Frist: Insiders Painted Sunny Picture as They Sold off HCA Stock

[NNN0LHI]

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGBDU0V47EE.html

WASHINGTON (AP) - While insiders at HCA Inc. were selling millions of dollars of their own stock this year, they were also painting a sunny picture of the company's outlook for investors.

Federal prosecutors and the Securities and Exchange Commission are investigating the sale of HCA stock by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., whose family founded the company that grew into the nation's largest for-profit health care chain.

The SEC turned its initial inquiry into a formal investigation of the company, HCA announced Thursday. The company said it is cooperating with investigators.

Frist's office said Wednesday that he had gotten notice of a formal investigation, which grants subpoena powers to investigators to obtain information and documents.

On June 14, the day after Frist ordered his shares sold, HCA officers at a Goldman Sachs health care conference in Laguna Niguel, Calif., spoke optimistically about the company's prospects.

[MADem]

1. What scuzzballs!!!!!

I hope the SEC has them for lunch. They are all thieves in fancy suits, and they need to be wearing orange jumpers instead.

[Me.]

2. They Seem Incapable Of Learning

from other's mistakes. Perhaps he never heard of Enron.

[1932]

3. If you time your inside sale right, public won't know for 2 months.

Given the technology we have today, that makes no sense.

Insider sales should be reported on the day they're made and they should be made public, and, perhaps, have to notify of their intent to sell at least 24 hours before the sale, for sales that are over a certain percentage of the company's issued shares.

Some people might say that that would make the markets too volatile. I think they would make insiders think twice before selling based on inside information.

Insiders should not have such a huge advantage over everyone else. It completely undermines the purpose of public markets. The American economic system should not be a get-rich-quick scheme for insiders that is underwritten by an uninformed public.