re: Apparently private equity is buying up small hospitals in LA

You forgot to add some Ponzi scheme stuff in there about recruiting new funding every six months.

Steward sucked the juice out of a “rival” hospital on the other side of the city.

Gonna be a shite sandwich no matter which way it ends up.

shite should be illegal.

In my area it appears that they are going for option 4 or 5.

Does anyone here feel as though there is no one with our interests at the helm of our country anymore? Don’t mean just the President of the U.S., I mean thought leaders, decision makers, etc.

We are slowly headed off a damn cliff and it’s as though not only is no one doing anything to help, but our pockets are being picked before they jump ship into the only remaining lifeboats.

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The goal of private equity is as follows: 1) Buy a business and load it up with debt 2) Take a ton of cash out 3) Trim expeneses to the absolute bone, and usually beyond 4) Starve the business of resources / spending as much as possible, but not so much as to cause it to shut down, so they can flip it in a few years and make a ton of money and pass it on to the next group, or 5) If they go too deep and end up putting it out of business, just sell off the assets and get the remaining cash out that w

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, the goal of PE is, over time, to make money. If that don’t make money they won’t keep getting those fees.

I’m no PE fanatic by any stretch, but running a business to make money is a lot better way to do it than many of the alternatives.

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This is going to be a total disaster

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There have been for profit hospital corporations, both traded publicly and owned by private equity firms for 30+ years. It's not something new.

Upcoding is real

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Just wait until you find out what they have done to the med school since "partnering". It's coming.

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You mean an offshore 3rd rate med school is a problem?

Hey- they'll likely be on par with the "prestigious" DEI infested med schools soon anyway.

What could possibly go wrong?

Oh wait.... Nevermind

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Could our system use a complete overhaul? Absofrickinglutely. Is it fricked because of capitalism? No. It is fricked because it is decades of patch work legislation with endless nuance from a patient, insurer, and provider perspective. It is the most convoluted institution in our country. The defense department is 1st grade math in comparison. That isn't just because of capitalism. It was designed in unsustainable fashion from the get-go and never fixed. It wasn't built to handle 300 million fat people that don't care about their own well-being.

I talk to doctors that have no idea how the government system works. I talk to FTC employees that have no idea how the hospital system works. I talk to insurance companies that have no idea how either work. It needs to start over.

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As a long time hospital CFO, I agree with everything you said. It's always so annoying watching people who aren't in the business side of healthcare posting about what they think because they have no fricking clue what they are talking about. We have the most disjointed healthcare system that is possible and because of that it is significantly more expensive than anywhere else on earth. The way it's patched together hurts care as well because most of the people taking care of you don't actually have all your healthcare info. Therefore they do the same tests, diagnostics, etc. over and over. There has been a good bit of legislation trying to mandate EMRs and make it so that your info was portable and providers could easily access it. All have failed. Our system sucks.

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If the Church is God's House, the Devil's is a Nursing Home.

They way they spend down some of these people's incomes should be criminal.



Was spending $9200/month for my mother and had to battle them to get her out as they outright lied to the doctor.

5 star place and all I will say about that is the 3 stars must be real bad as I was not impressed at all with the care and I'd be surprised if prisons have worse food.

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Nursing homes are a racket, no question. A kid I went to high school with owns a chain of them and is insanely wealthy. The nursing home lobby is second only to the oil and gas lobby for legislative influence in Louisiana.

With that said, my mother is in one and it's been a godsend. We simply couldn't duplicate the same level of care at home for any amount of money. She has nurses checking her condition twice a day, which I believe has saved her life at least once. She has aides helping her with her daily activities, she has more social interactions that she would at home. It's been a great weight off my dad's shoulders, who was ruining his own health trying to take care of her by himself. Most of all, my mother seems pretty content. Trying to manage independent living was stressful for her, too.

I wish it hadn't come to this. It's not how I imagined my parents' golden years. My heart breaks a little bit every time I go there. But it had to be, and we're making the best of it.

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The medical industry is just another for-profit arm of our savagely capitalistic society that bleeds the consumer until they die. Produce unhealthy food for the masses that cause cancer, diabetes and heart disease. Deliver sub-par healthcare at a ridiculously inflated rate because they are charging your insurance that you're required to have. When they don't want to pay the stupid bill you get to pick up the tab. On top of that, as an added bonus these medical experts convince you to use some medicine that gives them incentives but gives you unintended side effects instead.

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Capitalism is the WORST economic system there is.




Except for all the others.