Lifestyles of the Frist and Famous

Wow. I, General Stan, hereby nominate this post as having the worst blog title... ever.

Onward.

Bill Frist, plucky yet adorable Senate Majority Leader, faces further scrutiny of his financial backers for his previous runs for office:

Election Day 2000 was five months off, but Bill Frist was already in an enviable position. With a fat campaign war chest and only token opposition in what he had decided was his last race for the U.S. Senate, Frist could turn his attention to grander plans.

Frist began focusing on raising record amounts of cash for other Republicans. But while he was picking up political IOUs that could aid him greatly in a run for president in 2008, his own campaign finances took a sharp, and in some ways baffling, turn for the worse.

Hundreds of thousands of dollars Frist's supporters had given him to run for the Senate were dwindling at a rapid rate. Much of that money was lost in a stock market investment that experts say was out of line with the way candidates traditionally invest campaign funds. Frist's campaign also took on more than $1 million in debt so that it could repay Frist for interest-free loans he made to his campaign six years earlier.

And then, in a decision experts say violated federal campaign regulations, Frist filed reports with the Federal Elections Commission that made it difficult for his contributors and political foes to determine just how bad off his campaign finances were.

Frist's aides, who have given contradictory responses to questions about Frist's finances, deny any wrongdoing. They said Frist, now Senate majority leader, acted within the law and in line with long-accepted campaign practices.

"There's nothing mismanaged about the funds," said Linus Catignani, Frist's longtime finance director.

Just who is this notable heart surgeon who miscalculated the health status of Terri Schaivo on the Senate floor in an emotional Moralist appeal to replace her feeding tube? The man who preaches morals with the justification of a doctor, but denies science's role in environmental policy? Who is the man who believes that the Democratic Filibuster is a mask for American immorality, and that John Bolton belongs on the UN, an institution he has declared as irrelevent?

A look back to Nathan Newman's blog in 2002, when Frist was taking leadership of the Senate:

Frist is literally the child of corporate medical fraud and union-busting. While he bills himself as a heart surgeon, his relevant position was as member of the family which founded what became the massive HCA/Columbia health care hospital chain. Bill Frist's personal stake in the family fortune is unknown exactly (in the tens of millions), but his brother's share according to Forbes is $950 million. See this older article about the family's role in HCA and GOP politics.

And how did HCA/Columbia get rich? Raiding nonprofit hospitals, dumping the poor previously served and turning them into profit mills for the family bottom line. See here. Oh yeah, and massive fraud against the Medicare system, a fact that led to a $745 million criminal fine against the company back in 2000. (See the update below for late-breaking news of a new massive settlement by HCA for fraud).

What was the nature of the fraud? The worst possible in corrupting the patient-client relationship to the point of endangering lives. Marc Gardner was a vice-president at HCA/Columbia where he says he "committed felonies every day."
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The company also has a history of unionbusting against its employees. See this ruling by the National Labor Relations Board that HCA/Columbia engaged in illegal union-busting against workers in their hospitals. See the full decision of the NLRB in 2000.

For a more complete history of the HCA/Columbia story, see this timeline of the Columbia/HCA Rise and Fall.

This is the corporate culture within which Frist grew up and funded his political career.

Unsurprisingly, this is reflected in policy positions on behalf of corporate medicine, from opposing real health care reform to sponsoring the legislation on behalf of Eli Lilly to kill the ability of parents to sue the company for harm to their children from the drug Thimerosal. See Hesiod.

Frist's own corporate interests have pushed him to prevent even the possibility of parents suing companies for injecting their children with mercury-laden innoculations which, perhaps, have led to the plague of autism in children in the last 20 years. Frist, the scientist, won't allow parents even the legal right to inquiry and compensation; Frist is part of the government cover-up, as Robert Kennedy Jr sees it.

And Frist's family fortune comes from one of the largest Medicare scams ever. I suppose that explains all that "reform" Frist tried to ram home. A weaker Medicare provides easier routes to scam it, the public, and our elderly. Good for you, Dr. Willy.

As a corallary, I suppose this explains why Frist is so slow to condemn Poppy-Dick's Halliburton for their $1.4 billion fraud in Iraq. As much politcal assistance as possible; particularly for such an accomplished organization! I'm sure Frist looks to Halliburton as a model rather than potential for an indictment.

Back to Newman for his exciting conclusion:

A couple of folks in comments were unsure what the crimes of HCA/Columbia had to do personally with Frist; well, where do you think his money comes from?

Frist was able to win election in his first campaign in 1994 as an unknown heart surgeon with no political experience because he could spend $3.7 million of his own money on his campaign, derived from his portion of the family HCA holdings. And when ones immediate family is embedded in corporate corruption and a culture of medical fraud, it is not unreasonable to suggest those values may rub off-- especially when the public policy of someone like Frist is in lockstep with the interests of his family corporation.

The Apple falls not far from the Tree. But moreso: it is in Frist's financial interest to defraud the government of its healthcare. For such overt Senatorial Moralizations and proselytizing, Frist sure seems to come from corrupt stock.

[All links and emphasis within quoted text is from quoted text. This concludes Tuesday's FristRant.]