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datsci_est_2015
ekropotin
I wish there were some kind of public database that allowed easy lookup of whether a given company is owned by a private equity firm.
neilv
It should be integrated with the ways that people find those businesses, including maps, Web search, and "AI chat".
tartoran
I’d happily pay for a tool that lets me opt out of being slowly nickel-and-dimed by entities optimized for short-term yield. This feels like infrastructure: a small amount of collective effort that gives individuals leverage again. Visibility is the lever. And it could be done, it's just more organizing and involvement in local politics. The information already exists, it’s just effectively invisible, and a small translation layer could collapse it into a one-second answer, letting people avoid operators with a predictable extractive playbook, with the only real challenge being the constant, boring maintenance in an environment designed for churn and opacity. Eventually this should revolve around organizing and politics to make a difference.
MarkusAllen
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encrypted_bird
I agree! I think this kind of resource would be very useful to a lot of people!
MarkusAllen
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shrubble
Storage unit rental went from $90 in 2014 to $110 about 2017, but then was acquired by CubeSmart which is publicly traded: now $241 per month. I know the local taxes and they have stayed about the same all those years.
WalterBright
Storage units are the way station to the thrift store / city dump.
I had a storage unit for a while until I realized that the monthly bill was more than the value of the contents.
potato3732842
>I had a storage unit for a while until I realized that the monthly bill was more than the value of the contents.
For every one of you there's a few people using it as business storage and dozens of people who are dealing with living situation stuff (college housing vs apartment, house closing timing, job relocation, house renovation, etc, etc, etc) that trade in and out of units on like a 1-2mo timeline.
Source: Almost bought one.
arwhatever
I’m beyond peeved by the inability to get any sort of price guarantee from these places more than 3 months in advance.
I’ve even offered to pay for several years in advance at their “current” rate, and they won’t accept it.
meetingthrower
My behavioral economics pricing idea for storage unit is to charge $1 for the first month but then double every month (or something like that). You shouldn't put stuff in storage long term and you're getting ripped off.
Fezzik
Though less critical to our lives, PE has ruined loads of retail and restaurant options as well - Sears, Toy ‘R’ Us, Red Lobster, and Shari’s come to mind.
red-iron-pine
many of those deserved to die.
sears had a ceo who was obsessed with competition and pitted his units against each other. they could have created an online portal and then crushed amazon in the crib -- but didn't.
toys r us had a cto who pushed for internet stuff... and said no.
gardnr
Sears was around long before the bad CEO was even born. Saying it "deserved to die" isn't fair to history.
alejo
Water used to be managed by a local cool here where I live. I had been for decades.
A few months ago i got an email saying that PE had acquired it.
I was paying between ~$25/month before. Today i got the first bill from new management for $89.
Same volume/usage, nothing significantly different.
Sigh.
patmorgan23
Definitely complain to you local water/utility regulator, and your state representative.
bitmasher9
Regional regulators have to approve the transfer of ownership of water utilities. The best time to fight this sort of thing is as early as possible.
alejo
I had no idea about any of this. I’ll talk with my neighbors and see if there’s anything we could do
tmaly
Toy Stores for kids should be on the list
jojobas
Coutry wide only 16% of dental practices are DSO, and it's not that functionally different from junior dentists getting loans to set up their practices with practices themselves as a collateral.
JumpCrisscross
If we’re going to stick with private ownership of our healthcare infrastructure, patient-facing providers should at least be required to be B Corps, with one Board seat set to represent the doctors’ and nurses’ interests and a second patients’ interests. (Not sure how you’d elect the latter.)
There should also be strict leverage, related-party transaction and dividend limits. In exchange, we might provide a public lender of last resort for healthcare providers who need a lifeline.
Banning private equity from healthcare is a good headline. And if I were a candidate, I’d probably run on it. But it’s a band-aid to a broader incentive problem.
chneu
The issue is, at least in the US, if we ban PE/VC from healthcare, who is going to do it?
Americans are deeply divided on the big bad guvmit
keernan
>Americans are deeply divided on the big bad guvmit
But insurance companies are a-ok
cyanydeez
Socialism is ok as long as it doesnt benefit minorities.
