Rick Scott

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 25, 1997, 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."

In February 2009, Scott founded Conservatives for Patients' Rights (CPR), which he said was intended to put pressure on Democrats to enact health care legislation based on free-market principles. As of March 2009, he had given about $5 million for a planned $20 million ad campaign by CPR.

On April 9, 2010, Scott announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination for governor of Florida.

Susie Wiles, former communications chief to Jacksonville Mayor John Peyton, was Scott's campaign manager, and Tony Fabrizio was his chief pollster. It was reported on May 7 that Scott's campaign had already spent $4.7 million on television and radio ads. His first video advertisement was released to YouTube on April 13.

During the primary campaign, Scott's opponent, Bill McCollum, made an issue of Scott's role at Columbia/HCA. Scott countered that the FBI had never targeted him. Marc Caputo of the Miami Herald contended that a 1998 bill McCollum sponsored would have made it more difficult to prosecute Medicare fraud cases, and was counter to his current views and allegations. Scott won the August primary with 46.4% of the vote to McCollum's 43.4%.

In the general election, Scott faced Democratic nominee Alex Sink. By October 25, Scott had spent $60 million of his own money on the campaign, compared to Sink's reported $28 million. Scott campaigned as part of the Tea Party movement.

The Fort Myers News-Press quoted Scott as saying he had spent roughly $78 million of his own money on the campaign, although other figures indicate he spent slightly over $75 million. He defeated Sink by around 68,000 votes, or 1.29%. He took office as the 45th governor of Florida on January 4, 2011.

After months of speculation about a potential run, Scott officially announced on April 9, 2018, that he would challenge incumbent Democratic U.S. Senator Bill Nelson in the 2018 election.

Scott defeated Rocky De La Fuente in the Republican primary. In the general election, Scott's involvement in a large Medicare fraud case stirred controversy. Scott responded with ads accusing Nelson of having cut Medicare benefits and stolen from Medicare; fact-checkers found that both of Scott's assertions were false. During the campaign, Scott called Nelson a "socialist", an assertion PolitiFact described as "pants-on-fire" false. Scott sought to avoid mentioning Trump and at times criticized or distanced himself from actions of the Trump administration, whereas in the past he had used his friendship with Trump to boost his profile and had been an early and vocal supporter of Trump in 2016. Trump endorsed Scott for Senate.

The initial election results showed Scott leading Nelson by 12,562 votes, or 0.15% of the vote. Under Florida law, a manual recount is triggered if election results show a margin of less than 0.5% of the vote. Both candidates filed lawsuits in connection with the recount. After the recount, Florida elections officials announced on November 18, 2018, that Scott had prevailed. Scott received 50.05% of the vote to Nelson's 49.93%; the margin of victory was 10,033 votes out of 8.19 million votes cast. Nelson then conceded. It was the most expensive Senate race in the nation in 2018. After the race, Scott's Super PAC, New Republican PAC, received criticism from across the political spectrum for its aggressive practices and was the subject of several FEC complaints for multiple violations of federal election law; the Super PAC's finances are chaired by hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin, who personally donated at least $10 million to the PAC.

Scott ran for a second Senate term. He defeated Democratic nominee Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, a former congresswoman by over 12 percentage points. Scott became Florida's senior senator in January 2025, when Marco Rubio resigned to become Secretary of State.

The Senate term for the 116th Congress began on January 3, 2019, but Scott's term as governor ended on January 8. On December 4, 2018, Scott's office announced that he would finish his term as governor and not resign early. Scott attended the ceremonial swearing-in of his successor as governor, Ron DeSantis, on the morning of January 8, 2019, in front of Florida's historic Old Capitol. Scott left the ceremony early to fly to Washington, D.C., and was sworn in to the Senate by Vice President Mike Pence later that afternoon.

Scott's net worth was estimated at US$219 million in 2010, $84 million in 2012, and $133 million in 2013. On July 1, 2015, it was reported that Scott's net worth had grown to $147 million, $149 million on December 31, 2016, and $232 million on December 31, 2017. For August 2018, his net worth was estimated at $255 million. Based on financial disclosure reports covering 2020, Business Insider reports that Scott has a minimum net worth of just over $200 million, making him the wealthiest member of Congress.

Early in his gubernatorial tenure, Scott said he created a blind trust for his holdings to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest. In October 2018, The New York Times reported that the trust in question was blind in name only, and that there were various ways in which Scott could know what his precise holdings were. The holdings in question included investments in companies and funds that Scott could have had an impact on through his administration's policies. The trust in question was managed by one of Scott's former personal assistants from before he became governor.

In February 2019, Scott announced that he would no longer keep his holdings in a trust.

Scott revealed that he was among the victims of Charles E. Littlejohn's IRS tax data leak that targeted people of high net worth when he wrote a letter to Merrick Garland protesting the single felony charge. Speaking in court in 2024, Scott testified, "every American is a victim here" and said the plea agreement was a political scheme.

On April 20, 1972, Scott, then aged 19, married his high school sweetheart, Frances Annette Holland (born May 11, 1952), who was also 19 years old. The couple has two daughters and six grandsons. They live in Naples, Florida, and are founding members of Naples Community Church.

Scott was swatted in December as part of the 2023 swatting of American politicians. His residence was the target of another swatting attempt in November 2025, though he was not home at the time of the incident.