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Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) has, to be sure, seen his share of scandals. Indeed, his most notable accomplishment in public life before becoming governor was getting caught defrauding the government. It stands to reason that if voters elect an alleged criminal to run a state government, there will be consequences.
But it's the scope of those consequences that Floridians are still dealing with. The Palm Beach Post's Stacey Singer published a rather remarkable story over the weekend about a tuberculosis outbreak in Jacksonville -- one of the worst anywhere in the U.S. in a generation -- and the Scott administration's dangerous response to the public health emergency.
The reports are a little complicated, but Adam Weinstein's item on this summarized the story well. Much of it has to do with the AG Holley State Hospital in Lantana, Florida, one of the last public-health facilities in the country that specializes in the treatment of TB victims.
Last spring ... the GOP-dominated Legislature voted to shutter the hospital as a cost-saving measure. The state's governor, former health care executive Rick Scott, signed the bill in April and even pressed for AG Holley's closure to be moved up six months; the facility was permanently shuttered on July 2.
But what was Scott thinking? According to the Palm Beach Post expose, AG Holley's closure came after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had warned the governor and his state health office in a report that tuberculosis was making a big comeback in the state. That report apparently never made it from those state officials to legislators who had voted to close the TB hospital.
Out of 3,000 people who had close contact with contagious people in Jacksonville, only 253 people had been found and evaluated for TB infection. Three months after the CDC's warning, Florida officials still hadn't widely distributed the report -- to the public or anyone else -- and as a consequence, there are an untold number of Floridians carrying the TB strain.
A Republican state lawmaker who heads the Florida House's health care appropriations committee said he wouldn't have pushed to close the AG Holley State Hospital if he knew about the CDC report, which may very well be the reason it wasn't distributed.
As for the larger context, Alex Seitz-Wald's item rings true.
The fact that the outbreak began where it did and that it has so far spread mostly among homeless people, mental health patients and drug addicts who encounter each other in soup kitchens and shelters may have made the issue seem less urgent to state officials. Setting aside the dignity of all human life, there is already evidence that the disease has spread beyond the underclass and is continuing to grow, unmonitored, in the Sunshine state. The governor’s office did not comment for Singer’s story, and the state health department has stuck to its message that statewide TB cases are down over last year, suggesting the closure of the hospital was valid. (The hospital closed at the end of June.)
The case underscores the real human consequences of austerity budgeting and conservatives’ drive to slash government whenever possible. Since austerity came into vogue with the Tea Party beginning in 2009 and was then put in place nationally after the Republican wave in 2010, there have been countless examples where cuts or attempted cuts impact preparedness. After the the Japanese tsunami, it was noted that Republican budget cuts targeted the agency responsible for tsunami warnings. The same was true about earthquake monitoring after a temblor struck the eastern seaboard (though funding was restored). House Majority Leader Eric Cantor also tried to hold up disaster funding for tornado and earthquake cleanup, demanding it be offset with cuts elsewhere. Republicans’ proposed budget last year would have cut funds for the CDC and food safety monitoring.
Incidentally, what does Rick Scott have to say about all of this? As of yesterday, the Republican governor hadn't said a word about the outbreak or the CDC warning, and he's currently in Europe on a "trade mission," accompanied by lobbyists for gambling and private-prison interests.
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What's the big deal? It is not likely that the TB outbreak is going to hit the 1%ers. Scott's (lack of) response is consistent with repuke values and approach to health care. If you are poor or homeless or mentally ill, you should die (sooner rather than later).
Yep, sounds like the perfect republican solution to the problem of uninsureds...just let them die.
Like with global warming, their ignorance of the truth astounds me.
Here's hoping someone with a form of untreatable TB coughs on all republicans during their next convention.
YES! Thank you Steve, for jumping on this story. It was just freaking me out the other day.
I'm not sure whether to blame callous and malicious ignorance, or some delusion on their part that somehow the magical god they worship will "fix" everything.
