Scott was ousted by his own board of directors in 1997 in the midst of the biggest health care fraud scandal in U.S. history, a scandal that
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/02/us/politics/02scott.html">ultimately led to a payment of $1.7 billion to settle charges including the overbilling of state and federal health programs.
Erica Hill should stick to the headlines and let
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/06/rick-sanchez-grills-rick_n_253389.html">Rick Sanchez do the interviews while Anderson Copper is away.
Transcript, including the piece of the Tuchman segment that wasn't recorded at the beginning:
GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Is it democracy? Demagoguery? Or both? Congressional Town Hall meetings during August recess used to be rather sleepy affairs. Not anymore.
There are images of President Obama with a mustache like Hitler's or looking like the joker. And also elected Representatives hung in effigy.
Democratic Senators like Pennsylvania's Arlen Specter...
SEN. ARLEN SPECTER (D) PENNSYLVANIA: Medicare and Social Security...
TUCHMAN: And Missouri's Claire McCaskill, are hearing it from extremely unhappy Americans who don't like the idea of health care reform.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Same plan they're asking us...
TUCHMAN: People have been arrested. Others have suffered minor injuries with pushing and shoving.
Democrats like Florida's Kathy Castor have barely been able to get in a word edgewise.
At her meeting, reform opponents were seething because hundreds of them were stuck outside the Town Hall because they couldn't sit in the room. Protesters held signs on the other side of the window. The Congresswoman had to be hustled out.
In Texas, Congressman Lloyd Doggett tried to talk.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You voted against them and that's not right.
TUCHMAN: He, too, was drowned out. One protester used his artisan reach to pick the Congressman in a rather unsavory way.
REP. LLOYD DOGGETT, (R) TEXAS: The crowd certainly was angry. I suppose some might have had a negative reaction to the poster that said Lloyd Doggett, traitor to Texas, devil to all people.
TUCHMAN: So how did it come to this?
It depends on who you asked. The Democratic National Committee says these confrontations are orchestrated by the Republican Party and the Democrats have released this Web video.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They've lost the confidence of the American people. Now desperate Republicans and their well-funded allies are organizing angry mobs just like they did during the election.
TUCHMAN: The word mob is greatly insulting to the folks on the other side of the argument. Many of the participants in these demonstrations said they are simply exercising their rights.
Ana Puig is Pennsylvanian who attended a Town Hall being hosted by Arlen Specter, and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.
ANA PUIG, THOMAS JEFFERSON CLUB: I feel like my constitutional rights are being taken away from me right before my eyes. I don't like the direction that we're going. They're taking away our freedom of speech. And the silent majority is finally fed up with it.
TUCHMAN: But now liberal advocacy group Moveon.org, has sent out an email to supporters saying they have a plan, quote, "to fight back against these radical right-wingers." The group is raising hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations.
It's not only the weather that's hot in August, now the political temperature is boiling, too.
Gary Tuchman, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HILL: And just a short time ago we learned Senator Claire McCaskill -- you saw one of her events in Gary's piece -- had planned to hold a Town Hall meeting in Missouri on Tuesday.
That now has been canceled. The school district where it was to be held was worried about security.
We want to "Dig Deeper" now with one of the people who's been working hard and sending millions to discredit President Obama's health care reform plan.
Rick Scott is chairman of Conservatives for Patient's Rights. He's also a former hospital chief executive. He helped build Columbia HCA into the biggest health care company in the world. He was ousted by his own board in 1997 during a major health care fraud scandal. His former company pleaded guilty and paid $1.7 billion to settle charges including over-billing state and federal health programs.
Rick Scott joins us tonight. Good to have you in the studio with us.
You even mentioned when you came in here, you said, have you seen this tape? They're yelling like crazy. They're not getting much accomplished. And that seems to be the main question.
I saved the main question I have, I look at this and I say, it makes sense to come with your question and to challenge your lawmakers because you're the constituent.
What do you achieve when you stand up and you yell?
RICK SCOTT, CHAIRMAN, CONSERVATIVES FOR PATIENTS' RIGHTS: Well, they ought to be doing -- there ought to be a forum where you can ask questions. And you ought to be -- ask the question and hopefully get a response.
People need to be civil about it. It needs to be organized. But they ought to have the Town Hall meeting.
HILL: But what we're being told, too, from lawmakers and some people who are there is that, look, we're trying to answer questions. But every time we try to answer a question, there's somebody who stands up. There have been things like "tyranny" yelled. Things like "no" yelled.
You I know -- you do not support the president's plan for health care reform. A lot of these people don't either.
