Rick Scott Shuts Down TB Hospital Amid "Worst Outbreak in 20 Years" - Polidicks

[URL="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/07/fla-gov-rick-scott-kept-worst-tb-outbreak-20-years-secret"]Mother Jones[/URL] [IMG]http://i.imgur.com/BIsjd.jpg[/IMG] [QUOTE]Welcome to the Sunshine State: Republican-run since 1998, tea party-controlled since 2010, and fast becoming one of the lowest-service states in the nation. Which helps explain how lawmakers shut down its only tuberculosis clinic last month, just as the worst outbreak of the infectious disease in America's recent history flared up with a vengeance in Jacksonville, Miami, and who knows where else—an outbreak that state and local officials sat on until last month, according to [URL="http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/news/worst-tb-outbreakin-20-years-kept-secret/nPpLs/"]an investigation published by the [I]Palm Beach Post[/I][/URL]. Tuberculosis—the lung-liquefying disease of "consumption"—is the world's [URL="http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs104/en/"]second-biggest infectious killer[/URL], but had been largely eradicated in America in the early 20th century, owing to improvements in health services. A few flare-ups, mostly of foreign origin and mostly affecting indigent populations, continued to occur sporadically in the United States, which was why Florida [URL="http://web.archive.org/web/20110711011951/http://www.floridashealth.com/AGHolley/history.htm"]in 1950[/URL] opened the AG Holley State Hospital in Lantana, just west of Palm Beach.[URL="http://web.archive.org/web/20110521015206/http://www.doh.state.fl.us/AGHolley/mission.htm"]AG Holley's website[/URL] (which has since been taken down by the state) billed the facility as "the only public health hospital in Florida," a safe place where TB victims could be quarantined and cured, and one of the last such facilities in the US. Last spring, however, 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[I]Palm Beach Post[/I] exposé, 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. According to the [I]Post[/I]: [QUOTE]Had they seen the letter, decision makers would have learned that 3,000 people in the past two years may have had close contact with contagious people at Jacksonville’s homeless shelters, an outpatient mental health clinic and area jails. Yet only 253 people had been found and evaluated for TB infection, meaning Florida’s outbreak was, and is, far from contained. The public was not to learn anything until early June, even though the same strain was appearing in other parts of the state, including Miami…Today, three months after it was sent to Tallahassee, the CDC report still has not been widely circulated.[/QUOTE] Hundreds, possibly thousands, of people in Florida could now be carrying the TB strain, which so far has claimed 13 lives and been confirmed to have infected 99 people, including six children, according to the [I]Post[/I]—the worst in America in 20 years. Its origins go back to a 2008 TB outbreak in a Jacksonville assisted-living facility that killed two people. To stop that strain, the CDC sent local health officials $275,000 to hire extra staff. But when the money ran out, the staff was cut, and containment of the disease was halted. The problem is a scarcity of resources, Duval (Jacksonville) County Health Director Dr. Bob Harmon told the [I]Post[/I]. Harmon's department had 946 workers and $61 million in the kitty during the 2008 outbreak, but now "we're down to 700 staff and revenue is down to $46 million," he said. "It has affected most areas of the organization." (Likewise, state funding for AG Holley had dwindled over the years, so that by the time its closure was on the table, the 500-bed facility only had [URL="http://web.archive.org/web/20110711011951/http://www.floridashealth.com/AGHolley/history.htm"]money to handle 50 patients[/URL].) That's par for the course here in Florida, where even [URL="http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2011/01/florida-gop-champions-freedom-liberty-and-busted-poop-tanks"]septic-tank inspections are derided as socialism[/URL], and conservative lawmakers have cut social services to the bone—and Rick Scott has cut even further, using his line-item veto to slash mercilessly at Legislature-approved spending he deems unimportant. During the same session in which AG Holley was ordered shut, Scott [URL="http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/04/rick-scott-slashes-rape-counseling-during-sexual-assault-awareness-month"]unilaterally cut $141 million[/URL] to projects including an indigent psychiatric medicine program, Girls Incorporated of Sarasota County, the Alzheimer's Family Care Center of Broward County, and a state settlement for child welfare case managers who were owed overtime. He also chopped a $1.5 million grant to rape and crisis counseling centers [URL="http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/04/rick-scott-slashes-rape-counseling-during-sexual-assault-awareness-month"]during Sexual Assault Awareness Month[/URL]. (That grant was later restored after a public outcry.) More recently, Scott has vowed not to implement Obamacare or expand Medicaid in the state, leaving swaths of state residents without access to health