John, who is well-known for calling them as he sees them, must have had to swallow hard to refer to Scott in his letter as "a leader with a distinguished career in the health care sector."
The following is from WikiPedia's entry on Rick Scott:
Columbia/HCA fraud case details
On March 19, 1997, investigators from the FBI, the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Health and Human Services served search warrants at Columbia/HCA facilities in El Paso and on dozens of doctors with suspected ties to the company.[19]
Following the raids, the Columbia/HCA board of directors forced Scott to resign as Chairman and CEO.[20] He was paid $9.88 million in a settlement. He also left owning 10 million shares of stock worth over $350 million.
June 1, 2011
Dear Governor Scott:
We are writing out of deep concern regarding a proposal currently under consideration by the Florida Department of Health to lower the income eligibility requirements for the state’s AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP).
Since its establishment in 1992, the Elton John AIDS Foundation (EJAF) has invested significant funding in HIV/AIDS prevention, stigma reduction, treatment, care, and associated services for those living with HIV/AIDS in Florida. Furthermore, as one of the largest HIV/AIDS grant making organizations in the United States, we are intently focused on the worsening AIDS epidemic in the American South. We believe the proposal under consideration by the Department of Health would have a deadly, costly, and widespread impact in Florida and across the South.
As you know, over 9,600 low-income, HIV-positive Floridians currently rely on the ADAP program to receive life-saving antiretroviral medication. Because this program is severely underfunded, some 3,900 additional people of limited means in your state are on a waiting list to receive treatment they cannot afford, yet need to survive. Florida currently has the largest ADAP waiting list in the entire nation.
Against this troubling backdrop, the Florida Department of Health is considering a drastic reduction in eligibility for the state's ADAP program. This cost-saving measure would exclude all but the state's poorest residents from ADAP - those earning less than $21,780 per year. If this measure is enacted, over 1,600 people who currently receive ADAP assistance would be cut from the program, and those on the waiting list would have no hope of receiving medication through ADAP.
Given that life-saving HIV/AIDS medications can cost between $10,000 and $30,000 per year, this proposal would put these low-income individuals with HIV/AIDS in the untenable position of being completely unable to afford treatment for an incurable, communicable disease. Also, the people currently participating in the program who would lose funding for their HIV treatment would potentially be at risk to develop dangerous, drug-resistant strains of HIV in their bodies if forced off their medications.
With treatment, these Floridians can lead healthy, productive lives. Without it, they will slowly die.
Moreover, lack of treatment for those living with HIV has vast implications for the state and the nation at large. First, reducing the size of Florida's ADAP program might save money in the near-term, but it will quickly become more expensive for the state in the medium- and long-term, as those denied treatment by ADAP become ill and require emergency room and hospital care. Second, denying treatment to low-income Floridians would exacerbate the state and region's worsening AIDS epidemic. A recent, groundbreaking study by the National Institutes of Health demonstrated that people living with HIV who receive antiretroviral treatment are 96% less likely to pass the virus on to their uninfected partners. Therefore, denying HIV treatment to low-income people not only harms their health and increases the incidence of drug-resistant HIV, it also makes it more likely that these people can and will spread the disease to others.
For these reasons, we are writing to join the hundreds of Floridians who have bravely stepped forward in public hearings to speak out against the Department of Health's ill-conceived proposal. We also echo and applaud Senator Bill Nelson, who has written to you and President Obama about the unacceptable lack of funding for ADAP in Florida and across the nation. We stand in solidarity with our grantees and partners in Florida who are deeply concerned about the tremendous harm this proposal would cause in the communities they serve.
Governor Scott, we urge you, as a leader with a distinguished career in the health care sector, to demand that the Florida Department of Health rescind this harmful, inhumane, and fiscally-ineffective proposal. We hope and trust that you will demonstrate national leadership on this issue to safeguard the health and lives of your citizens.
Sincerely,
| Sir Elton John Founder | David Furnish Chariman |
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