Tenet Healthcare Corp. CEO Trevor Fetter said in January that former Tenet board member Jeb Bush would be an “outstanding president.” And he's putting his money behind a political group to make that happen.
The Center for Public Integrity, a not-for-profit investigative journalism outlet, recently reported that Fetter donated $100,000 to Right to Rise USA, a so-called “super” political action committee that supports Republican presidential hopeful Jeb Bush. Super PACs fill a murky space in electoral politics, collecting unlimited amounts of cash from companies like Tenet and individual people like Fetter.
A spokesman for Tenet said that while Fetter's personal donations were his own affair, "the company has not donated to Right to Rise USA or any other Super PAC involved in presidential campaigns."
Bush served as a board director of Tenet, the Dallas-based hospital chain, for almost eight years. He resigned this past December when he started exploring his presidential run. But Bush certainly reaped the rewards.
He earned $2,375,870 during his time on Tenet's board, according to regulatory filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission that date back to 2008. The compensation was a mix of cash and stock.
Fetter's $100,000 donation to Right to Rise USA—by far the largest super PAC right now, raising more than $103 million as of Wednesday, according to OpenSecrets.org—won't dent his own deep pockets in the least. He made $18 million last year and $52 million the past three years combined.
It's not surprising Fetter, ranked No. 9 on Modern Healthcare's 100 Most Influential People in Healthcare this year, is throwing money behind a candidate that supported his business. But it's interesting that that candidate, like all Republicans, also has routinely bashed the Affordable Care Act—a law that Fetter has said on many occasions has directly helped Tenet grow.
The Center for Public Integrity also reported that Richard Jackson, CEO of staffing firm Jackson Healthcare, of which Bush was a board member, donated half a million dollars to Right to Rise USA.
