Some of us recall that the same week Bill "Dr. Video" Frist was sworn in as Senate Majority Leader, his family's company -- Hospital Corporation of America -- paid a $600 million fine for Medicare fraud.
Well, well -- looks as though they didn't learn their lesson.
The Securities and Exchange Commission has opened a probe into whether the largest hospital company in the world, Hospital Corporation of America, violated securities law by manipulating its books and records, according to documents and people familiar with the investigation.
The investigation has been focusing, at least in part, on HCA's London subsidiary and whether the company fabricated tens of thousands of payments for phantom nursing shifts, according to the documents and people familiar with the matter. The SEC has been coordinating with investigators at Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs in London, according to the documents.
HCA runs more than 160 facilities across the United States and in London and treats millions of people a year. In 2006, HCA, then a public company, was bought by a consortium including its management, the family of former Senate majority leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) and three major financial firms for about $33 billion in the largest leveraged buyout ever at the time.
The rest is just the details -- here's the full article.
Maybe this explains why the Republicans want to keep the guvmint out of the health insurance business. After all, with guvmint-run health insurance, how is a gang of crooks supposed to make a living and support a gaggle of Congresscritters?