I’ve started my research into GOP governor candidate Rick Scott. The fact his former company Columbia/HCA paid billions in fines, penalties and civil lawsuits for falsifiying reports to increase Medicare reimbursements, among other violations, is troubling. His response is that he wasn’t charged. He claims that he wanted to fight all charges and the lawsuits, but his board instead ousted him with a nice golden parachute.
A bigger issue for me are the discrimination suits against another start-up company of his–Solantic. The Jacksonville alt-weekly, Folio Weekly, did a cover story on Scott, when he was battling health care reform (“Sick Joke”).
According to one former doctor that worked of Solantic, Rick Scott told him, ‘Fat people can’t work at our centers.’ …. Dr. David Yarian went to tell the report: “And that sort of set the trend. I’d be interviewing someone and his (Scott’s) first concern was what they looked like. He was always sending e-mails that people had to be fit and attractive. And no one was hired without his approval.â€
Scott allegedly also objected to hiring people of Middle Eastern descent and Hispanics.
From 2003 to 2005, four female Solantic supervisors, all working in different clinics, claimed they were explicitly prevented from hiring people they deemed the most qualified because the candidates were overweight, too old, Hispanic or black. Another filed suit claiming the discriminatory practices created a hostile work environment. Two women interviewed for jobs also filed suits corroborating some of the managers’ claims. All seven women prepared lawsuits with the same law firm, claiming they were fired or forced to quit “because they did not want to enforce Solantic’s discriminatory practices,†or were victims of those practices, as their complaints state.
The suits were filed on July 14, 2006. On May 23, 2007, less than a year later, Solantic settled with all the women for an undisclosed sum.