Like bank bailouts and farm grants.
stogot
The same way they ran before PE and VC
callc
I have hope that the newer generations don’t align with “big bad guvmit”, and there’s been enough negative experiences (direct and indirect) with healthcare that people will vote for alternatives.
Also, I am saddened by the shared anxiety of healthcare in US (availability while jobless, f*** by big bills, lack of care, etc). The raw amount of shared mental stress must contribute to lower lifespans :(
SXX
A lot of people who got the bad side of healthcare system are not there to tell the story. Or they wont have capacity or money to have kids, etc.
Also poor people who having serious health problems dont have time to be politically active.
wyre
My impression on the newer generation is either socialist or republican with little in between.
fc417fc802
What's wrong with private practices again? Personally I prefer them but (purely my own impression) it seems like they are dwindling.
JumpCrisscross
> What's wrong with private practices again?
Administrative overhead. And some things resist it, e.g. ERs.
red-iron-pine
are they? it's mostly boomers plus the ones that corpo-owned social media are able to hit
look at the F500 list and note how many healthcare companies are in the top 50 (even top 10), then ask yourself how much they could spend on marketing
cyanydeez
Thats essential Democratic Socialism and would lead to minorities benefitting.
As such, liberals and conservatives agree its a bad idea.
locusofself
My daughter is “on the spectrum” and dealing with these therapy places was just a huge waste of time and money. I don’t know if the places we went to were owned by private equity or what but the quality was really bad and this is in a major metropolitan area that is also affluent. The therapist seemed like good hearted people, but they were paid so miserably that there was constant turnover. The billing practices were always shady and complicated and frustrating. Not to mention most of these places have 6 to 12 months waiting list to see anybody in the first place.
SoftTalker
Exactly the same experience with long term care for elderly relatives. It's all about getting their money. Care is perfunctory.
taurath
If everyone wasn’t held basically at economic gunpoint to a level where they are one or two missed paychecks to living in their car, we could advocate for patients and providers to strike outside of the managers offices or in front of a news station. It’s insane how having no financial security creates a world where they can extract with abandon.
taurath
It’s part and parcel to the mental healthcare system for the last decade or so. There is no place that does better because every single provider is dependent on private health insurance which rarely pays without major and intense hassle.
cogman10
I really dislike this, especially because it ultimately results in worse care for the kids.
I think the place I take my kid to for therapy is likely private equity owned, but it's also about the only place available in my area.
I know they are charging around $80 per season, and I also know that the salaries for their therapists are around $25 to $30 per hour.
That leaves a very healthy margin for everything from employee benefits to building rental to admin (which I think is probably where the majority of margin goes).
Plasmoid
I think you're over-estimating how much slack there is in the organization.
A rule of thumb is that benefits cost an employer 25-30% of salary. So you're already pushing to 50% of revenue going to direct salary costs. Then there are employees in non-revenue roles (HR, legal, accounting, IT, etc...) and employees doing non-revenue work.
Finally, you have rent, licensing, insurance, and all the other fixed costs.
WalterBright
An awful lot of businesses go under from underestimating what their expenses inevitably will be. Everyone they deal with has their hand out to get paid.
amypetrik214
I mean OP said this is $80 / season, and salary rate is 25/hr.
So to your point, if we assume 4 appointments per season at one hour per, they are actually paying $100 in salary alone to only collect $80 season pass fee - a $20 loss! This business model is not sustainable
cyanydeez
Which is why successful business means being a sociopath.
whydoineedthis
Anthem Blue cross pays $125-$150/hr. $80/hr is cheap.
accrual
It's worth asking if you're curious or have a good relationship with the provider. Some may be willing to tell all about their ownership or management situation if prompted politely.
I know of a childcare center that was acquired recently. Not sure if by PE or just another business, but the employees are less than thrilled with the changes.
didntknowyou
having work in an industry affected by PE buyouts, a lot of these are transactions acted on at management level by businessmen and MBAs/consultants in their offices with no clinician input, yet the hate seems directed at front-line staff.
didntknowyou
applying this same kind of logic that PE uses, equating healthcare workers to machines is the bane of the industry.
and then people complain why ther doctors burn out. what do you expect when you ingrained on them that every hour not booked is $80 lost, so we need to book them 24/7, cut their lunch break and squeeze every inch of life from them.
andy99
These should be useful signals to regulators. Regulation is imperfect but somehow we blame companies that take advantage, either of immature or nonexistent regulation (which might be the case here) or of poorly written regulation (e.g. circa 2000 California energy regulation that let Enron and company run wild).
