Former President Bill Clinton campaigns for his wife, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, during a Jan. 7 rally in Dubuque, Iowa.
Former President Bill Clinton was paid a total of $630,000 to speak two years in a row at a conference on patient safety, financial disclosures confirmed. He has waived the honoraria the last two years, according to the sponsoring organization.
Clinton has keynoted the Patient Safety Movement Foundation’s World Patient Safety, Science and Technology Summit each of its four years, most recently in January. The organization has set a goal of reaching zero preventable deaths in U.S. hospitals by 2020.
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The foundation, based in Irvine, California, paid a $315,000 honorarium to the former president in 2013 and another $315,000 in 2014, according to the organization’s IRS Form 990 filings and Hillary Clinton’s campaign disclosures. “President Clinton was not paid for his speeches at the Summit in 2015 or 2016,” an organizational spokeswoman said in an email.
“President Clinton has been a very important pillar in our work in reducing preventable deaths in hospitals,” the spokeswoman explained.
The goal of zero preventable deaths by 2020 originated at the Clinton Global Initiative 2013 annual meeting. Patient Safety Movement Foundation founder Joe Kiani spoke at that event.
Still, it’s hard not to wonder whether the $630,000 paid to Clinton might be better spent on actual patient safety efforts. For that matter, how much money did attendees spend on the World Patient Safety, Science and Technology Summit at the Laguna Cliffs Marriott Resort & Spa in Dana Point, California in January (and other high-end hotels in previous years), and could those funds be put to better use?
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