Washington, D.C. – The Biden administration and Congress should use all available means to curb the increasingly harmful effects of private equity’s control of massive swaths of the healthcare sector, according to a new report from Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund.
New study by the American Antitrust Institute and Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund calls attention to the growing presence of private equity ownership in the home healthcare sector.
AFREF submitted a comment to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) on their proposed rule to require the disclosure of important information regarding the ownership and control of nursing facilities, including when an owning or managing entity is a private equity (PE) company or a Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT).
Private equity and healthcare are incompatible and AFREF states in the letter that the current lack of transparency in ownership of facilities exacerbates the problem and shields owners and investors from accountability for the performance of the businesses they own and welcomes the disclosure rule.
AFREF submitted a letter with partner organizations expressing a mutual concern about the lack of transparency regarding the ownership and control of nursing facilities that serve Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries.
Having a rapacious business like private equity watching over particularly vulnerable people has never been a good idea. Still the evidence is mounting that Wall Street has pushed the envelope in recent years. Nursing homes, youth facilities, and homes for disabled adults have all fallen under the ownership of an industry with a track record of prioritizing wealth extraction over running companies well, to say nothing of caring for people in need.