Comment by t-writescode

Here’s a neat article written for the Missouri Medicine Journal that covers it: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11482842/

And here’s a ChatGPT summary of it for the TLDR crowd:

Private equity ownership of hospitals and medical practices is linked to worse patient outcomes, higher prices, and weakened physician autonomy. The paper argues that PE’s standard playbook — heavy debt loading, cost-cutting, consolidation, and short-term profit extraction — is fundamentally misaligned with long-term medical care. Case studies like Hahnemann University Hospital show how sale-leasebacks and aggressive financial engineering can push essential hospitals into collapse. Consolidation of physician groups reduces competition and raises prices for patients and employers, while staff cuts and reduced investment correlate with lower care quality. The author calls for stronger antitrust scrutiny, transparency of ownership, and limits on practices such as asset-stripping to prevent further harm in the healthcare system.