So I wake up this morning to a headline saying MAGA extremists made a deal with other MAGA extremists to advance the massive tax cut bill proposed by THE MAGA extremist (yeah, I’m talking about Comrade Trump, and while we’re at it, how creepy is it that they’re now referring to him as ‘Daddy’?).
What was included in the deal? You don’t want to know. I mean, it’s so fucking discouraging. But it’s also probably almost exactly what you expected. So what the hell, here’s JUST ONE facet of that deal. Florida Senator Rick Scott (you know him as the Guy Who Looks Like Gollum Became a Vampire and Got a Job on Wall Street) said he wanted to “do more to reduce the amount of money spent on able-bodied adults who are allowed to enroll into Medicaid.”
You may not know this about Rick Scott. He co-founded a hospital corporation which eventually became Columbia/HCA, the nation’s largest for-profit health care company. That sounds sorta impressive, doesn’t it. BUT (there’s always a ‘but’ with these motherfuckers), Scott had to resign from Columbia/HCA. Why? You know exactly why (it’s always fraud with these motherfuckers). Columbia/HCA was found guilty of defrauding Medicare, Medicaid, and other federal programs. Bill Clinton’s DOJ prosecuted the company and they were convicted of 14 felonies and fined $1.7 billion. At the time, it was the largest healthcare fraud settlement in U.S. history.
What did Rick Scott’s healthcare corporation do under his leadership? 1) They billed for tests that weren’t necessary and/or hadn’t been ordered by doctors physicians, 2) they attached false diagnosis codes to patient records to increase reimbursement to the hospitals, 3) they falsely claimed marketing and advertising costs as community education, and 4) they billed for home health care visits for patients who didn’t qualify to receive them. And that’s why Rick Scott was forced to resign.
Now that he’s no longer getting that sweet sweet Medicare fraud money, Scott wants to reduce funding for Medicare to prevent fraud. If you tried to write that into a movie script, nobody would believe it.
BUT that’s not all (it’s never ‘all’ with these motherfuckers, there’s always more). Scott said he and other MAGA conservatives want to “stop Blue State governors from taking advantage of Red States.” He actually said that, right out loud (these motherfuckers are always saying stupid stuff right out loud). That’s bullshit, of course. If you’re not already aware of this, blue states contribute nearly 60% of all federal tax receipts. Blue states generally pay more in taxes than they receive in government spending. Red states receive more money from the government than they pay in taxes. Red states leech off of blue states.
Rick Scott knows this; but he’s not the sort of person who is constrained by truth. Or fact. Or honor, or a sense of shared humanity, or any notion of decency, or or or. They’re all hypocrites, these motherfuckers. All of them. Every single one.
Anyway, that was the first headline I saw. I haven’t read any more news this morning. I don’t think I need to.
gregfallis.com 