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HCA Nashville


brewerw

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Does anyone know why the Hospital Corporation of America build a skyscraper in Nashville? They are one of the larger fortune 500 companies and havent done much for Nasvhille. Think about Bank of America. Charlotte would be missing their most impressive skyscraper and a nice football stadium if it wernt for them. Nasvhille doesnt seem to get this. Anyone know why??????

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Hmm interesting, don't know much about the specifics there in Nashville but I am fascinated on the critical mass that needs to happen before a company springs for a skyscraper. Have you ever noticed that the great majority of skyscrapers are either banks, insurance companies or financial companies? Not sure why that is, maybe its a good investment for them to flip to a "property management" company, since those companies are all about making investments in stocks, land or assets. Pittsburgh is similar in that way American Eagle Outfitters, HJ Heinz Foods, Bayer North America are all HQed in the city but either have leases in other skyscrapers (HJ Heinz has a lowrise and then leases some of the US Steel Tower) or have lowrise office parks in the burbs for HQers. Alcoa, the world's largest Aluminum Co. and Pennsylvania's largest Corporation (yep its not in Philly or Harrisburg but Pittsburgh) actually gave up its 30 or 40 story HQ skyscraper for a 6 story lowrise complex on the northshore. Alcoa--although not a household name--along with Heinz are companies many times larger then HCA (correct me if I'm wrong) but neither see the urge to build a 100 story skyscraper that relates to their prosperity, why they don't I have been told is a combination of corporate culture and business model etc. Would be nice though to see them invest in their hometown just as Nashville would look that much better if HCA would put down some 100 story roots! ;)

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HCA is a mess of healthcare bureaucracy owned by staunchly conservative types. When I say conservative, I mean socially and fiscally alike. The Frist family is who runs the show @ HCA, as in Bill Frist the US Senate Majority Leader.

Their offices consist of 6 or so 3-5 story buildings around Centennial Park in West End Nashville.

I had a friend who worked for them and he lasted less then a year, he was way out of place coming from Chicago. I have some other gay aquantances that work there who are none other then gay Republicans. LOL It takes a special type to be able to work in that environment.

The Frist family only gives back to the city so long as their name is recognized and they get kickbacks. Such is true about the Frist center for visual arts, Nashville's first professional art museum.

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^^ hey thats some great background, never knew about the Frist connection to the company nor that the corporate culture was as rigid as it is.

In that Frist is an MD and and Senate Majority Leader makes me wonder about his influence on the lawmaking process in regards to hospitalization and insurance/medical costs. I am sure that he doesn't have any conflicts of interest, but its all in the family so really he would--kinda like Senator Jay Rockefeller voting on national Energy policy.

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LOL, you have to be kidding me. HCA is the company that was found to be defrauding medicare out of billions of dollars in the 1990's. The Frist family fortune is in the billions because of this. It was so bad they had to restructure the company and rename it from Columbia HCA to just Healthcare Corporation of America (HCA).

The Frist family is one of only a handful of Senators with billions in assets and stocks. They only report a few paultry million a year in income to look more common, but you never see the reports of their stock investments or the fact that the Frist family founded HCA - the largest private healthcare corporation in the world (and the real big business in Nashville, not country music). LOL HCA owns more private hospitals in the world then any other corporation, and of course the most here in the USA.

Bill Frist has no business writing healthcare legislation, but I'm sure they'll do all they can since they have all the power now.

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BTW, the Frist family has no backbone. They are total political sellouts. They have all kinds of gay friends of the family and are friendly to gay Republicans, and as you can tell Frist was strong to support the anti-gay marriage Amendment. He obviously is promoting his hypocritical personal stance here locally because its very popular to be against gay rights in Tennessee, even if he personally probably has no problems with it.

He's a doctorate degree holding man with a brilliant brain, and a bitter backstabbing political history to do whatever it takes to get what he wants.

Another Bill Frist flip flop: he's an intellectual heart surgeon who knows that stem cell research is important and should be completely legal. He's also limiting that for his political future against his own intellectual capacity.

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Bill Frist is totally a pupet in the Senate. I know this and I'm in eighth grade. My parents like him, he went to my school (MBA), and I still dont respect him as a senator. He needs to go back to being a doctor. But I must say that I am glad that a company like HCA is in Nasvhille. And THANK you for mentioning that Health Care is larger country music.But I also must respect that Country music is from Nashville, but it deffinently seems to taint the city's image. It is not only the Frists that don't contribute much, but also the Ingrams. Both of these families give to the dubest artsy fartsy things. They should help urbanise their city. They both also give MILLIONS to my school, so i better stop there.

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Interesting discussion,

Two things come to mind:

A) Now that I know what Frists family is up to (and as I said above he can claim no personal conflicts of interest all he wants its like Jay Rockefeller pimping for his family on Energy policy . . . its all in the family so that doesn't work). Staying on the political vein I do know gays that are opposed to gay marriage so its not a "flip flop" true you would assume all gay or gay supporters would support gay marriage but its not that cut and dry. It really sickens me knowing how many industry pimps we have in Congress, this is just another sick example, sure he's a good man but hes biased and out to increase his families warchest at the expense of our hospital costs!

