Senate: Private Equity Investors Put 'profits over Patients'

The Senate Report:

Private Equity in Health Care Shown to Harm Patients, Degrade Care and Drive Hospital Closures (January 7, 2025)
www.budget.senate.gov

... "The Ottumwa community has personally felt the impact of private equity on its health care system. Under private equity ownership, wait times at Ottumwa Regional Health Center have gone up as patient experience has gone down. The diminishing quality of care, service availability and care capacity at the hospital is forcing Ottumwa residents to travel significant distances in order to receive appropriate treatment. Iowans deserve better," Grassley said. "A dependable health care system is essential to the vitality of a community. As always, sunshine is the best disinfectant. This report is a step toward ensuring accountability, so that hospitals' financial structures can best serve patients' medical needs."

"Private equity has infected our health care system, putting patients, communities, and providers at risk," Whitehouse said. "As our investigation revealed, these financial entities are putting their own profits over patients, leading to health and safety violations, chronic understaffing, and hospital closures. Take private equity firm Leonard Green and hospital operator Prospect Medical Holdings: documents we obtained show they spent board meetings discussing profit maximization tactics -- cost cutting, increasing patient volume, and managing labor expenses -- with little to no discussion of patient outcomes or quality of care at their hospitals.

And while Prospect Medical Holdings paid out $645 million in dividends and preferred stock redemption to its investors -- $424 million of which went to Leonard Green shareholders -- it took out hundreds of millions in loans that it eventually defaulted on.

Private equity investors have pocketed millions while driving hospitals into the ground and then selling them off, leaving towns and communities to pick up the pieces." ...

[emphasis mine]

PDF of the report is here:
www.grassley.senate.gov

... Prospect Medical Holdings, the company that owns three struggling Connecticut hospitals, has filed for bankruptcy.

The California-based company has been trying to sell Waterbury, Rockville General and Manchester Memorial Hospitals to Yale New Haven Hospital since 2022.

That deal was thrown into turmoil after a 2023 cyber attack at Prospect severely hurt the hospital system, leaving it cash-stripped. YNH has argued that the hospitals are not worth what they were when the terms of the deal were negotiated.

They've asked the state for financial support, claiming they would spend more than originally planned on needed upgrades. Governor Ned Lamont (D) has been hesitant to support the deal with state funding.

"Prospect's decision to file for bankruptcy is much larger than just the state of Connecticut " this is a national matter and of grave concern to many hospitals around the country," Yale New Haven Health spokesperson Dana Marnane said. "Yale New Haven Health raised the alarm about this inevitability in the lawsuit we filed last year, recognizing Prospect's lack of investment and mismanagement of the Connecticut Prospect hospitals. ...

As far as our "betters" are concerned, we, the people, are little more than a coal seam to be strip mined.
And you stupid mfers keep voting them in, thinking they don't really mean it.

@#4 ... we, the people, are little more than a coal seam to be strip mined. ...

The dentist I had been going to for 30 years or so sold his practice to a private equity firm that's been buying up dental practices in the area.

Now, towards the end of each year I get an email from that firm telling me ~that I have not yet used up all my dental insurance benefits for the year, and maybe I should stop by to see how they can help me.~

"UnitedHealth Group 2024 Profits Hit $14 Billion Despite Cyberattack, Rising Costs

The company's annual net income - the lowest in five years - dropped from more than $22 billion in 2023 as the company grappled with a costly cyberattack on its Change Healthcare business.

Meanwhile, the company experienced higher-than-normal costs in its health insurance plans from treating a surge of patients, particularly seniors in Medicare Advantage plans."

www.forbes.com

THIS is why we can't have nice things like Universal Healthcare... Profiteers like these would have to go out of business.

What is it they actually contribute to Health Care? How about nothing at all.

My Advantage plan has been after me to schedule a visit with a N.P. to 'review' (upcode) my diagnoses. They don't prescribe, communicate with my primary or add any value in my opinion. The insurance plan also ordered and sent a ColoGard, with no plan to communicate the results with my primary. I forwarded the information to the insurance commission to review, in my view it is practicing medicine without a license.
Well, license to steal anyway.

@#2 ... And while Prospect Medical Holdings paid out $645 million in dividends and preferred stock redemption to its investors -- $424 million of which went to Leonard Green shareholders -- it took out hundreds of millions in loans that it eventually defaulted on.

Private equity investors have pocketed millions while driving hospitals into the ground and then selling them off, leaving towns and communities to pick up the pieces." . ...

Read that again. And again.

Private Equity Investments are people too! And their money is free speech!

This has been occurring for some time. building and building.

Nobody has done anything about it.

@#10 ... This has been occurring for some time ...

In my direct experience, for nearly a decade now. But it may have been going on for longer than my direct experience.

