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Wednesday, September 21, 2005

Martha Stewart went to jail for this
Posted by Jill | 6:43 AM

But I'm quite certain that the IOKIYAR rule is going to apply for a potential Republican presidential candidate doing THE EXACT SAME THING:

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a potential presidential candidate in 2008, sold all his stock in his family's hospital corporation about two weeks before it issued a disappointing earnings report and the price fell nearly 15 percent.

Frist held an undisclosed amount of stock in Hospital Corporation of America, based in Nashville, Tenn., the nation's largest for-profit hospital chain. On June 13, he instructed the trustee managing the assets to sell his HCA shares and those of his wife and children, said Amy Call, a spokeswoman for Frist.

Frist's shares were sold by July 1 and those of his wife and children by July 8, Call said. The trustee decided when to sell the shares, and the Tennessee Republican had no control over the exact time they were sold, she said.

HCA shares peaked at midyear, climbing to $58.22 a share on June 22. After slipping slightly for two weeks, the price fell to $49.90 on July 13 after the company announced its quarterly earnings would not meet analysts' expectations. On Tuesday, the shares closed at $48.76.

The value of Frist's stock at the time of the sale was not disclosed. Earlier this year, he reported holding blind trusts valued at $7 million to $35 million.

Blind trusts are used to avoid conflicts of interest. Assets are turned over to a trustee who manages them without divulging any purchases or sales and reports only the total value and income earned to the owner.

To keep the trust blind, Frist was not allowed to know how much HCA stock he owned, Call said, but he was allowed to ask for all of it to be sold.

Frist, a surgeon first elected to the Senate in 1994, had been criticized for maintaining the holdings while dealing with legislation affecting the medical industry and managed care. Call said the Senate Ethics Committee has found nothing wrong with Frist's holdings in the company in a blind trust.

"To avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest Senator Frist went beyond what ethics requires and sold the stock," Call said. Asked why he had never done so before, she said, "I don't know that he's been worried about it in the past."

An HCA spokesman said the company had no part in Frist's decision.


And I am Marie of Rumania.

This is a FAMILY business, and we're supposed to believe that NO ONE IN THE FAMILY called him and told him to sell? Bullshit.

Unless it's because he wants to run for president and THIS is what his family business does:

The federal searches of Columbia facilities began in March. Agents were looking for evidence of suspected fraud against Medicare, Medicaid, and the military healthcare system. Three mid-level Columbia managers were indicted in Fort Meyers, Fla., this summer for conspiring to inflate the amount of reimbursement Columbia’s Fawcett Memorial Hospital in Port Charlotte, Florida, was to receive from Medicare and the military healthcare program.

Federal investigators continue to examine several other Columbia billing practices. Both the Department of Justice and Columbia refused to talk about the on-going investigations. But the Wall Street Journal has reported some of the things Columbia is being investigated for are ordering costly blood tests, receiving reimbursement from the federal government for advertising and marketing expenses, and billing separately for costs that are usually consolidated.

Other concerns have been raised as well. During a hearing in Fort Meyers, assistant U.S. Attorney Kathleen Haley said company officials may have tried to destroy evidence relevant to the government’s investigation. "According to Ms. Haley, law-enforcement officials first became aware of a possible attempt to destroy evidence when, soon after Columbia businesses in El Paso were searched in March, a local citizen alerted law-enforcement officials to a ‘cache of Columbia documents in a garbage dumpster at a gas station several miles’ from the nearest Columbia facility," the Journal reported Aug. 14. Columbia spokesperson Jeff Prescott refused to comment on the report.

Thomas Frist Jr., MD, the vice chair of Columbia’s board, and other board members rallied for Scott’s resignation after 35 warrants were obtained to search facilities in seven states in July. On July 25 he received the resignation. Frist, who co-founded Hospital Corporation of America (HCA) with his physician father in 1968, stepped in as chairperson and CEO.

Since then, Columbia has reportedly developed an "action plan" to sell its $1.2 billion Dallas-based home healthcare unit and to restructure its relationships with physicians. Columbia’s ties with physicians—such as the practice of offering to sell them financial stakes in hospitals—has been a hallmark of its business since the early days in El Paso. But now Columbia has reportedly decided to discontinue those sales and will establish tighter guidelines on physician transactions. Columbia executives stress that the creation of the action plan does not imply they found any wrongdoing or errors in their policies and procedures.


I'll be waiting to see if they cart Frist off to jail for insider trading. Somehow I think it's not going to happen.
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