page_title: Rick Scott
section_title: Governor of Florida
hierarchical_section_title: Rick Scott / Politics / Governor of Florida
caption_attribution_description: English: Florida Governor Rick Scott poses with the Coast Guard at a photo-op in Miami, Florida.
context_page_description: Richard Lynn Scott is an American politician who is the junior United States senator from Florida since 2019. A member of the Republican Party, he was the 45th governor of Florida from 2011 to 2019.
  Scott is a graduate of the University of Missouri, Kansas City and of Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law. In 1987, after serving in the United States 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 largest private for-profit health care company in the United States. 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 Department of Justice ultimately fined the company $1.7 billion in what was at the time the largest health care fraud settlement in U.S. history. Scott was not charged with a crime. Following his departure from Columbia/HCA, Scott became a venture capitalist and pursued other business interests.
  Scott ran for governor of Florida in 2010.
context_section_description: During Hurricane Irma, he led Florida through the largest mass evacuation in U.S. history. Unemployment, taxpayer debt, and crime declined statewide during Scott's tenure. He signed a repeal of Florida's 1985 growth management laws, reduced funding for water management districts, reduced oversight at the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, and supported increased funding for Everglades restoration. Scott supported permanent tax cuts and "focused on job numbers rather than on running state agencies or making sweeping policy changes."
caption: Scott with the Coast Guard in Miami
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