Florida is now ugly to business - thank Bagger Rick

CNBC survey delivers jolting decline to Florida's attraction to business

Florida's standing as one of the top states for business just suffered a serious bruising, dropping 11 spots from 18th to 29th in a single year, according to an in-depth annual analysis by CNBC.

The dramatic drop is based on an overall state ranking gleaned from 10 separately ranked factors as diverse as education, access to capital and quality of life in the CNBC report calledAmerica's Top Business for States 2012.

The decline raises questions about the Pollyanna forecasts from Florida Gov. Rick Scott who this week insisted the Sunshine State has made a strong turnaround in the right direction.

Apparently CNBC analysts are looking at Florida without the benefit of rose-colored glasses. They smacked Florida with an 11-spot drop among the states driven by several specific category declines in the past year.

• Access to capital. Florida dropped to 24th from 9th.

• Education. Florida fell to 42nd from 35th.

• Infrastructure and transportation. Florida dipped to 11th from 8th last year.

http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/economicdevelopment/cnbc-survey-delivers-jolting-decline-to-floridas-attraction-to-business/1239854

Rick Scott, TB King

JACKSONVILLE — 

The CDC officer had a serious warning for Florida health officials in April: A tuberculosis outbreak in Jacksonville was one of the worst his group had investigated in 20 years. Linked to 13 deaths and 99 illnesses, including six children, it would require concerted action to stop.

That report had been penned on April 5, exactly nine days after Florida Gov. Rick Scott signed the bill that shrank the Department of Health and required the closure of the A.G. Holley State Hospital in Lantana, where tough tuberculosis cases have been treated for more than 60 years.

As health officials in Tallahassee turned their focus to restructuring, Dr. Robert Luo’s 25-page report describing Jacksonville’s outbreak — and the measures needed to contain it – went unseen by key decision makers around the state. At the health agency, an order went out that the TB hospital must be closed six months ahead of schedule.

Had they seen the letter, decision makers would have learned that 3,000 people in the past two years may have had close contact with contagious people at Jacksonville’s homeless shelters, an outpatient mental health clinic and area jails. Yet only 253 people had been found and evaluated for TB infection, meaning Florida’s outbreak was, and is, far from contained.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2012/07/10/tb-outbreak-ignored-in-florida.html