Private-equity backed health care 'kills people,' Warren says at U.S. Senate hearing
BOSTON — An emergency room doctor who worked at Good Samaritan in Brockton and other community hospitals owned by Steward Health Care said private equity ownership of hospitals stands in the way of "safe and adequate care."
Dr. Ellana Stinson spoke to a U.S. Senate subcommittee hearing at the Massachusetts State House in Boston on Wednesday, April 3.
"I think this is a time where the community needs to start organizing and really demanding the resources that they need to get the care that they deserve," Stinson said after the event.
U.S. senators Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren hosted the hearing. Stinson joined a panel that included a campaigner with a non-profit watchdog, a union nurse from North Carolina and a pediatrician who ran the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services under President Barack Obama before running for governor on a platform of single-payer health care.
Senators tear into Steward CEO Ralph de la Torre for not attending hearing
Dr. Ralph de la Torre, founder and CEO of Steward, declined Markey's invitation to speak at the event. There was no representative from the company at Wednesday's hearing.
Markey and Warren roasted Steward's leader for not coming.
"His refusal to appear at today's hearing is cowardly," Warren said.
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Former Steward ER doc worked at Carney, Quincy, Good Sam
Stinson worked at three Steward hospitals from 2013 to 2020, mostly at Carney Hospital in Dorchester but also at now-closed Quincy Medical Center and Brockton's Good Samaritan Medical Center.
Warren asked Stinson, the ER doctor, what benefits Carney patients or staff received after the private-equity firm Cerberus Capital, then-owner of Steward, sold it for $260 million.
Stinson told the senator she saw no evidence that the sale benefited patients or staff other than the addition of five rooms to the ER.
"I did not receive any increase in pay other than what I negotiated," said Stinson.
Stinson said that in her experience, Good Sam had marginally more resources than Carney. She now works at Boston Medical Center.
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Future of Steward hospitals in Brockton, Taunton, Fall River and elsewhere hangs in the balance
Financially troubled Steward has already announced it plans to leave the health care market in Massachusetts. Gov. Maura Healey, also a Democrat, has said she wants them gone. The future of Steward-run hospitals in Brockton, Taunton and Fall River hangs in the balance.
Private equity 'looted' hospital, senators say
Markey, Warren and other speakers argued that Steward "looted" community hospitals, leaving behind shells.
"Keep in mind they had a billion and a quarter dollars drained out of them and still managed to keep providing patient care," Warren said. "If that money had stayed in the hospitals … the financial condition of the Steward hospitals today would be very different."
Defenders of private equity say it plays a key role in a healthy market economy. Markey, Warren and other speakers weren't buying that argument.
A theme of Wednesday's hearing was that private equity firms have their eyes on other parts of the health-care industry. Warren cited the example of nursing homes. She said that facilities owned by private equity had a COVID mortality rate 40% higher than other nursing homes.
"I will say it bluntly: Turning private equity loose in the health care system kills people," Warren said.
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This article originally appeared on The Enterprise: Steward financial crisis prompts Senate hearing on private equity
