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(CNN) Florida Sen. Rick Scott has emerged as Joe Biden‘s top Republican foil within the days for the reason that president’s State of the Union address, with the White House seizing on a year-old Scott proposal that even GOP leaders acknowledged on the time as politically poisonous.
As a spending combat looms in Washington and Biden strikes toward his 2024 reelection bid, the White House is making an attempt to make Scott the poster little one for the president’s accusations that Republicans are in search of to reduce entitlement packages, together with Social Security and Medicare.
Scott has responded by accusing Biden of mendacity, airing a misleading ad that alleges Biden reduce Medicare and lambasting the president in a barrage of tv interviews.
Biden traveled Thursday to Florida — the place Scott was a health care executive and two-term governor — on the newest leg of his post-State of the Union tour.
The journey was designed partly to stoke a combat with Scott after Biden in his speech Tuesday evening seized on the first-term senator’s proposal to sundown all federal packages — together with Social Security and Medicare — each 5 years except Congress extends these packages.
Biden’s assertion that some Republicans are in search of to change entitlement packages was met with jeers from Republican lawmakers, who’ve stated spending cuts must be a part of any proposal to elevate the debt ceiling.
The president continued pressing that message Wednesday in Wisconsin, telling union employees, “A lot of Republicans, their dream is to cut Social Security and Medicare.” He waved a pamphlet with Scott’s proposal as he spoke.
Ahead of Biden’s speech Thursday in Tampa, White House aides positioned copies of Scott’s proposal on each seat.
In an interview with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on Thursday, Scott stated Biden has misrepresented the proposal he put ahead forward of the 2022 midterm elections whereas serving as head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the marketing campaign arm of the Senate GOP.
“Nobody believes that I want to cut Medicare or Social Security. I’ve never said it,” Scott stated.
Scott stated his proposal is meant to get rid of wasteful spending and assist guarantee the federal government can “figure out how to start living within our means.”
“I want to make sure we balance our budget and preserve Medicare and Social Security, and I’ve been clear all along. So what I want to do is get rid of wasteful programs that we never review up here,” he stated.
But Scott’s proposal would sundown all federal laws — together with the 2 entitlement packages — each 5 years and require Congress to go them once more.
Scott’s heath care previous
Long earlier than he was a US senator, Scott had first-hand expertise coping with America’s federal health care packages — and it grew to become the supply of a lot criticism as he entered the political enviornment.
In the Nineteen Eighties, Scott based Columbia Hospital Corporation by buying a pair of distressed Texas hospitals. He later merged his company with Hospital Corporation of America to create Columbia/HCA, changing into the biggest for-profit hospital chain on the time and gaining notoriety on Wall Street for what appeared like cost-cutting in an industry with ballooning expenses.
In 1997, federal brokers unveiled a sweeping investigation into Columbia/HCA that may roil the corporate for years. On the day the FBI swooped in to seize information from 35 of its hospitals throughout six states, Scott shrugged off the probe. “It’s not a fun day, but … government investigations are a matter of fact today in health care,” he said on CNN.
The investigation would unearth what the US Department of Justice later called the “largest health care fraud case in U.S. history.” According to a press launch, Columbia/HCA schemed to defraud Medicare, Medicaid and TRICARE, the navy’s health care program, of lots of of hundreds of thousands of {dollars}. The firm pleaded responsible to prison conduct, together with prices associated to fraudulent Medicare billing and paying kickbacks to medical doctors, and it in the end agreed to pay $1.7 billion in fines, damages and penalties.
Scott was pushed out as CEO amid the turmoil. He was by no means charged with against the law, although a lot of the alleged monetary abuses occurred throughout his watch. His time within the company world made Scott a rich particular person, which he would lean on in 2010 when he determined to kickstart a political profession by getting into the race for Florida governor.
Scott’s time on the helm of Columbia/HCA was the topic of unfavourable adverts from each Republicans and Democrats, however he fended them off with a self-funded marketing campaign that flooded the airwaves with a jobs-focused message. He told the St. Petersburg Times that “mistakes were made” at his former firm and that he had “learned hard lessons,” however he also said during a debate that he was “proud of the company I built.” Regardless of the controversy, the little-known Scott defeated a GOP favourite for his celebration’s nomination, and Floridians narrowly elected him governor that fall.
