Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has resigned from the board of directors of a health-care firm that reportedly benefited from Obamacare in preparation for a probable 2016 presidential run.
Bush will step down from the board of Tenet Healthcare effective Dec. 31, the company said Wednesday. In 2013, Bush earned cash and stock worth almost $300,000 from Tenet, the Los Angeles Times reports.
He announced last week that he will resign from his position as a consultant with Barclay’s at the end of the year, but Bush remains on the boards of Rayonier Inc., Empower Software Solutions, and CorMatrix, according to The Wall Street Journal.
“These are all growth investments that the governor has worked on,” Bush spokeswoman Kristy Campbell told the Los Angeles Times.
Tenet was the country’s third-largest for-profit hospital operator in 2014 with 72 acute-care hospitals. Its leadership has indicated that Obamacare has been a boon for business in 2014, potentially providing a target for opponents on both the left and right to go after the former governor on ties to the eternally unpopular health-care law.
“Our success at capturing incremental market share through strategic investments, service line expansion, and successfully positioning Tenet’s hospital to benefit from key aspects of the Affordable Care Act all contributed to a great quarter,” Tenet president and CEO Trevor Fetter said in a statement in August.
In Jan. 2014, Fetter also predicted an influx of Obamacare customers to up the company’s bottom line.
“We’re going to pick up volumes that we didn’t have before,” Fetter said on CNBC’s Halftime Report. “Presumably, more of those patients will have insurance.
Many large health firms stood to benefit greatly from the Affordable Care Act, primarily for the obvious reason that the law requires Americans to purchase health coverage, expanding companies’ customer base by force. The country’s largest insurers are doing extremely well under the health care law. (RELATED: Largest Insurers Have Grown Since Obamacare Passed)
And hospital operators such as Tenet are getting a boost from hospital consolidation, which has been furthered thanks to Obamacare. The health care law’s many unfunded regulations on health care providers works to the advantage of the largest hospitals, which have the funding to work with the law’s rules while smaller systems and private practices are put at a disadvantage. (RELATED: Alaska Physician Shuts Down Practice Due To Obamacare)
While Tenet may have benefited from Obamacare, Bush remains on the board of a medical device company which argues that it’s been hurt by the health-care law. CorMatrix, a Georgia-based medical device company, has repeatedly pushed for the repeal of Obamacare’s medical device tax along with the rest of the industry, arguing that it will harm device companies, stifle innovation and cut jobs.