Health Care Carpetbaggers

I've always gone for salty titles for my health care writing. So for many years, I thought about calling the follow-up to "Bleeding Edge: The Business of Health Care in the New Century" (my first book, published in 1998) "Health Care Carpetbaggers."

And today, I wake up to . . .

“It’s the center of the industry we’re most concerned about, which is the health-care industry,’ Ellison said. The company has been making a major push into health care in recent years, most notably with its $28 billion acquisition of the medical records software giant Cerner. Ellison said Tuesday that Oracle is relatively new to the health-care sector, but he believes the company has a “moral obligation” to solve problems facing the industry.

Nashville has been a major player in the health-care scene for decades, and the city is now home to a vibrant network of health systems, startups and investment firms. The city’s reputation as a health-care hub was catalyzed when HCA Healthcare, one of the first for-profit hospital companies in the U.S., was founded there in 1968.

So yes, “Health Care Carpetbaggers” would have been a cool — and of course, highly illustrative — title. Now, it’s a little obvious…