Fox & Friends kicked off what is bound to be a full week of campaigning for Republicans early this Monday morning, by hosting yet another Republican candidate whose opponent was conveniently “unable to join” them. Today's beneficiary of Fox & Friends' boosterism was Florida gubernatorial candidate Rick Scott. In a move that should surprise no one, Doocy made sure to mention Scott's “expertise” in running hospitals, but never found time to mention Scott's health care company settled with the government over a massive Medicare fraud investigation. Must have just slipped his mind.
Doocy interviewed Scott for almost four minutes today, and included such hard hitting questions about whether he was “actually helped by early voting” in the primary, and about how he is going to “get people to show up and do the voting?” Doocy also made a point to cast Scott as a health care expert, asking: “Your expertise is in hospital business, you were CEO for a big company. Would you work, if you were governor, to repeal all or part of the health care act?” Naturally, Scott said he would repeal the whole thing:
If you felt like something was missing from this interview, well, you're right. See, Scott resigned as chairman of Columbia/HCA Healthcare Corp, the group Doocy alluded to, in 1997 amid a federal Medicare fraud investigation. According to a July 26, 1997, Los Angeles Times article, Scott resigned “amid a massive federal investigation into the Medicare billing, physician recruiting and home-care practices of” Columbia/HCA, “the nation's largest for-profit health care company.” According to a December 18, 2002, Justice Department press release describing a tentative settlement with HCA to resolve civil litigation, “When added to the prior civil and criminal settlements reached in 2000, this settlement would bring the government's total recoveries from HCA to approximately $1.7 billion.” We have also documented repeated instances in which media outlets and figures have uncritically repeated or aired Scott's health care misinformation, including that of his advocacy organization, Conservatives for Patients' Rights.
You've heard of “we report, you decide,” this was more “we won't report, and you're misled.”