These companies, in finding essentially arbitrage opportunities, are, perversely, helping strengthen regulation, but only if regulators pay attention to what is going on and do something about it, instead of just watching it happen.
20after4
This fails to recognize the existence of lobbyists and regulatory capture.
KPGv2
No it doesn't. Nothing about what you're responding to indicates they're ignoring these things exist. Unless your argument is "lobbyists exist, so we should ban all regulations and go back to the wild west," then the sentence where the person referred to regulation as "imperfect" encompasses lobbying.
aristofun
Can anyone explain me like im 5 - what is the alternative and what’s so special about private equity firms in this context?
Like those centers are going to be owned by someone one way or another - what is so special or bad about equity firms vs alternatives?
Genuine question. Because I don’t have a clue how this works in US.
tekdude
This won't be at a 5yo level, but here's an attempt: there are a two things specific to private equity that often leads to higher prices and worsening service:
1. PE aren't investors like you and me. We can go to our brokerage and buy shares of a public company, hold those shares, vote on directors and proposals, etc... Or we can buy and sell ETF/mutual fund shares that own companies. Then, we (or fund managers) can sell those shares after any period of time we want. Could be years, decades, or minutes. Whatever meets our investing goals. The same is actually true for hedge funds. We buy a a piece of a company, hold it as long as we want, then sell to take profit/loss. When PE buys a company though, they buy the whole company AND they have a specific timeline in mind. This is because PE firms are actually temporary private "investment funds": partners put in money and expect a certain return on investment after a certain period of time. At the end, that's when the fund needs to wind down and return capital + returns. So, there's already a ticking clock on anything a PE firm buys, and pressure to generate return before time runs out. They typically do this by taking a company public on the stock market (maybe again) or selling it to someone else. (This doesn't always succeed, but there are other options then, like continuation funds.)
2. PE funds also take on a lot of debt. They can't afford to buy whole companies or roll up entire industries just with their investors' funds, so they borrow a lot. Now, the companies they buy for their portfolios not only need to generate returns for their investors, they also need to do that AFTER making payments on that debt. It multiplies the pressure.
There are a lot of cases where PE bought struggling companies, and with discipline and incentives turned things around on a timeline. But there are also a lot of cases where PE bought stable but boring companies, used debt and pressure to force them to raise prices, cut services, lay off workers, and lower quality in order to generate returns at the pace required.
(Most of this I learned from reading Matt Levine columns, I'm not an expert and don't work in this industry at all, so I may have some details wrong.)
aristofun
That sounds to me then that the problem is not only that PE are incentivized only by profits.
But also by the system that disconnects end user’s satisfaction (families with kids on spectrum in this case) from the profit.
In other words if users of those centers were part of the profit equation - PE would not be a problem at all. Am I right?
If so then the real evil are people who created and support such a system I guess.
slumberlust
In the US, we often don't have options (by design). Be it ISP, grocery, electric, healthcare, etc. Many times the option is just two of the same type of monolith.
datsci_est_2015
The acquisition of the company can also be financially "meta-strategic", where it doesn't actually matter what service the company provides, but how its assets can be structured or leveraged to extract more value for the PE's stakeholders: - https://www.businessinsider.com/red-lobster-endless-shrimp-b... - Here on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40233029
fc417fc802
An individual likely (hopefully) has a moral compass.
A family introduces some perverse financial incentives but you also get long term (ie multi generation) planning and reputation concerns.
A group of practicing professionals who own the operation will hopefully exhibit some shared pride and professionalism.
A co-op or similar arrangement ties the interests directly to the local community.
The larger the public company the less overlap there will be with the customer's interests. At least they might worry about reputation and stock price though.
Pretty much the only concern PE has is avoiding litigation. Their primary motivation is maximizing value extraction over the short or medium term.
aristofun
Isn’t the government a worst alternative?
danaris
No. This idea is the result of decades of propaganda.
The government has to answer to the people. PE firms do not: they answer only to money.
fc417fc802
Worse than PE? I very much doubt that but I guess the answer will depend on the voters, how the healthcare ventures themselves are structured, how much open corruption the local culture tolerates, and similar.
