Remember the Kitten Killer, Frist? Why health care costs are out of control in the US

Hospital Corporation of America (HCA) is the largest private operator of health care facilities in the world. It is based in Nashville, Tennessee, United States and is widely considered to be the single largest factor in making that city a hotspot for healthcare enterprise.

The founders included two members of the Frist family, which became very wealthy as a result. The former majority leader of the U.S. Senate, Bill Frist is a member of the family and has a substantial stake in the company. Most of his $20 million (or more) personal fortune was made through his holdings in HCA. Jack O. Bovender, Jr., is the Chief Executive Officer of HCA.

During the 1970s-1980s the corporation went through a tremendous growth period acquiring hundreds of hospitals across the United States which numbered 255 owned and 208 which HCA managed.

In the late-1990s, after a merger with Louisville-based Columbia Hospital Corporation which formed Columbia/HCA, the company was investigated by the government for Medicare and Medicaid fraud and paid a settlement of $1.7 billion, the largest fraud settlement in US history at the time. Then-CEO Rick Scott resigned but no criminal prosecutions resulted.

The name subsequently reverted to "Hospital Corporation of America." HCA abandoned the use of its name in its home market and instead promotes its Nashville hospitals under the TriStar brand.

On June 13, 2005, Senator Frist reportedly instructed the trustee managing his HCA shares to sell all of his stock. The sale took place in July, two weeks before disappointing earnings sent the stock on a 15-point plunge. In November 2006 HCA was acquired by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, Bain Capital and Merrill Lynch Global Private Equity in what was, at the time, the largest leveraged buyout (LBO) in history, adjusted for inflation.

United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants Visits U.S

Corrections Corporation of America Announces 2007 First Quarter Financial Results

Think of the BILLIONS to be had from locking up "illegal" immigrants. Much more profitable than the "war on drugs"
We can keep on pushing policies that drive people out of their homes countries to work in this thankless, racist, right wing hell then lock 'em up at every opportunity whereupon tax payer dollars can be used to pay private prisons to house them until Blackwater can drive them home in trucks paid for by taxpayers and driven by drivers supplied by Halliburton all while guarded by Blackwater thugs.
And then there's that WALL around Texas.

U.N. Independent Expert Denied Access to Hutto Detention Center

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The Special Rapporteur is conducting a three-week fact finding mission at the request of the U.S. The Rapporteur is an independent expert appointed by the U.N. Human Rights Council with the mandate to monitor, advise and publicly report on human rights situations in specific countries and on human rights violations worldwide. The tour of Hutto — a converted prison that houses about 400 immigrants, including children and asylum seekers — was considered a major part of the Special Rapporteur's mission. Earlier this year, the ACLU filed federal lawsuits on behalf of 12 children detained at the Hutto facility, charging that the children are subject to inhumane treatment.

According to the official terms for fact-finding missions, the Special Rapporteur must have “access to all prisons, detention centers and places of interrogation.” The terms also mandate that the Rapporteur be given confidential and unsupervised contact with witnesses and potential victims of human rights violations.
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