In 2008, a schizophrenic patient contracted TB but went untreated for eight months, wandering among many places where the homeless congregate -- "from hospital to jail to homeless shelter to assisted living facility, living in dorm housing in many locations" -- infecting at least 17 others.

In 2012, the CDC was invited to help with a sudden spike in cases of the same rare strain the schizophrenic patient had. What they found is the worst outbreak they have investigated in 20 years, and it is not contained.

That CDC 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, the only TB facility in the state.