# Florida state government covering up the deaths of newborns for political purposes **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [January 14, 2016, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-state-government-covering-up-the-deaths-of-newborns-for-political-purposes/743089 "2016-01-14T00:08:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2016, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-state-government-covering-up-the-deaths-of-newborns-for-political-purposes/743089/1 "2016-01-14T00:08:54Z")
Governor Rick Scott’s state government is covering up the incidences of the death rates of newborn babies at Tenet run hospitals. It absolutely has nothing to do with the thousands of dollars that Tenet contributes to Republican campaign coffers. > **[Florida Republicans put thousands of newborn heart patients' lives at risk...](https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/1/13/1469512/-Florida-Republicans-put-thousands-of-newborn-heart-patients-lives-at-risk-for-200K?detail=facebook)** > > If you are willing to put children’s lives at risk over money you should probably check yourself into a hospital.  > > Unfortunately, Florida Republicans have figured out a way around that—just make ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2016, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-state-government-covering-up-the-deaths-of-newborns-for-political-purposes/743089/2 "2016-01-14T00:14:07Z")
Tenet is a for-profit hospital system, and they got in a lot of trouble (which included a “60 Minutes” report for doing large numbers of unnecessary open-heart surgeries. > **[OPERATING PROFITS: Mining Medicare; How One Hospital Benefited From...](https://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/12/business/operating-profits-mining-medicare-one-hospital-benefited-questionable-surgery.html?pagewanted=all)** > > Special Report: Operating Profits, examines charges that Redding Medical Center, small hospital in rural California community, conducted unnecessary heart procedures and operations on hundreds of healthy patients; hospital's owner Tenet Healthcare... This does not surprise me at all. :mad: p.s. I used to work at a hospital where we had an open-heart surgeon who was making patients crash so he could resuscitate them. Administration looked the other way, because this brought so much money into the facility, until word got out about him in the community. So, he was run out of town and foisted on another community. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2016, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-state-government-covering-up-the-deaths-of-newborns-for-political-purposes/743089/3 "2016-01-14T01:33:33Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > So, he was run out of town and foisted on another community. :mad: Who does he think he is, a priest?! ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2016, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-state-government-covering-up-the-deaths-of-newborns-for-political-purposes/743089/4 "2016-01-14T05:42:36Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > :mad: Who does he think he is, a priest?! No kidding. We had evidence a mile thick on this guy that should have led to the revocation of his license and possibly some jail time - but no, he crosses state lines where he can AFAIK inflict his own brand of carnage there instead. And it’s not like this hospital didn’t have experience with this kind of thing; a medical serial killer practiced there for a while :eek: although he’s not known to have killed anyone there. He did, however, go to prison for poisoning co-workers. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2016, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-state-government-covering-up-the-deaths-of-newborns-for-political-purposes/743089/5 "2016-01-14T13:42:46Z")
As to the alleged “Florida state government coverup” and the claim in the dailykos article about “standards” being eliminated by the state, I’m having difficulty understanding what this refers to. According to information linked in the dailykos article, it appears that the state conducted an inspection of the hospital under contract with CMS (the federal Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services). I was unaware that Florida or any state has the power to eliminate federal hospital inspection standards. Is there a better source of information on this? ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2016, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-state-government-covering-up-the-deaths-of-newborns-for-political-purposes/743089/6 "2016-01-14T15:30:08Z")
It’s not a federal inspection standard. It’s a state reporting requirement, Fla. Admin. Code R. 59C-1.013, which is related to the issuance and maintenance of Certificates of Need (which are effectively licenses to build new hospitals or wards in the state). Part of the CON reporting is the number of Medicaid cases handled per year, but that is a purely state-directed requirement. The DKos article is really, really awful; “CMS” here refers to the state’s Children’s Medical Services program rather than the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid. The administrative rule that was actually repealed is F.A.C. 64C-4.003, which is the one that required the hospitals performing pediatric cardiac surgery to not kill too many patients. You might find [this administrative order](http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2016/images/01/12/15006009.pdf) better explains the situation (it’s a challenge by the parents of some of the St. Mary’s victims to the repeal). AHCA has been [highly politicized](http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/stateroundup/gov-rick-scotts-office-was-intimately-involved-in-planned-parenthood/2244888) during the Scott administration, which isn’t really surprising since his prior experience was as a healthcare executive. So while I don’t know if Tenet got a _quid pro quo_ here I would not be surprised at all. ---
