Conservatives for Patients' Rights

Conservatives for Patients' Rights (CPR) is a health care advocacy group founded by Rick Scott in February 2009 and most active in the 2009-2010 US electoral cycle.

[1] Scott has stated that CPR has an intention of putting pressure on Democrats to enact health care legislation based on free-market principles.

[1] CPR opposed the broad outlines of President Obama's health care reform plan, and hired Creative Response Concepts, a public relations firm, to produce advertising in support of this message.

[12] Stephen Barrett, the webmaster of alternative medicine-critical website Quackwatch, has criticized the group for its television spots, which it considers "misleading" and "scare tactics", stating: "Together, they claim that current efforts at reform will (a) drive up taxes, (b) stop people from being able to choose their doctors, (c) cause many people to lose their current insurance coverage, and (d) take medical decision-making out of the hands of doctors.

[13] Barrett also questions Scott's trustworthiness for being entrusted with influence in healthcare system reform, as the latter was involved in the largest case of Medicare fraud and had run-ins with the Federal Trade Commission, who accused a hospital chain of which he was CEO of anti-competitive misconduct,[13] and he also invested in a producer of food supplements which Barrett states implies in its advertisement that its products can cure various diseases when such promotion is in fact illegal according to Federal law.