B ) Does anyone remember when running a hospital was a CHARITABLE organization!? When the poor or middle income wouldn't even be billed? To make a business of who will live and who will die and why is just sick. Thanks HCA.

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  • 3 weeks later...

my dad is an architect (healthcare dept) and when the company he's with was just starting, hca was too. they used to do a ton of projects together, but then hca just started going downhill. i doubt they would ever build a skyscraper. maybe occupy an existing one, but that's it.

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Does anyone remember when running a hospital was a CHARITABLE organization!?  When the poor or middle income wouldn't even be billed? To make a business of who will live and who will die and why is just sick.  Thanks HCA.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

No... unless you are referring to the time you spent in the USSR.

OMG, we have a lot of folks here who don't know wtf they are saying...

Umm, I work in healthcare, and HCA has been a client of my firm before. So if you think I'm some hack for corporate health, then you can stop now. If not, then know also that most -- by far -- of my clients are 501©3 (aka not-for-profit) organizations. If you think I'm a Republican hack, then all I can tell you is that I'm a red-blooded Libertarian and have been for years.

Also, if this is something personal against the Frists or Republicans, then I can't help you. I'm addressing your point re: making money off patients (read by me as "corporate medicine").

Before I go on, I think you need to be fair in your criticism... Dr. Frist has gone to Africa and areas hit by the tsunami to administer medical aid -- w/o using it as a photo op too! And don't you think he gave up a million+ salary to get paid a senators wages... even with all the perks. The guy's a friggin' heart surgeon, and one of the world's best at that. That's probably a more elite group than the US Senate. As far as pimping for HC, I do know that HCA has had a hell of a rough road most of the time he's been in DC... it doesn't seem to have helped the company much. But I can't prove what you say is true/false. So back to the point...

First, don't let anybody else try to tell you otherwise... The USA has the best healthcare system in the world to date. No other society takes better care of the sheer numbers of patients that we have... (too many in fact). Sure we can improve, but when all the R&D and mortality statistics are considered for a population our size, nobody touches us. And don't even go to the stats of infant mortality... many nations don't even consider an infant less than 1 month old in their stats (What the hell is that all about?).

Also, don't be fooled into thinking that anybody is turned away from care for financial reasons... this is suicide for any hospital... not just for the profits. Sure, some have attempted (they are rare cases)... and they have gotten their a##es sued too. I know about them. Furthermore, you might be surprised to know that nfp and fp alike make ethical decisions every minute of the day... and they often consider the cost of keeping a patient alive.

So, people and companies have made money off patient care for years. You would probably be shocked to know what the top 100-150 executives of large non-profits make... I'll just say that $250K is at the low end. In fact, comparing profits with non-profits, executives at non-profits are every bit as handsomely paid. So don't be fooled as my liberal mother in law is by the term non-profit... it's only a name applied to a class of healthcare (or other) organization that (gasp!!) makes money... they just don't call it a profit. You may not know that they often award their excess revenue to their (that's right) executives. And these organizations have made scads of money in the last 20 years. Finally, the large nfp orgs have an advantage over most of the competing HCA hospitals and other for-profits.

You also need to be fair about your criticism, until the HCAs in the world came on the scene, there were tons of inefficiencies in hc. There's still a lot. Also, those companies pay good, competitive salaries and contribute huge sums of money to charitable causes.

So the bottom line from my experience is that our "Healthcare Crisis" is a financial one... and we can't just keep opening the public coffers. THAT'S NOT A SOLUTION. Until folks like you starting getting honest about the issues in HC, then we'll continue to hear the kind of misinformed criticism that I just read here.

Finally, it's opinions like yours that are the reason HCA has never built a tall, fancy HQ tower. You would call it a disgusting show of wealth. I've been on the inside of HCA's corporate HQ and they are really very modest... in fact, some of their staff are working in portable buildings in a back parking lot, across the railroad tracks. So it's not a priority for HCA... they get enough beotching from idiots without building a huge tower.

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Dude, Biz guy, im not critising, im stating fact. The frist dont do ANYTHING that dosnt profit them. If not financial then they get publicity. My father left HCA in the Mid 1980's. He said that everthing started to decilne inside the company. If anyone on this should be good talking the Frists, its me. I've met them before at my school. There very close to MBA. I still despise their actions though.

By The Way??? Do you work for HCA, are you a Frist??????

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Dude, Biz guy, im not critising, im stating fact. The frist dont do ANYTHING that dosnt profit them. If not financial then they get publicity. My father left HCA in the Mid 1980's. He said that everthing started to decilne inside the company. If anyone on this should be good talking the Frists, its me. I've met them before at my school. There very close to MBA. I still despise their actions though.

By The Way??? Do you work for HCA, are you a Frist??????

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

you go to momma's boy academy? :rofl: j\k, i always despised playing ya'll in soccer. haha

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whered you go? BA? BGA?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

nah, i was a public school kid. went to overton, right before it went ghetto (the transfer of antioch's overflow problem). somehow we'd always get in a fight with mba during soccer games. we were a physical team, not too skilled with the ball however. oh well. you ever sneek across the street to st. cecilia's? :D

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