I Like This

Elizabeth Warren has introduced a bill that would provide for criminal penalties and claw-backs for private equity executives who kill people in pursuit of profits.

About f%$#ing time:

Last week, U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) and Ed Markey (D-Massachusetts) introduced a bill that seeks to tackle corporate greed in the healthcare sector. The bill, called the Corporate Crimes Against Health Care Act of 2024, goes after private equity firms.

The nation’s private equity fund assets have more than doubled over the past 10 years, totaling $8.2 trillion last year. A recent report from the American Hospital Association shows that private equity firms account for 56% of all physician practice acquisitions since 2019.

………

The senators’ concerns are backed by years of research showing that private equity ownership often decreases care quality at provider facilities. One of these studies, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in December, showed that patients receiving care at private equity-owned hospitals experienced a higher rate of hospital-acquired adverse events — such as bloodstream infections, falls and medication errors — than patients receiving care at hospitals that are not private equity-owned.

Not only is private equity ownership problematic for patients’ health and safety, but it can also jeopardize their access to care. In a joint press release, Warren and Markey pointed out that private equity mismanagement was a key reason Steward Health Care filed for bankruptcy last month and is now scrambling to sell its physician group and 31 hospitals.

………

If passed, the act would establish a new criminal penalty of up to six years in prison for private equity executives whose business decisions result in a patient’s death.

Should a healthcare portfolio company experience serious, avoidable financial difficulties as a result of their private equity ownership, the bill would allow the Department of Justice and state attorneys to claw back all compensation issued to private equity and portfolio company executives within a 10-year period before or after those financial difficulties begin. There would also be an associated civil penalty of up to five times the clawback amount, the bill stated.

Now, how about applying to ALL private equity?  That would be good.