However AFAIK most government solutions in the west involve public "insurance" as opposed to the direct operation of health care facilities themselves.
anonymars
Why?
j-bos
Just a driveby speculator but my guess is PE dillutes interest in and responsibility for the businesses.
Individuals or family holdings are more likely to have concern for their reputations in addition to finances, public companies are more likely to scrutinized offsetting what would be their much lower reputational concerns. But PE is diffuse and often distant enough to eliminate human reputational concerns while being held to far lower stadards than public companies.
jostylr
The optimal version of a PE is to take a failing business and either turn it around or carve up assets and reallocate people to do something useful and profitable. The more a business is failing, the cheaper it is to takeover and for the PE to do the work of a fungus. But this process can also become a disease if it is too easy for them to takeover, taking a healthy host and carving it up. This is mimicked in real life when conditions turn a fungus into a hostile organism on something that is living; maybe it is just a little sick but the environmental conditions help the fungus more than it ought to leading to it being a killer instead of a resource freer.
The real question to ask is why can they take on so much debt? And for that, one needs to acknowledge the fact that, particularly for the well-connected, debt is easy to obtain as banks essentially create money for loans. There are constraints (otherwise the banks would make themselves trillionaires), but the constraint is not the quantity of money. This creation of money through lending leads to inflation which further supports operating via debt as those who take out loans see the real value of the loans decrease. The banks just made up the money so there isn't a direct loser from the inflation other than everyone who has to deal with increased prices. You can think of it as a broad, regressive tax on the population to fund these firms doing far more than they should.
With an actual constrained money supply tied to real wealth in the economy, the PE firms would have to focus on the best deals which means the businesses that are truly dying and their role is to turn the nonproductive assets into something productive.
---
I asked ChatGPT to critique my answer (which is unaltered above) and it said to tone down the lending being propped up by inflation and instead emphasized the following:
>Inflation can help leveraged borrowers, but in PE the bigger structural advantages are: • Interest deductibility (a massive tax subsidy to debt) • Limited liability (upside captured, downside partially socialized) • Fee extraction independent of performance • Ability to load debt onto the acquired company, not the PE fund
I then asked it to answer the question without regards to my context and it basically said PE is different because of
> • short ownership horizons • high leverage • strong control • financial returns as the primary goal
Here is the link to the short conversation if interested: https://chatgpt.com/share/6963a0de-7a04-8012-8c36-afef5dd74f...
MarkusAllen
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hermanzegerman
We already know that Private Equity kills people in the hospitals [1] and nursing homes [2] for profit. So why do we continue to allow them to operate Healthcare facilities?
[1] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2813379
cogman10
Because we have governments anemic to running anything or regulating any business.
They are much more likely to continue shoveling cash into private businesses through subsidies then to want to setup and/or run the same business for a fraction of the cost.
throwaway2037
> Because we have governments anemic to running anything or regulating any business.
cogman10
Certainly. These are institutions that have mostly been created during the progressive era of the US. The EPA (I believe) is the latest of these organizations.
Since roughly Reagan, the US has been either fully dismantling, defunding, or privatizing these institutions.
We've seen the FAA start to rely too heavily on the likes of Boeing to set regulation standards. The FDA has relied heavily on fees from private institutions to function and it's weakening due to that improper mixing has resulted in the likes of the Vioxx scandal.
Medicare is a good example of this. Under Clinton, rather than expanding or reforming medicare he introduced a plan to allow private insurance companies to get government dollars (medicare part c).
immibis
Think the word that fits there is "allergic".
tjwebbnorfolk
The same one who just said PE isn't allowed to buy any more residential real estate?
I hope they go after hospitals next.
cogman10
> The same one who just said PE isn't allowed to buy any more residential real estate?
We'll see. That was just an EO. That doesn't really have the force of law behind it. There's not a regulatory body (AFAIK) that would or could prevent PE from gobbling up a home.
But if there's a route to stop it then I'm not opposed to it. PE buying essential goods and industries is bad for everyone.
wookmaster
He says about 500 things a week and rarely followed through. They have gone after anyone yet so I wouldn't be thinking about "next"
refulgentis
I’ve been hoping to meet one of the marks for the ol’ “tweet means he did it” thing in year 5. Hello!
sokoloff
NB: “single family homes” not “residential real estate”
andy99
Government is probably the worst actor to run healthcare facilities. It’s not that different from PE, except with more administrative bloat. I’d be curious to compare US PE run facilities with government run facilities in Canada.