During his eight years main Florida, Scott fought off makes an attempt to prolong security web advantages to Floridians. He regularly challenged the Obama administration over the Affordable Care Act and blocked expansion of Medicaid in Florida. In his first yr as governor, he signed a invoice to cut unemployment payments and tied advantages to the state’s unemployment rate.
Democrats continued to make Scott’s time at Columbia/HCA a problem, to no avail. Scott eked out a reelection victory in 2014. He then narrowly unseated longtime Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson in 2018 after spending more than $70 million of his personal cash on his marketing campaign.
Marching to the beat of his personal drum, Scott declined to be sworn in together with his class in January 2019. Instead, he waited till his time period as governor had ended and flew to Washington for a separate ceremony. For a time, it made him the nation’s most junior senator, however he nonetheless quickly discovered himself in celebration management.
Scott’s frosty relationship with McConnell
Scott and different Republicans are aggressively pushing again towards Biden’s assertions that the GOP is in search of to reduce spending on entitlement packages.
However, Republican leaders have lengthy acknowledged Scott’s proposal to sundown all federal packages after 5 years as rocky political terrain.
The tense relationship between Scott and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell burst into public view in the course of the 2022 election cycle as Republicans sought to retake the Senate.
Scott, as NRSC chairman, launched a platform called “Rescue America,” which might have subjected all federally elected officers to a time period restrict of 12 years and closed the Department of Education, amid a slew of different initiatives. It would even have required hundreds of thousands of low-income and middle-class Americans to pay earnings taxes, which was later dropped in a revised version of the plan.
And, in what Democrats instantly acknowledged as a gap to accuse Republicans of making an attempt to undercut fashionable packages, Scott’s plan proposed sunsetting all federal laws in 5 years — except Congress prolonged it.
McConnell quickly disavowed Scott’s plan, in search of to clarify that the Florida senator didn’t communicate for Senate Republicans.
“Let me tell you what would not be a part of our agenda,” McConnell stated at a news convention final March. “We will not have as part of our agenda a bill that raises taxes on half the American people, and sunsets Social Security and Medicare within five years.”
Their frosty relationship didn’t enhance because the 2022 election cycle continued, as the 2 battled over which candidates to assist in primaries and within the basic election, and Republicans in the end fell short of winning a majority.
After the election, Scott challenged McConnell for the top Senate Republican submit but lost.
The Florida senator said last week that he noticed McConnell’s resolution to take away him from the Senate Commerce Committee as retribution.
“He didn’t like that I opposed him because I believe we have to have ideas — fight over ideas,” Scott stated on “CNN This Morning.”
Scott factors to 1975 Biden proposal
When pressed Thursday by CNN’s Collins about why his proposal left open the chance for the federal government to reduce funding for Social Security and Medicare, Scott repeatedly referenced a coverage proposal from then-Sen. Biden in 1975 to sundown federal laws periodically.
Scott stated Biden’s previous proposal does much less to shield entitlements for seniors than the senator’s plan from final yr as a result of “he proposed it year after year after year to reduce Medicare and Social Security. Year after year. I’ve never done that. I don’t believe in that.”
Asked Thursday concerning the 1975 proposal talked about by Scott, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said, “A bill from the 1970s is not part of the president’s agenda.”
“The president ran on protecting Medicare and Social Security from cuts. And he reiterated that in the State of the Union,” she stated.
A new ad from Scott launched this week prematurely of the president’s go to to Florida says that “Joe Biden just cut $280 billion from Medicare” — a declare that was beforehand debunked when Scott and the NRSC made it in 2022.
Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act is predicted to scale back Medicare prescription drug spending by the federal authorities by $237 billion, in accordance to the newest Congressional Budget Office estimate, as a result of the legislation permits the federal government to spend much less cash to purchase medication from pharmaceutical corporations and never as a result of it cuts advantages to seniors enrolled in Medicare. The legislation makes Medicare’s prescription drug program considerably extra beneficiant to seniors whereas additionally saving them cash.
Scott, in his interview with Collins, additionally defended his latest name for Biden to resign, labeling him “a complete failure.” He stated his resignation calls didn’t particularly stem from Biden’s use of his proposal as an avenue to assault Republicans however expressed his displeasure with the president’s repeated references to his plan.
“He lies about what I want to get done, and I don’t appreciate it,” Scott stated.
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