Rick Scott
Richard Lynn Scott is an American attorney, businessman, politician, and Navy veteran serving as the senior United States senator from Florida, a seat he has held since 2019. A member of the Republican Party, he served from 2011 to 2019 as the 45th governor of Florida.
Scott is a graduate of the University of Missouri–Kansas City and the Dedman School of Law at Southern Methodist University. In 1987, after serving in the U.S. Navy and becoming a law firm partner, he co-founded Columbia Hospital Corporation. Columbia later merged with another corporation to form Columbia/HCA, which eventually became the nation's largest for-profit health care company. Scott was pressured to resign as chief executive of Columbia/HCA in 1997. During his tenure as chief executive, the company defrauded Medicare, Medicaid, and other federal programs. The U.S. Department of Justice won 14 felony convictions against the company, which was fined $1.7 billion in what was at the time the largest healthcare fraud settlement in U.S. history. Following his departure from Columbia/HCA, Scott became a venture capitalist and pursued other business interests.
Scott ran for governor of Florida in 2010, defeating Bill McCollum in a vigorously contested Republican primary election and Democratic nominee Alex Sink by just over one point in the general election. Scott was reelected in 2014, again by just over one point, against former governor Charlie Crist. He was barred by term limits from running for reelection in 2018, and instead ran for the U.S. Senate.
Scott won the 2018 U.S. Senate election, defeating incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson in a close election that triggered a mandatory recount. He was reelected in 2024, defeating Democratic nominee Debbie Mucarsel-Powell by over 12 points. He became Florida's senior senator in 2025, when Marco Rubio resigned to become Secretary of State.
Early life and education
Rick Scott was born Richard Lynn Myers in Bloomington, Illinois, on December 1, 1952. Scott never met his biological father, Gordon William Myers, whom Scott's mother, Esther J. Scott, described as an abusive alcoholic. Scott's parents divorced in his infancy.In 1954, Esther married Orba George Scott Jr., a truck driver. Orba adopted Rick, who took his stepfather's surname and became known as Richard Lynn Scott. Scott was raised in North Kansas City, Missouri, the second of five children. His family was lower-middle-class and struggled financially; Esther Scott worked as a clerk at J. C. Penney, among other jobs.
Scott graduated from North Kansas City High School in 1970. He attended community college for a year, and then enlisted in the United States Navy. In 1972, he married Ann Holland, whom he met in high school, at a Baptist church in Kansas City. Scott had completed naval bootcamp just before the wedding. Afterward, he was sent to a naval posting in Newport, Rhode Island, where he and his wife lived for 15 months. He served there as a radarman on the, which during his enlistment spent time dry docked in Boston and sailed to ports in Bermuda and Puerto Rico. Scott was in the Navy for 29 months, including training.
After the Navy, Scott and his wife moved to Kansas City, where he attended college on the G.I. Bill. He graduated in 1975 from the University of Missouri–Kansas City with a Bachelor of Business Administration. He earned a Juris Doctor from Southern Methodist University. The Texas Bar licensed him to practice law in 1978.
Career
Scott made his first foray into business while working his way through college and law school, initially buying and reviving a failing doughnut shop by adding workplace delivery instead of relying on foot traffic. He later bought and revived another doughnut shop. After graduating from law school, Scott worked as an attorney at the law firm of Johnson & Swanson in Dallas, Texas.Columbia Hospital Corporation
In 1988, Scott and Richard Rainwater, a financier from Fort Worth, each put up $125,000 in working capital in their new company, Columbia Hospital Corporation; they borrowed the remaining money needed to purchase two struggling hospitals in El Paso for $60 million. Then they acquired a neighboring hospital and shut it down. Within a year, the remaining two were doing much better. By the end of 1989, Columbia Hospital Corporation owned four hospitals with a total of 833 beds.In 1992, Columbia made a stock purchase of Basic American Medical, which owned eight hospitals, primarily in Southwestern Florida. In September 1993, Columbia did another stock purchase, worth $3.4 billion, of Galen Healthcare, which had been spun off by Humana Inc. several months earlier. At the time, Galen had approximately 90 hospitals. After the purchase, Galen stockholders had 82% of the stock in the combined company, with Scott still running the company.
Columbia/HCA
In April 1987, Scott made his first attempt to buy the Hospital Corporation of America. While still a partner at Johnson & Swanson, Scott formed the HCA Acquisition Company with two former executives of Republic Health Corporation, Charles Miller and Richard Ragsdale. With financing from Citicorp conditional on acquisition of HCA, the proposed holding company offered $3.85 billion for 80 million shares at $47 each, intending to assume an additional $1.2 billion in debt, for a total $5 billion deal. After HCA declined the offer, the bid was withdrawn.In 1994, Columbia Hospital Corporation merged with HCA, "forming the single largest for-profit health care company in the country." Scott became CEO of Columbia/HCA. According to The New York Times, " less than a decade, Mr. Scott had built a company he founded with two small hospitals in El Paso into the world's largest health care company – a $20 billion giant with about 350 hospitals, 550 home health care offices and scores of other medical businesses in 38 states."