... Nobody has done anything about it. ...

Will the incoming Trump administration reign in private equity in our health-care system?

I wouldn't hold my breath

Everyone spent years thinking there was nothing wrong with how this industry did business. It seems like a lot of eyes started opening when one CEO got shot.

Posted by Whatsleft at 2025-01-16 09:52 PM | Reply

The pitchforks and torches are coming. That's a given.

@#13 ,... Everyone spent years thinking there was nothing wrong with how this industry did business. It seems like a lot of eyes started opening when one CEO got shot. ...

Not really.

I have been posting topics questioning "healthcare for profit" for many months (years?).

Many months.

It has been obvious to anyone who had concerns about it or who cared abot those subjected to the apparent money-grabbing whims of the current healthcare system.

This is not a new thing for me.

Indeed ...

Medical Debt Could Get You Sued (2020)
www.nbcconnecticut.com

... Quader found out her health insurance provider rejected the claim because it was filed more than 90 days after treatment.

What happened to Quader is not unusual. Data analyzed by researchers at the UCONN Health Disparities Institute show Danbury Hospital has filed suits against thousands of its patients. ...

@#15 ... Data analyzed by researchers at the UCONN Health Disparities Institute show Danbury Hospital has filed suits against thousands of its patients. ...

I remember one post I made a few years ago citing the local newspaper (Danbury News-Times).

Back when it delivered the papyrus-based edition to my house each morning (and one morning, threw the paper through the screen of my front screen door. Which, btw, they paid to fix, but I digress...), there was a space in the paper for house foreclosures.

In a post to this site back then, I noted and cited how the local hospital seemed to be the cause of many of those foreclosures, and apparently trying to grab those properties.

Forcing people out of their homes because they are sick.

Yeah, healthcare for profit is A Good Thing, according to the GOP.

One direction to focus your anger: Supreme Court.
Those crooks sold us all out so they can vacation on mega-yachts!

@#17 ... One direction to focus your anger ...

Oh, there is no anger here.

Questions maybe, so many questions?

But anger?

No. I don't hold anger within me. Doing so is not productive, imo.

Here's a cool video...

Leon Bridges - Peaceful Place (2024)
www.youtube.com

The pitchforks and torches are coming. That's a given.

#14 | Posted by LauraMohr at 2025-01-16 10:04 PM | Reply | Flag

For profit healthcare will always be about profits first and foremost. But you know what you get with not-for-profit healthcare? You get garbage healthcare. Not-for-profit healthcare vs. for profit healthcare is like the difference between prison food and a sit down restaurant.

So bring out the pitchforks and be happy with what that leaves you with.

It's time for the public option.

The insurance plan also ordered and sent a ColoGard, with no plan to communicate the results with my primary.

I'm assuming that was not at your request?

But you know what you get with not-for-profit healthcare? You get garbage healthcare.

You're so childish in your understanding of the world you're a walking, talking meme.

#19 | Posted by lfthndthrds

Most of the developed world completely disagrees. And they have facts to back their opinions.

You're so childish in your understanding of the world you're a walking, talking meme.

#22 | Posted by jpw at 2025-01-17 09:39 AM | Reply | Flag:

So why not explain it to us Dr Dumbass? Remove profit does not = quality goes up.

Hand it over to the government and... yeah... garbage. Bloated, cheap garbage.

Your waiting will remind you of the Charity Hospital in downtown Chicago on a saturday night.

For-profit healthcare prioritizes generating profit for investors, potentially leading to higher costs for patients and a focus on profitable procedures, while universal healthcare aims to provide healthcare access to everyone regardless of their ability to pay, often resulting in lower overall costs and a focus on preventative care; essentially, for-profit healthcare is driven by financial gain, whereas universal healthcare prioritizes population health.

#25 | Posted by LauraMohr at 2025-01-17 12:09 PM | Reply | Flag

Someone still has to pay for all of that healthcare at some point. Subsidizing it with tax dollars ends up costing people who are happy with the health insurance they PAY for, a lot more money. Nothing is free, but go ahead and sequester a free market industry and see what happens.. You can get Dr. JPW to rub chicken bones over your ass while he does a rain dance.

#26

Healthcare costs twice as much in the US as most of the developed world, and in many cases the quality is actually worse. What is it you like about that? Universal care would actually be less expensive.

How does health spending in the U.S. compare to other countries?

And your definition of "free market" seems pretty twisted. Cuz there's really nothing "free market" about our current healthcare system. We have great healthcare for the wealthy, mediocre healthcare for most who get it through provided or purchased insurance, and bankruptcy or die healthcare for those who can't. And again, unlike most of the developed world, a major medical problem will often still cause bankruptcy for the insured.

This is the real reason most Americans file for bankruptcy.