Jeb Bush to cut ties with Tenet over PPACA money

By David Knowles

December 26, 2014 at 06:25 AM

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(Bloomberg Politics) — What a tangled web presidential candidates weave.

Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush will step down from the board of Tenet Healthcare Corp., a Texas-based company that has seen big profits thanks to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), the Los Angeles Times reported.

Bush will disentangle himself from Tenet Healthcare effective Dec. 31, the second such move he has made since announcing that he will "actively explore" a 2016 run for the White House. Earlier this month Bush announced that he would end his advisory role with Barclays Bank.

The number of people signing up for insurance through the PPACA Medicaid expansion program has been great business for Tenet Heatlhcare.

"As we look at the past four months, we can see a steep ramp of people who are newly insured and are seeking care in our hospitals," Tenet CEO Trevor Fetter told the Dallas Business Journal back in May. "February was double January, and March was double February. It's a steep ramp of people who are now accessing the health care system."

Tenet Healthcare has been building new hospitals, in part on the promise of all those new customers.

Whether Bush's moves to distance himself from the kinds of business relationships that proved a liability for Mitt Romney in the 2012 election will prove effective remains to be seen.

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