Rick Scott is standing up for personal responsibility:
If those people can't afford to pay for tuberculosis treatment, they shouldn't have gotten it.
This is really something with people who make over $250,000 and grumble about paying more taxes. Especially, in my career have made some pretty good contributions to the companies that have been worked at and the world. And have not even come close to making anything like $250,000. This is like a total insult to even listen to these people and really how these companies just use people and complain about paying people any type of fair wages, especially if you are a woman. Being so disgusted with all this crap from these people in control of these companies and the extreme rich that it is hardly even worth even to think of helping those worthless dogs in anything. And that is the sad truth about these extreme rich people in that they do give America a bad name and it is too understandable why there is people in other countries that hate America so much. How many people in China have committed suicide as the result of Romney types? How many people in China and other countries have been murdered as the result of the Romney types? How many people have died as the result of blood diamonds? How many people have died as the result of needing to drill for that oil? How many people will continue to die from the pollution countries keep spilling out everyday? And the list goes on how many more people will die at the hands of these rich people who do not care in the least about someone else or the very disastrous things they do to the earth.
So I find out about this today, the week AFTER my pregnant daughter and I take my grandchildren to the Jacksonville Zoo.
Excellent.
So much for the GOTP regard for human life! Yep, the GOTP "value life", until it comes out of womb, then that "life" is on it's own...Family values & morality are surely on display here.....
Alan Grayson of Florida predicted the republican health care plan when he said their plan is, if you get sick, die fast.Look's like Scott is following the republican plan to the letter.All it will take is one 1%er contacting the disease and the hospital will reopen yesterday.
Any truth to the rumor that the Florida Department of Tourism has adopted a new slogan: "Stay the hell out, Yankees"?
I keep hoping I'll wake up and find out that I was only dreaming that half the country has turned into a Dickens novel.
As a practicing physician TB is very treatable if the cases are found and they MUST be found. There are teams of nurses who visit a patient's home if he or she does not show up for a clinic appointment to take their medications. If you don't take a full course of meds then resistant strains can develop and be transmitted to the general population. What shortsightedness by a state government.
It's not "shortsightedness by a state government." Let's be very clear here what's going on. It's the fact that one of our two major political parties has made willful shortsightedness a central tenant of their ideology.
honest to GOD...this makes me sick.
With the convention coming to Fl. and Fla's dependence on tourism, good ole Gov Scott is creating a beautiful advertisement to vacation anywhere but Fl. There must be someone in the national press with the cajones to make this a national issue. Untreated TB will not sit quietly in Jax and wait for a miraculous cure. It is a lingering death, which will attack the weak, the elderly and the young, especially the underfed and uninsured.
If I could afford it I would do a one off buy of full page ads in the NYT, WaPo, AJC and NO Times Picayune warning potential visitors to FL of the TB outbreak. I'd have them done in full on scare-em to death FOX language and I'd be willing to be the fallout from them would rival the BP Oil Spill
Maybe a few Republicans will catch it at the convention and become "good" Republicans.
Isn't this malpractice by the governor? Shouldn't he be held accountable (and not just at the polls if he runs for re-election). What a jackass, for this and many, many other reasons.
Yeah, I'm sure the state legislature, controlled as it is by a supermajority of Teahadist Republicans, will get right on that.
I have argued, non-persuasively it would seem, with conservatives and libertarians that public health spending is in their interest. TB does not respect the boundaries of the country club or gated communities. Perhaps, they'll start to understand this when some one close to them contracts TB from the domestic help.
They are having a convention in Tampa soon, perhaps all the TP/GOPers will contract TB and we'll be rid of them.
Living in a bubble seems like a bad idea to me but it suits these scumbags.
THIS is who the Republicans are.
period
You have to give the Republicans credit for one thing, they sure know how to turn America into a crap hole of despair as the rich get richer. Soon the rich will think everybody else is nothing to be noted of --- Oops that is what the rich think now.