New voice in health debate left Nashville in disgrace

There is a new voice in the national debate on health-care reform, and its spokesman may strike a nerve with Nashville’s health-care community.

National media outlets have been running a $5 million TV ad campaign against government-driven health-care reform.

The ads are sponsored by CPR, which stands for Conservatives for Patients Rights. The founder and spokesman is Rick Scott, the former chief executive officer of Columbia/HCA.

CPR hired a former CNN anchor, Gene Randall, to collect video clips of patient and physician frustration with government health care in England and Canada. These videos provide testimonials for the new CPR national ads that take the approach that health care is best delivered by the private sector and not government.

The theme would certainly have supporters in the Nashville health-care community, but the spokesman might not be as well received. Scott left Nashville in 1997 when he was ousted as chief executive officer of Columbia/HCA.

After the 1994 attempts by President Bill Clinton’s administration to reform health care, there were substantial initiatives throughout the country to consolidate and integrate health care. Columbia/HCA became a focal point for those efforts.

Scott’s influence touted in ’96

At one time Columbia/HCA was acquiring a hospital every six days in the U.S. In 1996, Time magazine listed Scott as one of the 25 most influential Americans for his “articulation of a health care system that was more rational, more integrated.”

Scott now resides in Naples, Fla. In addition to his newfound public policy voice for Conservatives for Patient Rights, he is the founder of America’s Health Network (now a subsidiary of Fox Networks) and the chairman/CEO of Solantic, a chain of 23 freestanding urgent care facilities.

Solantic promotes its less-than-emergency-room prices and services, such as $30 flu shots, $50 checkups and $89 emergency visits. Solantic employs about 100 physicians and has roughly $34 million in annual revenues.

It plans to open 20 more facilities in the next year and has suggested the opportunity for 1,000 facilities exists across the country. A recent issue of Fortune magazine reported that private equity firm Welsh Carson, Anderson & Stowe had made a $100 million commitment to Solantic’s growth plans.

The nation and its voters often forgive penitent politicians. Think of Clinton himself and, more recently, of former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer. It will be interesting to see whether the health- care community is as forgiving, particularly in Nashville, because this is the city whose business community bore the brunt of Scott’s fall from corporate grace a decade or more ago.

Source: The Tennessean