Richard Lynn Scott (né Myers; born December 1, 1952) 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. During Scott's tenure as CEO of Columbia/HCA, a federal investigation was launched into allegations of colossal Medicare and Medicaid fraud. Scott resigned from his role as CEO on July four months after the investigation began. (The DOJ announced in 2003 that it had settled the case against Columbia/HCA for $1.7 billion in damages and penalties—at the time, the largest case of Medicare fraud in US history). After he resigned from Columbia/HCA, Scott gained notoriety for pleading the Fifth Amendment 75 times in depositions. He later 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 from the Senate to become Secretary of State.
Rick Scott was born Richard Lynn Myers on December 1, 1952, in Bloomington, Illinois. He 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 USS Glover (FF-1098), 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.
Scott made his first foray into business while working his way through college and law school, initially buying and reviving a failing doughnut shop (the Flavor Maid Do-Nut) 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.
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.
In April 1987, Scott made his first attempt to buy the Hospital Corporation of America (HCA). 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, "[in] 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 intended to be repaid, free rent, free office furniture, and free drugs from hospital pharmacies.