International Courant
Massachusetts Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey, each Democrats, launched laws Tuesday that may lead to jail sentences for offenders of “company greed” in well being care.
The Company Crimes Towards Well being Care Act would additionally give attorneys basic and the U.S. Division of Justice extra instruments to focus on well being care executives accused of company exploitation for endangering affected person security and entry to well being care, in response to an investigation. press launch.
Warren delivered remarks at Steward’s St. Elizabeth’s Medical Middle in Brighton, denouncing Steward’s monetary administration underneath CEO Ralph de la Torre. In 2016, Steward offered the land the place the eight hospitals in Massachusetts are positioned to Medical Properties Belief, an actual property funding belief. The transaction left the hospitals with huge money owed, finally inflicting Steward to go bankrupt.
“My Company Crimes Towards Well being Care Act would stop what occurred to Steward from ever taking place once more,” Warren stated in an announcement. “When non-public fairness takes management of healthcare methods, it’s actually a matter of life and demise, so in the event you let a hospital like Steward go bankrupt, placing sufferers and communities in danger, you’ll face actual penalties.”
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Senator Warren delivered remarks exterior Steward’s St. Elizabeth’s Medical Middle in Brighton. (AP Picture/Jacquelyn Martin, file)
The invoice would introduce a brand new felony penalty to provide executives as much as six years in jail in the event that they loot well being care services, together with nursing properties and hospitals, if the looting leads to the demise of a affected person.
It could authorize state attorneys basic and the U.S. Division of Justice to recuperate all compensation, together with salaries, from executives of personal fairness and portfolio corporations inside a 10-year interval earlier than or after an acquired well being care firm suffered critical , experiences avoidable monetary issues. plunder.
As well as, the laws would authorize an related civil penalty of as much as 5 occasions the restoration quantity and require well being care suppliers receiving federal funding to publicly report mergers, acquisitions, modifications in possession and management, and monetary knowledge, together with debt and debt ratios to the revenue. proportions.
There would even be a requirement {that a} report from the Inspector Normal for Well being and Human Companies be despatched to Congress detailing the “harms of corporatization” in well being care.
“What Dr. de la Torre, Cerberus Capital Administration and Medical Properties Belief have carried out to Steward hospitals in Massachusetts and throughout the nation is inexcusable,” Markey stated in an announcement. “They promised to enhance healthcare, however as a substitute traded lives and livelihoods for revenue. Personal fairness companies and their enablers will proceed to steal from the American healthcare system to feed their company greed except we cease them. We want guardrails now to ensure CEO wealth. doesn’t come earlier than public well being.”
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Senator Markey stated guardrails are wanted to make sure CEO wealth doesn’t take priority over the well being of the general public. (Photographer: Eric Lee/Bloomberg through Getty Photos)
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Chris Noble, coverage director of the Personal Fairness Stakeholder Undertaking, stated in an announcement that personal fairness companies have “made a killing by looting weak hospitals and endangering sufferers and healthcare methods.”
“Primarily based on the commonsense concept that American well being care methods should prioritize defending our long-term well being over short-term income, this laws is a essential and well timed answer to that downside,” he stated.
Katie Murphy, president of the Massachusetts Nurses Affiliation, additionally praised the Company Crimes Towards Well being Care Act.
“As a company representing frontline nurses and healthcare professionals working in services owned and operated by non-public fairness companies and different for-profit suppliers, we’ve got witnessed how the commodification of healthcare and its pursuit of profiteering corporations has undermined the protection of healthcare. sufferers and communities served by these services, and as such, we applaud and assist Senator Warren’s laws that can maintain these corporations accountable for his or her misdeeds and company malfeasance, to reclaim the assets taken from our sufferers and our communities to to make sure that these assets go to the correct causes. the care of sufferers and never their exploitation,” Murphy stated in an announcement.
Sens. Warren and Markey are proposing a invoice that may result in jail sentences for “company greed” in healthcare
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