I can't remember which one I dropped first.
This is a better newspaper
Posted on 12/21/2002 6:30:21 PM PST by joesnuffy
CHANGING OF THE GUARD Skeletons rattling in Frist's closet? Ethics expert says ties to hospital chain potential conflict of interest for Lott heir
Posted: December 21, 2002 6:30 p.m. Eastern
© 2002 WorldNetDaily.com
Tennessee Sen. Bill Frist will almost certainly be elected majority leader when the senate votes on a successor to Mississippi Sen. Trent Lott next month.
The choice is a happy one for President George W. Bush, who views Frist as an effective ally; Frist has even been discussed as a possible replacement for Vice President Dick Cheney on the ticket in 2004.
The heart surgeon’s quick rise to power has turned plenty of heads inside the Beltway. But Frist's ties to the largest hospital chain in the country have the potential to rattle any skeletons in his closet, according to a report in Newsweek magazine.
That company, HCA, is run by Frist’s brother and was founded by his father.
Columbia/HCA has also been the focus of the government’s longest-running health care fraud inquiry. On Wednesday, HCA announced an $880 million settlement with the Justice Department.
Frist himself owns millions in Columbia/HCA stock, kept in a blind trust. And even though Columbia/HCA had an obvious stake in the outcome of both the Congressional Medicare commission’s work and the patients’ bill of rights legislation, Frist didn’t withdraw from either debate, according to Newsweek.
In fact, the Tennessee senator took a leadership role in both instances.
Charles Lewis, the executive director of the non-profit and non-partisan Center for Public Integrity and the author of the 'Buying of the President' and other books about transparency in government, spoke with Newsweek about Sen. Frist’s potential conflict of interest.
Newsweek: What do you make of the timing of the Columbia/HCA settlement with the Justice Department? The federal investigation into the Frist firm first publicly surfaced in 1997 and it settles on Wednesday after five years of wrangling over its terms?
Charles Lewis: It is interesting. I try to avoid connecting dots. I don’t know what it means and judges don’t talk.
Q: Should Sen. Frist have declined to take a leadership role on the patients’ bill of rights legislation? Should he have taken part in the Medicare commission?
A: Every Senator handles these things a little differently. It’s a little more personal when it’s your profession. It’s one thing to have a relative or a spouse with investments and recluse yourself. It’s harder when it’s been your life and you’re elected as a lawmaker based on who you are and what you’ve done with your life.
That said, when you’re worth millions and millions because of controversial and criminally investigated health-care firm and you have significant familial ties to the firm itself, that’s a pretty direct conflict situation.
Q: What about the fact that the company in question has just settled an $880 million fraud inquiry with the Justice Department?
A: I think it looks like hell. It’s not some obscure company he owns stock in. His family and Sen. Frist have personally become rich because of this company. It is the source of his wealth. I have not studied trial transcripts and briefs and the thousands of pages of material that have built up over the years in the case, but you’ve got to wonder: If there was substantial fraud committed in that company, what did the Frist family know and when did they know it? This subject will follow him throughout his career. Frist’s political career is soaring and seems to have been so far unaffected by the Columbia/HCA scandal. That’s interesting in and of itself.
Q: Is that because we’re talking about insurance fraud and most people don’t pay attention to such dry stories?
A: Half the country doesn’t vote, 96 percent don’t contribute money to the political system, 40 percent don’t know the name of the vice president. We have a complacent, aloof, and frequently, yes, ignorant electorate. There certainly hasn’t been the glare of national interest in Frist that there has been this week. It’s possible that the scrutiny-which has been increasing in the last 72 hours-is a level of scrutiny Frist has never encountered and what is acceptable to Tennessee voters may be unacceptable to the nation.
Q: Frist’s situation is not necessarily atypical. What does his ascendancy and the presence of other compromised Senators past and present say about our system?
A: We generally tolerate an awful lot of what I call legal corruption; things that don’t violate federal law but that look like hell. My answer is 'welcome to Washington.' We have a lot of things going on in Washington that offend average Americans, but that are just fine by Washington standards. It's normal for someone to promulgate public policy after taking money from those folks who are affected by the legislation. That is not illegal or, by Congressional standards, unethical but to most Americans it stinks.
That’s why people despise or distrust politicians and it has something to do with why 100 million or more Americans stay home on election day. Here is Congress hammering out what are the rights of all Americans when it comes to health care and one of the key Senate leaders deeply involved in that process is a multimillionaire from a fraudulent health care company. Call me crazy if I have a problem with that.
Q: Was it wrong for Sen. Frist to tell the American people that he did not know how patients’ bill of rights legislation would affect his family’s company? Since many Americans feel quite strongly about health care and the way it works in this country could this issue explode for Frist?
A: It was disingenuous. Let’s be honest. To suggest that that legislation would not affect the company is an insult to our intelligence. It’s clear to anyone that a major health-care company is very interested in the language and outcome of patients’ bill of rights legislation. People are deeply bitter about health care in this country. Not just the uninsured, but also those with a problem who are trying to seek redress. When Congress deals with health care and one of the senators dealing with it is a leading shareholder with one of the largest companies in the country and that company is, bottom line, a bad actor, voters are going to have a problem with that.
There used to be a time in this country when a senator whose family company was found to have committed fraud would not have the temerity to stand election for anything—even dogcatcher.
Q: Is there a disconnect between what average Americans would consider to be a conflict of interest and what the Senate Ethics Committee considers to be one?
A: There’s almost an oxymoron here. The Senate Ethics Committee hardly ever investigates anything aggressively. They’re notoriously reticent when it comes to criticizing or investigating colleagues’ transgressions. Human beings don’t like to judge themselves. Usually we would like to look the other way when it comes to ourselves.
In that sense, the U.S. Senate is completely representative of American culture. Yet the Senate is a club. More than a third of them are millionaires; less than one percent of Americans are millionaires. It’s not a representative body in many ways. The Senate is an exclusive club and it’s a substantially white and wealthy club.
What the hell??? Have these "ethics experts" ever heard of Linda Daschle? She's a lobbyist and relative of a guy named Tom Daschle. Talk about a conflict of interest.
I can't remember which one I dropped first.
This is a better newspaper
They're both a joke and an embarrassment to conservatives. Personally, I wish they would both turn liberal...Stop hurting our cause and help us for a change.
Well that leads to a more fundamental question that's been nagging at me.
Why would anybody go through all that extensive medical training, then after a relatively brief career, simply chuck-it all and only practice medicine on an occasional part-time basis? I just read all the details of his biography at his Senate website, and it's bloated with all kinds of info about participation in various committees, publications, awards (honorary and otherwise) etc. etc. And buried in all that, you can find the few years that he actually practiced medicine.
If he's a doctor who "cares about people", it just seems to me that he'd spend a lot more time actually caring for them.
It doesn't make sense.
Heaven forbid that anyone who actually knows something about running a health care operation speak up on these issues. No, we need do-gooders who've spent their lives in academia, and Hollywood stars who have played doctors on television, to tell us The Real Truth.
He sure has and Bush will pay for his strident dismissal of Lott. I never had any love for Lott. The manner in which Bush interferred in senate leadership was an error and disgraceful. Then when Lott resigns Bush is hypocrite enough to say Lott is a long time friend and he respects him. I will not vote for Bush in 04, will leave it blank.
No Willie, you don't make sense, as usual.
The brother of a politician runs a company that charged you for goods and services. You feel that you were robbed, and want to take it out on his brother? Good grief.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.