded occurrence of a Florida state official having been reprimanded for use of the term. A longtime employee of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection was reprimanded with suspension pending a mental health evaluation from his doctor to verify his “fitness for duty” reportedly after having used the term in the course of his official duties. [citation needed]

- Cwobeel (talk) 17:31, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

I will look at some sources and see if I can help with some copy editing in a little while.- MrX 17:35, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Rms125a@hotmail.com: The angle about a environment dept staffer being asked to submit to an mental health eval is astonishing yes but breaking news. We should expect the connection to Scott alleged by the FCIR if any to develop as this story has legs with the Washington Post, Guardian, Miami Herald, and others. Can we please be a little patient? I'm going to delete it for now, WP:BLP, no refs, if you don't mind. Thanks. Hugh (talk) 18:14, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Well, that's a 1st for me, a thank for a delete! ;) Hugh (talk) 18:37, 20 March 2015 (UTC)
@HughD: I didn't remove anything about the employee purportedly reprimanded for using the term, nor was I planning to delete it. I had been trying to reflink the internal links but kept hitting edit conflict. Moot now anyway. I did tweak the wording of the paragraph before that one for NPOV. Yours, Quis separabit? 18:29, 20 March 2015 (UTC)
Sorry. The in-text links are fine refs, the Guardian. Today or tomorrow someone will ask the subject of this article about the suspension and it will be a lot easier to get in. Hugh (talk) 18:41, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Scott is already cited as a skeptic of AGW in this BLP. The material about allegations that unnamed officials asked people not to use the term is not directly connected to Scott in any source, thus is UNDUE in this BLP as such. Note this question has been posed at the proper noticeboard WP:BLP/N. Cheers. Collect (talk) 01:42, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

This article is about Scott AND his governorship, so material about his governorship is necessary and due. You are welcome to start Governorship of Rick Scott if you would prefer keeping his bio devoid of details about his Florida governorship.- Cwobeel (talk) 14:35, 21 March 2015 (UTC)
That's correct. We can't simply list election stats and political career content without including analysis of his public position on climate change, and at least a mention of his administration's policies.- MrX 14:56, 21 March 2015 (UTC)
Here's something that might be useful:

"An environmental group wants Florida’s inspector general to check out reports of an unwritten policy prohibiting state agencies from using the terms “climate change” and “global warming.” ¶ About a dozen members of the group Forecast the Facts, many appearing with their mouths covered by duct tape emblazoned with the words “climate change,” dropped off about 43,000 electronically signed petitions Friday with the receptionists at Gov. Rick Scott’s Capitol office."
— Panama City News Herald

- MrX 17:24, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

Combining election history

Does any one have objections to combining 2010 Florida gubernatorial campaign and 2014 Florida gubernatorial campaign sections with the tables under election history? There is redundancy in the article that could be eliminated by combining these sections.- MrX 13:29, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

Yes. The Tables are simple statistical tables, and thus placing the body text related to them under such tables makes little sense. It would make some sense to place smaller tables into the individual campaign sections instead. Collect (talk) 13:45, 21 March 2015 (UTC)
My thinking was that there are redundant stats in the prose and the table, but perhaps a better solution is just to trim the redundant detail from the prose.- MrX 14:24, 21 March 2015 (UTC)
Thanks for asking. I would not want to ask our readers who want to read our text to skip over tables to continue, they might not find the rest of the story. Hugh (talk) 15:58, 21 March 2015 (UTC)
To clarify, I did not say that the prose would be placed under the tables, and I agree that would be poor organization. I suggested combining the prose with the tables [that are currently] under [the section] election history. The intention was to present the prose for each campaign immediately followed by the tables. I'm fine with just trimming redundant detail though.- MrX 16:21, 21 March 2015 (UTC)
I think it makes sense chronologically that the gubernatorial content follow the campaign content, and that a table summarizing the outcome of the campaign following the prose of the campaign. Eventually but maybe not yet once we get more 2nd term content the gubernatorial content could be subsectioned into 1st and 2nd terms. The campaigns have their own articles, so it makes sense that over time what seemed like highly relevant detail here might be less so. I support your goal of consolidating the campaign content. May I please make some suggestions if you plan to edit the tables? I think the "Candidates" column would be clearer if it were "Gov, Lt. Gov candidates" or similar, right now it is not clear why there are two. Also I wish the Candidate cell contents did not wrap so the whole table was shorter in height. Thanks. Hugh (talk) 17:21, 21 March 2015 (UTC)
I removed the wrapping in the tables and made some minor MOS changes. The tables are templates, so they are locked down tight against editing by us rabble.- MrX 17:52, 21 March 2015 (UTC)
Thank you, that's better looking. Do you think the tables are appropriate level of detail here? If so I think the tables are now short enough that I would support moving each of the two tables to the end of each of the appropriate campaign sections. Thanks again. Hugh (talk) 18:17, 21 March 2015 (UTC)
I think the tables are standardized across en.wiki so they probably have about the right amount of detail. I would prefer separate columns for lieutenant governor candidates, but not at the expense of creating a one-off. I do appreciate your moving the tables into the sections as you did. That was exactly what I was suggesting when I opened this talk section.- MrX 20:24, 21 March 2015 (UTC)
Actually the template has huge amounts of possible customizing - no such think as "bog-standard tables" in fact. Read the documentation <g>. UK etc. use "change" values - which make no sense in US articles. Other nations use "party list" elections, making tables for any individual candidate as such basically worthless. TY HughD Collect (talk) 20:41, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