SCOTT: Right.
HILL: So then, if you were giving them advice and helping to rally them on your side, what's your advice to them?
SCOTT: Well, what I'll tell everybody, whatever you believe. Whether you believe in the U.K. or Canadian government health care or you don't, show up, learn the bill -- first off, get educated.
Learn the bill and show up and ask your questions and let your Congressman, Senator -- I mean, and not just go to Town Hall meetings. Write them letters; call them. But show up at these meetings and ask questions.
But you have to do it in a civilized manner. The difference between this and other things is this is really important to people. Health care is the most important thing.
So you have seniors, they are showing up because they say, how can you cut $400 billion out of Medicare and not impact me? How can you do it?
And then, you have the small business owners who say how can I afford eight percent of wages for health benefits? I can't do it. I'm struggling.
HILL: Well, there's also a little -- a lot of misinformation out there which is, of course, what these Town Halls are set to help people with, to help them understand. Because let's be honest here, there isn't even an official bill at this point before Congress.
That's the beauty of these Town Hall meetings is you can learn from your constituents what their concerns are. But again, I have to go back to this. Because I know that you're helping to fuel this. Because you don't want to see this health care reform, parts of which the president has proposed you don't like. But if this is what's coming out, how is that helping anybody's case, yours included?
SCOTT: Well, we want health care reform. But what we want is health care reform that's good for patients. So and there are -- there are bills. I mean, there's the House bill out. And there's the health committee bill out. So there are bills out. And people are starting to see what's happening.
And the person has said he would like a government insurance plan. There's a lot of people that are very concerned about how that's going to impact their health care. And they're showing up and say, tell me how this is going to work?
That's my understanding. Our goal is...
HILL: Are they really saying that, though? Because I see people in these videos who are showing up saying things like, this is turning into socialized medicine or you just said, sort of implying that any plan that's going to be out there is all of a sudden going to turn the U.S. health care system into one like the U.K. or one like Canada.
SCOTT: Right.
HILL: And I think lawmakers have been pretty clear in saying look, we're not trying to do exactly what other countries are doing. We want to take your ideas and your concerns and figure out how this can work best for Americans.
SCOTT: Well, I also guess it's definitely true. We are already in the stimulus bill. We already have a thorough coordinating council, that's very similar to what they started in the U.K. that now 10 or 11 years later, puts a value on your life.
That's scary to people. So that's already passed. Health care I.T. has passed. They're going to know your medical records. That's pretty scary to people.
HILL: So you agree that some things in this country need to change when it comes to health care?
SCOTT: Oh, absolutely. The first thing we did was that we have four pillars. One -- choice, you won't have the right to choose your doctor and choose your insurance plan. Two -- competition; you ought to know what things cost and insurance companies are to sell across state lines. So there's more competition.
HILL: We're getting short on time...
SCOTT: Yes.
HILL: I need to come back to these tactics. Because you keep coming out and saying you don't get the yelling either. But do you support the organization of getting people out there?
SCOTT: Oh absolutely.
HILL: So if you support that...
SCOTT: Right.
HILL: ...but you don't -- I'm just confused.
SCOTT: Oh, absolutely. I think people ought to show up. I think they ought to learn the bills, show up and ask questions. Now, you have to do it in a civilized manner so you have a real...
HILL: So you're reaching out to some of these groups like the 912 project in Tampa? We had a Representative on from that earlier tonight on CNN. And she said her problem is she feels like she's not being heard. But yet she's admitting that they're going out there and they're yelling. So would you reach out to people like that?
SCOTT: Well, we've -- all we've done on our Website, we just put up all the Town Halls. And what we've suggested to everybody is show up. But other than that we don't run a grassroots organization that says go -- here's 50 people that show up at this meeting. We don't do that.
HILL: So you're saying you don't try to organize people to come to Town Hall meetings?
SCOTT: No. What we try to do is get people to show up. We don't have an organization at the grassroots level that does that.
HILL: And just to be clear, too, concerned citizens as we know is one thing but there has been a lot of talk that some of this is being incited by people who stand to benefit from -- people who may have ties to health care industry who would benefit from reform proposals being defeated at this point.
SCOTT: Well, I don't know about that.
HILL: So you wouldn't benefit from that at all?
SCOTT: No. I have an investment. The only investment I have in health care is a walk-in doctor's office company. So we take care of insured and uninsured patients. So we'll do fine either way.
HILL: Ok. Thanks for being here, Rick Scott.
SCOTT: All right, thanks a lot.
HILL: I appreciate it.
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