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Is Bill Frist Fit to be Governor?
A Look at the Former Senator’s Record on Health Care
(no date available)
http://74.125.113.132/search?q=cache:CnAHN9P6EwUJ:www.calnurses.org/hca/pdf/billfrist_06162008.pdf+columbia+hca+tenncare&cd=10&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=usTennCare, a program initially intended to expand health coverage to all current Medicaid recipients
plus an additional 500,000 low-income Tennesseans.
4,5
Throughout the 90s the program had remarkable success as Tennessee ―posted the best rate in the
nation for health insurance coverage of children of the working poor.‖
6
But after Bredesen took office
in 2002, TennCare came under attack, resulting in ―approximately 200,000 of the program‘s costliest
patients los
their coverage over a four month period in late 2005.‖
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Those cuts caused a swelling in
the ranks of the uninsured in Tennessee, resulting in more than 800,000 Tennesseans without coverage
by the end of 2006
...
Section 2: Frist’s Financial Ties to HCA and the Healthcare Industry’s Corporate Donors
a. HCA Background
HCA—the first hospital management company and today the world‘s largest— was co-founded in
1968 by Dr. Thomas Frist, Sr. and Dr. Thomas Frist, Jr. (Bill Frist‘s father and brother, respectively)
with a business partner known as the ―brains‖ behind Kentucky Fried Chicken.
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The goal: to
consolidate hospital ownership into one corporation and run the facilities like the franchise concept
practiced by a fast food chain.
12
The first warning sign of HCA‘s tendency towards prioritizing profits over patient care came in 1988,
when a scandal over illegal claims against Medicare revealed HCA business practices predicated on
defrauding Medicare.
―In 1991…the company had charged Medicare for such items as $18,000 worth of liquor, $15,000 worth
of Tiffany pitchers for HCA executives, and $28,000 for a humanitarian award given to two HCA
staffers.‖
13
Adding fuel to the fraud claims, James Alderson, an accountant with an HCA facility in Montana,
came forward to report that he had been ―asked to keep two sets of ledgers: one set showing the
expenses the hospital claimed when billing Medicare, the second containing more accurate
information regarding reimbursement claims.‖
14
In 1994, HCA merged with Columbia Healthcare to form Columbia/HCA, a $20 billion company with
more than 350 hospitals, 145 outpatient surgery centers, 550 home care agencies, and additional
ancillary businesses.
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This merger did not come without costs to patients.
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