Rahm Emanuel is Being Lobbied by Health Care Lobbyists to Appoint Bredesen
Obama has to say no to Bredesen at HHS.
by Joe Sudbay
The Governor of Tennessee, Phil Bredesen, wants to be the next Secretary of Health and Human Services. That should never happen. On Sunday, I posted a quote from our good friend Jacki Schechner about Gov. Phil Bredesen:
"A lot of elected officials are in bed with the insurance industry, but Phil Bredesen doesn't stop there. He let them pay to redecorate his mansion. We can't think of anyone more wrong for health care reform or more wrong for America," said Jacki Schechner, spokeswoman for Health Care for America Now. "This is a guy whose single greatest health care achievement is stripping 200,000 people of health care coverage in Tennessee - a move that was not only bad policy but an unconscionable act."
http://blogs.nashvillescene.com/pitw/2009/02/the_backlash_against_bredesen.phpBredesen pretty much confirmed his love for the industry and disdain for health care consumers (all of us) in an interview with the Wall Street Journal:
"Anybody who's got some real scars and experience is going to have their detractors," the governor said Monday in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. "People at the White House are smart enough to be able to assess that." And he took a swipe at his opponents, saying that "advocacy groups don't matter nearly as much as the pharmaceutical groups, the hospitals, the doctors' groups. There's a lot of very powerful interest groups that will play in this thing."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123422196804465411.htmlWith that love of the health care industry (the very people who have created the health care debacle), Bredesen would have been the perfect pick for Secretary of HHS for George Bush, not Barack Obama. Bredesen made his fortune in the health insurance industry. He's an industry guy. I don't know anyone who has had a positive experience with anyone from a health insurance company.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123422196804465411.htmlPeople at the White House should be smart enough to not appoint Bredesen to HHS, but he's being vetted anyway. According to the WSJ, it sounds like Rahm Emanuel is being lobbied by health care lobbyists to appoint Bredesen. That alone should end the discussion.
If Obama is serious about health care reform -- and he says he is -- Obama has to say NO to Bredesen. And, importantly, Obama should make that clear to Rahm Emanuel.
http://www.americablog.com/2009/02/obama-has-to-say-no-to-bredesen-at-hhs.html Coventry Health Care, Inc.
An excerpt:
Coventry Health Care was founded by Tennessee's current governor, Phil Bredesen, who grew up in a small town in upstate New York. In 1961 he entered Harvard University to study physics like his father, but before graduating decided that he was not suited for a career in the field. Instead he took a job as a computer programmer for Itek Corporation and also became involved in politics. In 1970 he quit his job for an unsuccessful bid to become Massachusetts state senator. Bredesen then took a position with a pharmaceutical company, G.D. Searle & Co., and worked overseas, where he married Andrea Conte, a Searle's colleague who trained nurses how to use computers. While the couple was working in Saudi Arabia, Conte was offered a job as corporate nurse consultant by Nashville's Hospital Corporation of America. To join his wife in Nashville, Bredesen quit Searle and took a job negotiating management contracts with hospitals for Hospital Affiliates International. In 1980, with the birth of his son, Bredesen decided to strike out on his own and fulfill a dream of running his own business. With funding provided by four founders of Hospital Affiliates, he launched Healthplans, which later became known as HealthAmerica, a company that acquired and ran HMOs. The company grew rapidly and went public, but it ran into trouble in 1986 when the entire health insurance industry encountered a rough patch that sent stock prices tumbling. Although Bredesen wanted to ride out the downturn, the HealthAmerica founders, who maintained a controlling interest, insisted that he sell the company. In 1986 Bredesen found a buyer in Maxicare Health Plans Inc., pocketing $47 million for himself.
Formation of Coventry Corporation in 1986
Now wealthy, Bredesen in 1986 cofounded Coventry Corporation with Joseph P. Williams, former CFO of Health-America. Williams served as CEO while Bredesen held the chairmanship, although he increasingly devoted his time to politics. He stepped down as chairman in 1990 but stayed on as a director. In 1987 he lost a runoff election to become mayor of Nashville, a post he won in a landslide in 1991. He was unsuccessful in his attempt to be governor in 1991, won a second term as Nashville's mayor, then in 2002 he tried for the governorship again. This time he won, and the New York native became Tennessee's 48th governor.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_gx5202/is_1988/ai_n19121657
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