insurance. Florida's population is growing at a rapid clip, but its infrastructure and state services are crumbling. In 2010 it had the lowest amount of state employees per capita, and it spends less than any other state on the employees it does have. Before Scott was elected in 2010, University of Miami political science professor George Gonzalez [URL="http://floridaindependent.com/8026/rick-scott-alex-sink-differ-sharply-on-how-to-cut-reshape-state-government"]laid it out like this[/URL]: "Florida is a sort of low-service state compared to other states, and [Scott's] proposal appears to want to attract investment through low cost rather than high quality of services…He wants to make the state as inexpensive as possible." That's exactly what he did. The Florida Center for Fiscal and Economic Policy [URL="http://www.fcfep.org/attachments/20110203--The Facts About Florida Taxes.pdf"]warned last year[/URL] (PDF) that Florida's shockingly low state taxes on corporations "are sufficient to provide only a low level of the public services necessary to support a decent quality of life." But now, Florida's executive branch stands accused not just of cutting services, but of not alerting the public to a possible TB epidemic during the debate over AG Holley's future. The head of the Florida House's health care appropriations committee, Rep. Matt Hudson (R-Naples), said he never would have agreed to close the hospital if he'd known about the CDC's report on the outbreak. "There is every bit of understanding that we cannot not take care of people who have a difficult case of TB," he told the [I]Post[/I]. The newspaper, which obtained the CDC report after repeated open-records requests, sought a comment from the state's health service; a spokesperson responded by arguing that overall cases of TB had gone down in 2011. Meanwhile, as local officials scramble to contain the TB outbreak, Scott is [URL="http://miamiherald.typepad.com/nakedpolitics/2012/07/scott-discusses-aerospace-jobs-with-british-prime-minister.html"]off on a "trade mission" to London[/URL], taking in an air show and talking about boosting the aerospace industry—a private business sector [URL="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/05/rick-scott-pentagon-money-f35"]near and dear to his heart[/URL]—with British Prime Minister David Cameron. He has not commented publicly about the TB outbreak. It has spread to multiple population centers in Florida, including Jacksonville and Miami, where health officials are trying to drill down on cases as they surface. But, as the [I]Post[/I] points out, "Most of the sick were poor black men," who are likelier to fly under the state's radar—and likelier to die of the debilitating disease as a result. Whether Florida can now turn the tide against the outbreak remains to be seen, and Floridians will continue to face the aftermath of Scott's low-services paradigm of governance. [B]UPDATE 1, Monday, 5:12 p.m. EST:[/B] The [URL="http://miamiherald.typepad.com/nakedpolitics/2012/07/rick-scott-travels-to-uk-with-85-member-entourage.html"][I]Miami Herald[/I] reports[/URL] that Florida Gov. Rick Scott is traveling through the UK with an 85-member entourage, including lobbyists from the gambling, insurance, real estate, and private prison industries. He still hasn't commented on the TB outbreak. [B]UPDATE 2, Wednesday, 10:14 a.m. EST:[/B] Rick Scott's office and the state's health department [URL="http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/the-buzz-florida-politics/content/doh-goes-offensive-after-media-reports-tb-outbreak"]put out dueling press statements[/URL] yesterday blaming the press for "inaccuracies" in their reports. "As soon as the Department of Health (DOH) saw a slight spike in the FL0046 Tuberculosis strain, we immediately reached out to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and engaged stakeholders in the community," the health department's statement read. "Contacting these local government officials, community organizations and hospitals is a clear sign that these actions were conducted with the utmost level of transparency." [URL="http://pushingrope.blogspot.com/2011/06/brian-bugess-worst-media-communication.html"]Brian Burgess[/URL], Gov. Scott's combative communications director, wrote similarly: "The secrecy allegation is absurd, and is proven so by the fact that numerous community stakeholders were engaged in the effort to contain the disease." Both statements list several politicians and local government liaisons, but they don't make clear whether, in "the utmost level of transparency," they included homeless Floridians and at-risk state residents in Jacksonville, Miami, and elsewhere among the "community stakeholders" whom they informed about the outbreak. "We stand by our story," said [I]Palm Beach Post[/I] story editor Joel Engelhardt. Meanwhile, Rick Scott continued his tour of England Wednesday, with an itinerary that included visits to the Farnsborough Air Show and Lloyds of London. In the nineteen months since the tea-party-endorsed conservative became governor, he's also paid official visits to[URL="http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/07/06/2884463/fla-governor-to-visit-lloyds-airshow.html"]Brazil, Canada, Israel, Panama and Spain[/URL].[/QUOTE]

