Mr. Scott pretends that he will run the State of Florida government like a private business. Too bad the stockholders and consumers will have something to say about this, as follows:
…Scott’s health-care transition team has recommended merging the agencies that regulate doctors, oversee the $20 billion Medicaid program and provide services to the disabled and elderly to re-create a single health-care agency. To critics, that looks like the Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services that was broken up in the mid-1990s.
That proposal has already drawn opposition from the powerful Florida Medical Association.
Scott’s “regulatory reform” task force has proposed merging the state’s road-building agency with agencies that protect natural resources and regulate growth to create the “Department of Growth Leadership” that would focus on economic development.
Transition team members wrote that “the ‘system’ has lost touch with strategic purpose,” and that “the regulatory structure is about barriers rather than progress.”
But the notion of combining Florida’s environmental and urban sprawl watchdogs with its chief road-building agency is certain to spark fierce resistance from conservation, transportation and consumer groups.
“It doesn’t make a lot of sense,” said Eric Draper, with Audubon of Florida. “They have such distinctly different purposes, it’s difficult to see how they would work together. … I’ve got to think this would not be viewed favorably by the Legislature.”
Opposition is also likely to spring from unions over Scott’s charge to slash billions of dollars in state spending by reforming the nation’s third-largest prisons system and perhaps requiring state employees, teachers, police and firefighters to start paying into their pension funds.
via Florida Gov.-elect Rick Scott poised to take office — can the former CEO run the state like a business? – OrlandoSentinel.com.
Coral Gables Watch 