Timely Justice Act

Governor Scott signed circa 2013 -- pretty important piece of legislation, yet no mention here? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_Florida#Timely_Justice_Act_of_2013

Governor Scott also presided over a record number of executions carried out in Florida since 1979 (21 so far, as many under Jeb Bush). 148.177.1.211 (talk) 14:19, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

Purged 182,000 "non-citizen" voters

In "Billionaires and Ballot Bandits" Investigative reporter Greg Palast states that in May 2012 Governor Scott purged 182,000 "non-citizens" from Florida voter rolls, and that as of the the time of the writing of the book (2012) no evidence of ineligibility had been found. According to Palast, NPR reporters said: "...state officials...examining registrations of thousands of Florida voters who m a y n o t be US citizens." [emphasis mine]. -lifeform (talk) 15:37, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

Sounds like business as usual in the Sunshine State.Quoter not a gloater (talk) 17:29, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

Redundant text rv from lede

The consistent repetition of text, which is already contained in the body of the article, and insertion of inappropriate text are both inflammatory in this election year. Wikipedia is NEUTRAL. Quis separabit? 22:27, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

Unexplained reversion

Having been reverted by Therequiembellishere without explanation, I am wondering why. 142.161.81.20 (talk) 05:26, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

Brett Kavanaugh

MrX I am new to this edit war involving Brett Kavanaugh. So what's going on? PackMecEng (talk) 23:25, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

An IP based in Italy is spamming the same non-encyclopedic content across multiple articles. In this case, the spamming is repeated every time the material is reverted by different editors. It's time for 95.250.196.3 to seek consensus here instead of restoring the material again. - MrX 🖋 23:30, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
Looking at the history I see that now. I was going though the pending change log, I initially approved it. Looked skimpy on it's own which I noted in the history and then added another source of his support. I do notice support for Kavanaugh is mentioned in a few other BLP articles since he is controversial. Such as Chuck Grassley, Michael Bidwill, and Heidi Heitkamp though I have not looked at who and when they were added. What is the concern? PackMecEng (talk) 23:39, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
The concern is that it's not encyclopedic material and I assume that the only reason for adding it is to push a POV. - MrX 🖋 14:04, 21 August 2018 (UTC)
I can see the value since it is controversial to support or oppose the guy. Past that I am a bit eh on the thing. It is not something that adds a lot to the article or the understanding of the subject much. I would be fine with omission unless others chime in. PackMecEng (talk) 14:07, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

I was accused of "soapboxing". Rick Scott publicly supports the confirmation of Kavanaugh,as i have shown. The rights of United states citizens are in great part determined by the composition of the United states supreme Court : his decision to support Kavanaugh is therefore a notable policy position. There is more to say. He is candidate for the US Senate, the branch of Congress that must approve federal judicial nominations. (Article II, Section 2 of the United states Constitution). How will he exercise his constitutional powers if elected to the United States Senate? My contributions were truthful , verifiable and remarkable . They should remain part of Wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.250.196.3 (talk) 22:56, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

@95.250.196.3: Please sign your comments by typing ~~~~ after each of your posts, and new post go on the bottom. The material is not noteworthy. If he were a senator and something about his support were unique, then perhaps it would be worth including. One fully expects that a Republican will support a conservative SCOTUS nomination from a Republican president. Governors do not have policy positions supporting supreme court nominees.- MrX 🖋 15:52, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

Ric Scott is using Bill Nelson's judicial votes in an attack ad. Meanwhile his support of Kavanaugh is censored by Mr X and by Wikipedia https://twitter.com/scottforflorida/status/1016515738373419010 My truthful and noteworthy contribution was censored but it should be approved now. ~~~~— Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.252.118.222 (talk • contribs) August 29, 2018 08:31 UTC (UTC)

I'm not censoring anything, but you need to get consensus before restoring this material. You can start by showing good, independent sources that write about this as if it's important. Wikipedia is not a WP:SOAPBOX for either Governor Scott's or Senator Nelson's campaigns or PACs.- MrX 🖋 11:12, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia always tilts toward Democrats and against Republicans. This is censorship, but it is always masked by the pretense that some person has "vandalized" Wikipedia or done something inappropriate, but the simple truth is that Wikipedia is Liberalpedia. There is no point in editing a Wikipedia article unless you are a faithful Democrat because any change will immediately be reverted to something which is pro-Democrat. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.152.216.213 (talk) 16:05, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

