1115.org

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has long been considered one of the Republicans’ top candidates for the 2008 presidential election. And if he keeps on tripping over himself, it would be wise of us Democrats to cheer him along. When we last left Mister Frist, he was under investigation for selling stock in HCA (a hospital operating company his family founded) right before the stock price fell because disappointing earnings. And, yes, this was the HCA stock that Frist wasn’t even supposed to know he owned, since it theoretically was in a blind trust to keep such ethically-challenged situations from happening.

Considering that Frist’s ties to HCA seem a little more substantial than he had previously admitted to, the questions needs to be asked: has Frist used his position as Senate Majority leader to push legislation that benefits the company? While there is no single smoking gun to pounce on, the Tennessean newspaper has found a definite pattern of votes that have benefited HCA:

“Because he owned so much stock in HCA … there is the appearance that any legislation that could help the company would have helped him financially,” said Mike Surrusco, ethics director for Common Cause, a nonpartisan watchdog group, which has called on the Senate ethics committee to reconsider whether Frist should be prohibited from voting on bills that could affect the fortunes of his family.

A bill Frist introduced in July was designed to help insure the uninsured and limit jury awards.

Uninsured patients hurt HCA, which loses billions of dollars when they don’t pay their bills. The company set aside $2.7 billion in 2004 for such doubtful accounts.

HCA-owned Health Care Indemnity Inc., one of the country’s largest providers of medical malpractice insurance, would benefit from limits on hefty jury awards.

(…)

Other bills supported by Frist have given hospitals more money for treating seniors and curbed development of physician-owned specialty hospitals that compete with HCA.

Frist’s votes also have helped HCA in less obvious ways. Several years ago, he fought a Democratic-sponsored version of a “patients’ bill of rights” that would have allowed patients to sue their HMOs and collect unlimited damages.

Sure, these votes might have come about free from HCA influence. But the appearance of impropriety hangs over Frist like a fog bank, and when you consider the stock sale (which is still being investigated) and the blind trust that wasn’t, he hasn’t done nearly enough to convince people that he operates independently of his family business.

Something tells me that by 2008 Bill Frist might realize that being a surgeon was the right idea, after all.