BOO HOO! MEDICINE IS IN CRISIS...crying all the way to the bank...

Anyone see where Senator Billy Frist and his family are getting ready to make some heavy dollars as Hospital Corporation of America prepares to go from a publicly traded company to a private outfit? A group of some of the most successful investment banking and hedge fund firms are joining to plop down a mere 31+ Billion to get into health care in a big way.

Now, I applaud profit and I am not in the least offended by the sums being tossed around (For what it’s worth, if Exxon wants to pay a severance sum to an outgoing head that is 400 Million and change, that’s their business-Bet you (or I) wouldn’t turn it down if offered.) but what frosts me is that once again, the high cost of health care has NOTHING to do with malpractice and this is yet another deal that proves it in spades.  HCA is selling to get out from under a pile of rising debt, Medicare and Medicaid payment reductions and gasp!, sluggish admissions numbers- As boomers age out (i.e., die ;), younger, healthier, smaller potential patient populations mean less folks hitting the doors.

And why do you think the buyers want it-because of malpractice problems? No Chance. They know by getting rid of underperforming properties, tightening administrative costs and adding more high profit specialty centers (Can you say “Heart and Cancer”? Yes, I knew you could.), they have really fabulous opportunities to make enormous profits. In a slew of articles analyzing the whys and wherefores of the deal I reviewed in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Investors Daily and the Washington Post, the specter of medical malpractice has yet to be put into play. Meanwhile Frist is running around Washington in that really plaster job of a bad haircut, crying alarms on behalf of his Hospital and Big Medicine cronies.

Shame. Won’t these hypocrites all stop their deceit just long enough to just go away and count their money? Bah!