Am I the only one totally confused by the article?

Florida is the Tea Party's very own testbed for the rest of the country - if they successfully turn it into a backwoods yet corporate hellhole, their grand plan will be more able to be a success. :v:

[QUOTE=Zambies!;36831755]Am I the only one totally confused by the article?[/QUOTE] Mother Jones articles have that effect on normal people.

[QUOTE=Zambies!;36831755]Am I the only one totally confused by the article?[/QUOTE] tl:dr - Florida's governor decides to shut down the only TB clinic in the entire state despite being Ground Zero for what's going to turn into the worst TB epidemic in recent history.

That guy's face is disturbing me. It doesn't help that I watched "Hellraiser" last night and he reminds me of Pinhead.

[QUOTE=Madman_Andre;36831901]Florida is the Tea Party's very own testbed for the rest of the country - if they successfully turn it into a backwoods yet corporate hellhole, their grand plan will be more able to be a success. :v:[/QUOTE] Its funny because you could say that for California. California is the Socialist's very own testbed for the rest of the country - if they successfully turn it into a organic yet hippy filled hellhole, their grand plan will be more able to be a success.

[QUOTE=Ryu-Gi;36831938]That guy's face is disturbing me. It doesn't help that I watched "Hellraiser" last night and he reminds me of Pinhead.[/QUOTE] [IMG]http://i.imgur.com/BIsjd.jpg[/IMG] [highlight][B]WE WILL TEAR YOUR SOUL APART[/B][/highlight]

Rick Scott is a complete and total fucking idiot that clearly has no idea what he's doing. If it weren't for the cut backs, this wouldn't have happened in the first place.

[img]http://filesmelt.com/dl/BIsjd.jpg[/img]

[QUOTE=Arachnidus;36832086]Rick Scott is a complete and total fucking idiot that clearly has no idea what he's doing. If it weren't for the cut backs, this wouldn't have happened in the first place.[/QUOTE] Oh I'm sure he knows exactly what he's doing, he's just a fucking asshole.

[QUOTE]UPDATE 1, Monday, 5:12 p.m. EST: The Miami Herald reports that Florida Gov. Rick Scott is traveling through the UK with an 85-member entourage, including lobbyists from the gambling, insurance, real estate, and private prison industries. He still hasn't commented on the TB outbreak.[/QUOTE] It sounds like this Rick Scott fellow is a corrupt bastard.

[img]http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fPgypNE5jfY/Tpjf4bXJuLI/AAAAAAAAAko/aa_V7IQK7iU/s1600/bet-walker-bat+boy.jpg[/img]

[QUOTE=Zambies!;36831755]Am I the only one totally confused by the article?[/QUOTE] I thought the title made it pretty clear?

Down here we like to call him "Lord Voldemort."

I'm amazed that this asshole ever managed to become governor, because it's a [I]known fact[/I] that the guy was involved in a billion dollar fraud with Medicare.

[QUOTE=Griffster26;36832070][IMG]http://i.imgur.com/BIsjd.jpg[/IMG] [highlight][B]WE WILL TEAR YOUR SOUL APART[/B][/highlight][/QUOTE] [IMG]http://puu.sh/JKjh[/IMG] potential?

Too much potential. Somebody make the photoshop contests thread quick. [img]http://i.imgur.com/dHLWU.png[/img] [editline]1[/editline] Actually, I'll get the thread.

Worst fucking governor we've had. Well nice knowing you guys :(

This is now a photoshop thread. Also Florida is a horrible place leave now.

The shutdown of the TB hospital had been planned for several years, and the facilty was already operating with a $10 million yearly deficit. Not taking into account this particular outbreak, Florida [url=http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/07/08/2887108/report-fla-closed-tb-hospital.html#storylink=cpy]"experienced a 10 percent decrease in cases for 2011 compared to 2010. For the period 2007 to 2011, there was a 24 percent decrease in cases"[/url] Yes, this outbreak was unfortunate, but it was purely coincidence that it happened, and they really couldn't call off closing the hospital after everything was already planned. Seems like this article is invoking the "lol republicans dump the ill out on the street," which isn't true at all. The closure is a part of Florida's consolidation of special healthcare services, and while I have mixed feelings on that, it's very common. Healthcare consolidation involves [b]moving[/b] bedspace to a few central faculties, not throwing everyone on the street. [QUOTE=Zambies!;36831755]Am I the only one totally confused by the article?[/QUOTE] Because it is overloaded with partisan bullshit. The source is MotherJones.

[img]http://filesmelt.com/dl/BIsjd1.png[/img] This is great

-snip-

Our governor has a 19% approval rating lmao

You guys can go [url=http://facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1198998]here[/url] for your photoshop edits. The shutdown probably has to do with the scandal he's been in, what a horrible inconvienience though to have it shut down in the middle of an outbreak, that's just a dumb move.

[QUOTE=Phycosymo;36833964]You guys can go [url=http://facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1198998]here[/url] for your photoshop edits.[/QUOTE] [url=http://facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1199009]Welp, I made a thread too.[/url] Yours wasn't there when i checked :c [editline]1[/editline] To be fair, I did say I'd make the thread and spent lots of time on a clean exploitable.

[QUOTE=Renegade Master;36832574][IMG]http://puu.sh/JKjh[/IMG] potential?[/QUOTE] "Oh, what wonders we have to show you!"

[QUOTE=glitchvid;36831949]Its funny because you could say that for California. California is the Socialist's very own testbed for the rest of the country - if they successfully turn it into a organic yet hippy filled hellhole, their grand plan will be more able to be a success.[/QUOTE] There's a difference though; An organic yet hippy filled hellhole would be kind of funny and probably enjoyable since hippies have the best weed. a backwoods yet corporate hellhole in the flavor of the Tea Party's wet dream would make George Orwell [I]shit himself in terror.[/I]

Corporations don't even like the Tea party, they support Obama mostly. The Tea party is s batshit crazy they want a fucking religion-based government structure and having a dissolved federal government. Basically, anarchy. They are fucking Theologists and anarchists.

The GOP is probably the best evidence for the existence of Satan