Bill Frist: Inside Trader?

The Associated Press is reporting that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) sold all of his stock in his family’s hospital corporation just two weeks before it issued a lower than expected earning report that caused the price to fall by 15%

The value of Frist’s stock has not been disclosed, but Forbes magazine has said that the Frist family is worth $1.1 billion dollars.

This isn’t the first time the Frist family’s Hospital Corporation of America has been a problem for the Republican Senator. In 2000, HCA was forced to pay $745 million in civil fines and penalties in an alleged conspiracy to defraud public health care programs by bribing doctors to submit false bills. In addition, HCA was forced to pay over $95 million to settle criminal fraud charges against the company.

HCA employees and it’s political action committee have given Frist more than $80,000 in campaign contributions over his political career.