Fraud investigation and settlement
On March 19, 1997, investigators from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, 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. Eight days after the initial raid, Scott signed his last SEC report as a hospital executive. Four months later, the board of directors pressured him to resign as chairman and CEO. He was succeeded by Thomas F. Frist Jr. Scott was paid $9.88 million in a settlement, and left owning 10 million shares of stock then worth more than $350 million. The directors had been warned in the company's annual public reports to stockholders that incentives Columbia/HCA offered doctors could run afoul of a federal anti-kickback law passed to limit or eliminate instances of conflicts of interest in Medicare and Medicaid.In 2000, during a deposition for a civil suit unrelated to the fraud investigation, Scott pleaded the Fifth Amendment 75 times. In settlements reached in 2000 and 2002, Columbia/HCA pleaded guilty to 14 felonies and agreed to a $600+ million fine in what was at the time the largest health care fraud settlement in U.S. history. Columbia/HCA admitted systematically overcharging the government by claiming marketing costs as reimbursable, by striking illegal deals with home care agencies, and by filing false data about use of hospital space. It also admitted to fraudulently billing Medicare and other health programs by inflating the seriousness of diagnoses and to giving doctors partnerships in company hospitals as a kickback for the doctors referring patients to HCA. It filed false cost reports, fraudulently billed Medicare for home health care workers, and paid kickbacks in the sale of home health agencies and to doctors to refer patients. In addition, it gave doctors "loans" never intending to be repaid, free rent, free office furniture, and free drugs from hospital pharmacies.
In late 2002, HCA agreed to pay the United States government $631 million, plus interest, and $17.5 million to state Medicaid agencies, in addition to $250 million paid up to that point to resolve outstanding Medicare expense claims. In all, civil lawsuits cost HCA more than $2 billion to settle; at the time, this was the largest fraud settlement in U.S. history.
Venture capitalist
After leaving Columbia/HCA in 1997, Scott launched Richard L. Scott Investments, based in Naples, Florida, which has stakes in health care, manufacturing and technology companies. Between 1998 and 2001, he purchased 50% of CyberGuard Corporation for approximately $10 million. Among his investors was Metro Nashville finance director David Manning.In 2006, CyberGuard was sold to Secure Computing for more than $300 million. In February 2005, Scott purchased Continental Structural Plastics, Inc. in Detroit, Michigan. In July 2006, CSP purchased Budd Plastics from ThyssenKrupp, making CSP the largest industrial composites molder in North America.
In 2005–2006, Scott provided the initial round of funding of $3 million to Alijor.com, which offered hospitals, physicians, and other health care providers the opportunity to post information about their prices, hours, locations, insurance accepted, and personal backgrounds online. Scott co-founded the company with his daughter Allison.
In 2008, Alijor was sold to HealthGrades. In May 2008, Scott purchased Drives, one of the world's leading independent designers and manufacturers of heavy-duty drive chain-based products and assemblies for industrial and agricultural applications and precision-engineered augers for agricultural, material handling, construction and related applications. Scott reportedly has an interest in a chain of family fun centers/bowling alleys, S&S Family Entertainment, in Kentucky and Tennessee led by Larry Schmittou, a minor league baseball team owner.
America's Health Network (AHN)
In July 1997, Columbia/HCA Healthcare purchased a controlling interest in America's Health Network, the first 24-hour health care cable channel. The company pulled out of the deal on the day of the closing because Scott and Vandewater were terminated, causing the immediate layoffs of more than 250 people in Orlando. Later that same year, Scott became majority owner of AHN.In 1998, Scott and Vandewater led a group of investors who gave AHN a major infusion of cash so that the company could continue to operate. By early 1999, the network was available in 9.5 million American homes.
In mid-1999 AHN merged with Fit TV, a subsidiary of Fox; the combination was renamed The Health Network. Later that year, in a deal between News Corp. and WebMD, the latter received half-ownership of The Health Network. WebMD planned to relaunch The Health Network as WebMD Television in the fall of 2000, with new programming, but that company announced cutbacks and restructuring in September 2000, and, in January 2001, News Corp. regained 100% ownership. In September 2001, Fox Cable Networks Group sold The Health Network to its main rival, the Discovery Health Channel, for $155 million in cash plus a 10% equity stake in Discovery Health.