**Author:** ![GrumpyBunny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bc8723/32.png) [@GrumpyBunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrumpyBunny)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2016, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-state-government-covering-up-the-deaths-of-newborns-for-political-purposes/743089/7 "2016-01-15T00:27:53Z")
This should surprise no one who knows anything about §Rick Scott’s past actions as CEO of Columbia/HCA. The man is a felon, and in a just world would be in prison, not governor of a state. ---
**Author:** ![Askthepizzaguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askthepizzaguy/32/9405_2.png) [@Askthepizzaguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askthepizzaguy)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2016, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-state-government-covering-up-the-deaths-of-newborns-for-political-purposes/743089/8 "2016-01-15T12:04:56Z")
I know that it is a coincidence that he’s a sociopath and has the bug-eyed look of someone who is totally insane. I know that, in the rational part of my brain. But good god is it creepy as hell, and I keep linking his insane death stare with his political and business dealings. edit- just do a google image search for “rick scott”. No qualifiers, adjectives, anything. In each and \*every \*one of those images, he will frighten you. It’s not one bad picture taken at an inopportune moment. He looks like Hillary Clinton’s eyes look when she’s putting on her campaign rally face. It’s genuinely creepy from the both of them. ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2016, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-state-government-covering-up-the-deaths-of-newborns-for-political-purposes/743089/9 "2016-01-15T14:20:40Z")
> [@Askthepizzaguy](#): > > just do a google image search for “rick scott”. No qualifiers, adjectives, anything. He does look creepy. Maybe it is because it looks like he has no eyebrows. He has sort of a Slender Man vibe. ---
**Author:** ![Trion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ccd318/32.png) [@Trion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trion)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2016, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-state-government-covering-up-the-deaths-of-newborns-for-political-purposes/743089/10 "2016-01-15T14:39:54Z")
> [@Askthepizzaguy](#): > > edit- just do a google image search for “rick scott”. No qualifiers, adjectives, anything. > > In each and \*every \*one of those images, he will frighten you. “God is in his Holy temple…” ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2016, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-state-government-covering-up-the-deaths-of-newborns-for-political-purposes/743089/11 "2016-01-15T16:52:25Z")
> [@Ike\_Witt](#): > > He does look creepy. Maybe it is because it looks like he has no eyebrows. He has sort of a Slender Man vibe. Jon Stewart once called him “Grown-Up Bat Boy.” ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2016, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-state-government-covering-up-the-deaths-of-newborns-for-political-purposes/743089/12 "2016-01-15T17:19:29Z")
Slender Man fucked a naked mole rat. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2016, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-state-government-covering-up-the-deaths-of-newborns-for-political-purposes/743089/13 "2016-01-15T17:50:59Z")
> [@andros](#): > > Slender Man fucked a naked mole rat. Good for him. Only pervs insist the mole rat keep her stockings on or something. ---
**Author:** ![BigAppleBucky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigapplebucky/32/178_2.png) [@BigAppleBucky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigAppleBucky)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2016, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-state-government-covering-up-the-deaths-of-newborns-for-political-purposes/743089/14 "2016-01-15T18:17:31Z")
[**CNN** - Heart doctors outraged Florida dumps hospital standards after big gifts to GOP](http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/13/health/florida-hospital-standards-republican-gifts/index.html?eref=rss_topstories) > [@](#): > > The state of Florida is putting thousands of children with heart defects at risk, a group of cardiac doctors say, because of a change in policy that came after Tenet Healthcare contributed $200,000 to Florida Republicans. > > In a widely publicized investigation in June, CNN revealed that a program at a Tenet hospital in Florida had failed to live up to state quality standards for children’s heart surgery. > > Less than two months later, the state decided to get rid of those standards. > > That decision came after the giant for-profit hospital chain made contributions to Republican Gov. Rick Scott and his party that dwarfed those the company made to candidates or parties in other states. [**ARS Technica** Florida ditches surgical standards after failing hospital donates to GOP](http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/01/florida-ditches-surgical-standards-after-failing-hospital-donates-to-gop/) Those articles are dated January 14, 2016. I just checked and was relieved to see no Tenet owned hospitals near me. If they’re that bad in Florida, I wouldn’t trust them anywhere. Only $100K to buy a governor of a large state? It took Israel over $1,000,000 to buy some GOP House members. