{"id":698,"date":"2007-11-02T23:27:00","date_gmt":"2007-11-02T23:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.arkansasfreedom.net\/?p=698"},"modified":"2007-11-02T23:27:00","modified_gmt":"2007-11-02T23:27:00","slug":"huckabee-confict-of-interest-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arkansasfreedom.net\/?p=698","title":{"rendered":"Huckabee confict of Interest?"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

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\n
\n\n\n\n
<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/span><\/strong>Health
\ncompany recruits governor for board of directors<\/font><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n



\n<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/o:p><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

June 13, 2006<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

BY BRIAN BASHN<\/span><\/p>\n

ARKANSAS
\nDEMOCRAT-GAZETTE<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Fred Nazem, the investor behind several multibillion-dol-lar health-care
\ncompanies, has tapped Gov. Mike Huckabee to serve on the board of directors for
\nhis latest project \u00e2\u20ac\u201d a
\nphysi\u00c2\u00adcian referral service. The com\u00c2\u00adpany,
\nFlagship Patient Advocates, <\/span>will go public later this month.<\/span><\/p>\n

Flagship Patient Advocates connects subscribing patients to
\ntop doctors in more than 150 specialties. For $750 a year, a member can receive
\nhealth-care advice from high-profile
\nmedical <\/span>professionals in the United
\nStates <\/span>and abroad, Nazem said.<\/p>\n

The company had $7,000 in revenue and $3 million in losses for the
\nquarter ending March 31. But Nazem \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nwho helped cre\u00c2\u00adate the Oxford Health Plan and a forerunner to the Tenet Health\u00c2\u00adcare Corp. hospital chain \u00e2\u20ac\u201d says<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n



\n<\/span><\/p>\n

he has
\n“tens of millions of dol\u00c2\u00adlars” in deals that will be rolled out over
\nthe next year.<\/p>\n

Huckabee, who joined the board in September, won’t ben\u00c2\u00adefit much
\nimmediately from the company’s growth. He receives no pay for his seat on the
\nboard, but instead was granted 25,000 shares in Finity Holding Inc., a related
\ncompany trading over-the-counter at just over one cent.<\/p>\n

Following a shareholder vote later this month, shares in Fin\u00c2\u00adity Holding will convert in a “re\u00c2\u00ad<\/span>verse
\nstock split” into shares of Flagship Patient Advocates, at a rate of 125 to 1. That would leave <\/span>Huckabee with 200 shares, which <\/span>could
\nincrease in value if inves\u00c2\u00adtors buy into Nazem’s plan.<\/p>\n

After that, Huckabee and other board members will likely
\nreceive additional shares in ex\u00c2\u00adchange for their expertise, Na-<\/p>\n



\n<\/span><\/p>\n

zem said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Huckabee’s involvement
\nwith <\/span>Flagship Patient Advocates grew <\/span>out
\nof the release of his 2005 book, Quit Digging Your Grave With a Knife and
\nFork, <\/em>as well as lectures on health policy he gave last year, said Alice Stewart, <\/span>a spokesman for the governor,
\na story that Nazem confirmed.<\/p>\n

“I read his book, and a friend of a friend says he knew
\nhim,” Nazem said. “I like … what he stands for.”<\/p>\n

A sitting governor who is
\nalso <\/span>a member of the board of a pub\u00c2\u00adlicly
\ntraded company might raise <\/span>eyebrows <\/span>\u00e2\u20ac\u201d if it
\nweren’t so close <\/span>to
\nthe end of Huckabee’s term, said Jay Barth, a professor of politics at Hendrix
\nCollege and a member of the Democratic Party’s State Committee.<\/span><\/p>\n

“It’s not unusual at all for former elected officials to [join
\ncorporate boards],” Barth said.<\/p>\n



\n<\/span><\/p>\n

“It would not be happening if he <\/span>had
\nlonger left in his term.”<\/p>\n

Graham Sloan, head of the
\nAr\u00c2\u00ad<\/span>kansas Ethics Commission, said Huckabee’s board seat shouldn’t pose a
\nproblem as long as his business associates aren’t given any special treatment<\/p>\n

“I don’t think it’s that uncom\u00c2\u00admon,”
\nhe said. “A lot of members <\/span>of the General Assembly sit on the
\nboards of corporations or bank boards.”<\/p>\n

Nazem said he had an easy
\nan\u00c2\u00ad<\/span>swer for potential ethical issues.<\/p>\n

“I told the governor
\nwe’d nev\u00c2\u00ad<\/span>er do any deal with the state of Arkansas,” he said.<\/p>\n

\\ Flagship Patient Advocates has its eye on more far-flung territory \u00e2\u20ac\u201d namely China and India.<\/span><\/p>\n

“We’re hoping to become one <\/span>of
\nthe health-care companies of choice for the
\n2008 Olympics” in <\/span>Beijing, Nazem said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Health company recruits governor for board of directors   June 13, 2006 BY BRIAN BASHN ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE Fred Nazem, the investor behind several multibillion-dol-lar health-care companies, has tapped Gov. Mike Huckabee to serve on the board of directors for his latest project \u00e2\u20ac\u201d a physi\u00c2\u00adcian referral service. The com\u00c2\u00adpany, Flagship Patient Advocates, will go public … Continue reading Huckabee confict of Interest?<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-huckabee-shameful-record"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arkansasfreedom.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arkansasfreedom.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arkansasfreedom.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arkansasfreedom.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arkansasfreedom.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=698"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arkansasfreedom.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arkansasfreedom.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arkansasfreedom.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arkansasfreedom.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}