I am your constituent and I want you to know that HCA Healthcare, one of the biggest for profit hospital operators, is busy squeezing money out of one of their recent purchases, Mission Hospital in North Carolina, at patient expense. You can read the report written by a member of the National Academy of Medicine here, https://hlp.law.wfu.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/11/2024/08/HCA-Mission-Changes-in-Patient-Care-Following-HCAs-Purchase-working-draft-WFU.pdf.
I bring this up for a reason. While making a profit is fine, this company, is following some of the same techniques that private equity firms use when they buy medical facilities and squeeze them dry. The bottom line is that patients suffer.
I want you to have a look at the Health Over Wealth Act in Congress and modify it so that it applies to any commercial entity that purchases a healthcare facility or hospital. It demands an escrow account with sufficient funds to operate for 5 years in the event of failure to protect patients, it prohibits shady real estate transactions that bleed new purchases dry. It prohibits stripping out assets to reap profits while patients suffer - think about eliminating staff and leaving patients untreated.
This is a lot to ask but this is one of the ways hospitals are forced to close, when the are captured by for profit ventures that squeeze out every nickel and then declare bankruptcy. Here is a link to a summary of Senator Markey and Representative Jayapal’s Health Over Wealth Act for reference, https://www.markey.senate.gov/healthoverwealth.
Please take action on this.