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2016, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-state-government-covering-up-the-deaths-of-newborns-for-political-purposes/743089/15 "2016-01-16T20:22:43Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > It’s not a federal inspection standard. It’s a state reporting requirement, Fla. Admin. Code R. 59C-1.013, which is related to the issuance and maintenance of Certificates of Need (which are effectively licenses to build new hospitals or wards in the state). Part of the CON reporting is the number of Medicaid cases handled per year, but that is a purely state-directed requirement. The DKos article is really, really awful; “CMS” here refers to the state’s Children’s Medical Services program rather than the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid. > > The administrative rule that was actually repealed is F.A.C. 64C-4.003, which is the one that required the hospitals performing pediatric cardiac surgery to not kill too many patients. You might find [this administrative order](http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2016/images/01/12/15006009.pdf) better explains the situation (it’s a challenge by the parents of some of the St. Mary’s victims to the repeal). > > AHCA has been [highly politicized](http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/stateroundup/gov-rick-scotts-office-was-intimately-involved-in-planned-parenthood/2244888) during the Scott administration, which isn’t really surprising since his prior experience was as a healthcare executive. So while I don’t know if Tenet got a _quid pro quo_ here I would not be surprised at all. Thanks for clarifying the situation. About as repellent as the state action in discarding the standards is the reasoning of the judge denying a challenge to the repeal. > [@](#): > > In December, Florida Administrative Law Judge John Van Laningham ruled that the state could remove the standards from state hospitals. In his ruling, he argued that the surgical standards were unnecessary because doctors will do the right thing because they want to, not because they are required to do so. “The notion, therefore, that every facility in the CMS network would suddenly stop providing quality pediatric cardiac services immediately upon the repeal of the Standards rests on pure speculation—and is a little insulting to the health care professionals who personally deliver those services,” he wrote. Gee, I guess because people are inherently good we should repeal all the laws on the books, because it’s silly and insulting to have government mandate human behavior. :smack: Behind this whole uproar is something that applies to surgery in general. It is an excellent idea to get it performed (especially complex procedures) at a facility that does a high volume of such surgeries. Even if a hospital is starting to provide a type of surgery by bringing in a couple of surgeons with good pedigrees and training, it doesn’t guarantee that the rest of the medical team is immediately going to be up to the task of providing the needed support. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2016, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-state-government-covering-up-the-deaths-of-newborns-for-political-purposes/743089/16 "2016-01-16T21:31:15Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > Gee, I guess because people are inherently good we should repeal all the laws on the books, because it’s silly and insulting to have government mandate human behavior. :smack: That only applies to gun laws. :o ---
**Author:** ![GrumpyBunny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bc8723/32.png) [@GrumpyBunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrumpyBunny)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2016, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-state-government-covering-up-the-deaths-of-newborns-for-political-purposes/743089/17 "2016-01-17T13:11:39Z")
> [@Ike\_Witt](#): > > He does look creepy. Maybe it is because it looks like he has no eyebrows. He has sort of a Slender Man vibe. [Rick Scott and Voldemort](https://truthmissiles.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/img_2635.jpg) have never been in the same room. Just sayin’. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2016, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-state-government-covering-up-the-deaths-of-newborns-for-political-purposes/743089/18 "2016-01-19T15:05:32Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > Thanks for clarifying the situation. > > About as repellent as the state action in discarding the standards is the reasoning of the judge denying a challenge to the repeal. > > Gee, I guess because people are inherently good we should repeal all the laws on the books, because it’s silly and insulting to have government mandate human behavior. :smack: That’s a little unfair. The judge was essentially required to determine if the standards were absolutely necessary because of the standing analysis. > [@](#): > > To have standing, therefore, Petitioners needed to prove that repeal of the Standards would be the proximate cause of a real or immediate diminution in the quality of cardiac care provided to CMS recipients. They did not succeed in carrying this burden but can hardly be faulted for the failure. ALJs have very, very limited jurisdiction because they are not “constitutional courts”; they’re part of the executive branch. ---
**Author:** ![chela](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chela/32/21582_2.png) [@chela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chela)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2016, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-state-government-covering-up-the-deaths-of-newborns-for-political-purposes/743089/19 "2016-01-19T15:22:36Z")
> [@andros](#): > > Slender Man fucked a naked mole rat. > [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Good for him. Only pervs insist the mole rat keep her stockings on or something. 😃 first good laugh of 2016,:eek:😃 must be cabin fever or “snow days” piling up here ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2016, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-state-government-covering-up-the-deaths-of-newborns-for-political-purposes/743089/20 "2016-01-19T22:32:23Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > As to the alleged “Florida state government coverup” I googled it. Infinity hits. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-state-government-covering-up-the-deaths-of-newborns-for-political-purposes/743089.md?page=2)