POV and balance issues

I have tagged this article for POV and balance issues. The page is heavily focused upon negative information about the article's subject. While that information is relevant and belongs in the article, it has been belabored and overemphasized. The result is a slanted article. The sections on Scott's gubernatorial tenure (voting rights in particular) and the Columbia/HCA situation are examples. I have made some efforts to balance out the article by adding neutral or favorable information, but some of those efforts have been thwarted. I believe the article would benefit from some attention from an editor with expertise on the totality of Scott's record as Governor. SunCrow (talk) 06:52, 27 October 2018 (UTC)

I disagree. We don't balance articles by adding favorable material. We cover material in proportion to coverage in reliable sources. The reason there is so much "negative" information is because of Scott's choices, for example running a company that ripped off the federal government, refusing federal funds for SunRail, and gutting environment protections, to name a few. The article should not be tag-shamed based on the opinion of one editor.- MrX 🖋 11:59, 27 October 2018 (UTC)
MrX, I agree completely that Wikipedia articles should cover material in proportion to coverage in reliable sources. However, I don't believe that this article does so. That is why I tagged it. SunCrow (talk) 12:42, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
For overseeing what was the largest Medicare fraud case, the section is actually fairly brief and concise. The voting rights content is all extensively sourced (includes all kinds of episodes, investigative journalism pieces and court challenges), and it's unclear to me what information is missing which would make the sub-section unbalanced. When you say that tried to "balance out the article", you're presumably referring to your attempt to remove Columbia/HCA's guilty plea and the description of what the company precisely did under Scott's tenure with the absurd rationale that it had nothing to do with Scott (despite the fact that he was CEO and RS explicitly mention him). The tags are spurious. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 13:37, 27 October 2018 (UTC)
Snooganssnoogans, I disagree with every single point you made (except for the voting rights content being extensively sourced, which has nothing to do with my objection to it) and stand by both of the tags and my rationale for them. SunCrow (talk) 12:42, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

I also disagree that the neutrality of this article is an issue. Its well sourced and some pieces could even be expanded on like the Medicare fraud. If anything they are to brief and I would support expanding them as he is well known for that. ContentEditman (talk) 14:39, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Lopez-Cantera

There's zero sourcing on this idea that he will become governor in January. He probably will, but to say so without a source is original research. (Presumably, such a source would also include the day he's expected to become governor, so we don't have to hedge everything). --Golbez (talk) 23:03, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

Trans rights in sports

Rick Scott appeared on the Fox News Sunday on February 28th 2021 and said, "[Republicans don't want] men [sic] winning women's sporting events."

This is exactly what Scott said very plainly today. You can wait for the transcript to become live, but it is unnecessary to delete Scott open opposition to all women's rights.--2601:C4:C300:1BD0:708E:2510:279C:4124 (talk) 20:09, 28 February 2021 (UTC)

Please leave his comment in the article. This wasn't a gaffe; he was making a public announcement of a carefully thought-out policy.[15] --2601:C4:C300:1BD0:708E:2510:279C:4124 (talk) 22:45, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
  • User:Mathglot: "per WP:UNDUE WEIGHT and WP:RECENTISM. Will Scott's comments on this issue yesterday still be noteworthy for this article in 2035? If not, it's probably not appropriate now, as Wikipedia is not a newspaper but try achieving consensus at Talk for this."
  • Yes. Absolutely, did you watch CPAC. Did you see Donald Trump yesterday spend time discussing protecting the "integrity of women's sports." Opposition to the rights of trans women is not a side issue. Vicky Hartzler, Donald Trump [16], and Rick Scott feel very strongly about waging war on trans women.

If Rick Scott talks about his opposition to trans rights in an official NRC memo and at the national conference, then who are you editors wanting to silence both me and Rick Scott??!!--2601:C4:C300:1BD0:708E:2510:279C:4124 (talk) 00:47, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

11-point plan

Why is there nothing about his 11-point plan, which received a lot of coverage in newspapers and political reporting websites earlier this year? AnonMoos (talk) 02:37, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

Came here to ask exactly this. Particularly important when he continues contradicting himself on things he proposed in the plan, and when it's probably the most overt example of what the GOP could pursue if they win back a congressional majority (and thus continues being brought up regularly by political media and the Dems). 2600:1700:5230:8880:7D5D:6306:15F1:2EF5 (talk) 06:23, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 23 August 2022

In the section entitled "Tenure" I suggest that the following be added: On February 13, 2021, Scott voted "Not Guilty" in the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump. [Ref: Wikipedia: Second impeachment trial of Donald Trump} 47.205.118.241 (talk) 13:57, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. You need to provide secondary sourcing discussing the import of a specific vote in their career to show that it is noteworthy and WP:DUE. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 15:08, 23 August 2022 (UTC)
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