There is not an easy answer here, it basically a cost centre that whoever runs it, the welfare state is incentivized to spend as little as possible on it. PE is almost certainly a bad solution. If they can destroy a restaurant or other low impact business, I hate to think what they’d do to businesses that care for people. You’d get the healthcare equivalent of Burger King. But with government you get the equivalent of the DMV.
zaptheimpaler
Canada's healthcare is generally cheaper per capita, pays healthcare workers less and has far lower administrative costs than the US. The US spends 5x the average of other wealthy countries on administrative costs [1]. This line that the government is automatically inefficient and terrible at anything at all is not true, is not set in stone and does not preclude private industry being even more greedy, stupid, amoral and inefficient than the government.
[1] https://www.pgpf.org/article/how-does-the-us-healthcare-syst...
cogman10
> I’d be curious to compare US PE run facilities with government run facilities in Canada.
You don't have to do that, we have US government ran facilities. It's the VA.
And if you look at the costs associated with the VA, they are much much cheaper than almost any private care [1].
And if you know a few vets, you know they almost universally love the VA. It's one of the best perks of serving in the military.
[1] https://www.herc.research.va.gov/include/page.asp?ID=inpatie...
wolvoleo
Huh the government is the ideal party to do that. Because it can set its goals to best serve its constituents instead of making money.
Don't forget there are so many countries with government healthcare and their care is a lot more accessible than the US's. I've lived in many countries and a nationalised healthcare system is one of the things I select for.
Even a poor country like Cuba has one of the highest numbers of doctors per capita. Unfortunately a bit hamstrung by the US's illegal and needless sanctions so they can't get proper equipment but I've been told healthcare is still pretty excellent there.
hermanzegerman
Government is probably the worst actor to run healthcare facilities
Are those your gut feelings, or do you have an argument to back it up?
In reality, the outcomes from Government operated hospitals in Scandinavian Countries do not need to hide behind those of other countries, especially not with the US
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullar...
messe
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p-e-w
Because between the 1970s and 1990s, Western nations decided that private operations should be the default for everything except where the law specifically requires state institutions, instead of the other way round.
In many countries, essential services like hospitals, drinking water supply, airport security, schools, even prisons are now partially or fully privatized. It seems insane when you think about it, but that’s what your grandparents voted for.
c22
How would this work the other way around? The state provides cheeseburgers and fidget spinners until someone writes a law requiring private industry to provide these things? Isn't there a sort of lack of freedom inherent in forcing people to get all their cheeseburgers from a single place?
jjk166
The other way around would be having public options except where explicitly forbidden. The existence of a public option does not forbid private options. For example the existence of the USPS does not forbid UPS or Fedex or Amazon from operating delivery services, which may be preferable for many customers. But the public option guarantees that a certain level of service is available to anyone and makes it impossible for any private entity to secure a monopoly. It also is very sensible in cases of natural monopoly (power plants, international airports, prisons, wastewater treatment centers) where there's never going to be any meaningful competition that the government should own and operate the monopoly.
nicoburns
Yes, but there's also a lack of freedom inherent in denying people healthcare and other public services because they can't afford them.
hackable_sand
Government is fundamental. Business is art.
hahahahhaah
I wonder if who owns it is a red herring, but routing out corruption and bad incentives is the key.
Government runs anything that regulation alone cant make safe.
immibis
yeah that probably isn't what they actually meant, obviously
Panzer04
Private is the default solution for all problems. The state only provides a service when the government takes action to do so, and usually this is on top of whatever existing private infrastructure there is.
This seems like a pretty weird perspective to have?
markdown
> It seems insane when you think about it, but that’s what your grandparents voted for.
Our grandparents wanted a nice hospital and that's what they voted for. The people they elected needed funds to build the hospital, so they sought funding. The IMF and World Bank said "sure, we'll help you fund it. But in order to do so, you need to privatize your healthcare industry."
Our grandparents got a nice hospital for a while, the politicians got another 4 years in power, and a few years later we noticed that our free healthcare was gone.
This, multiplied across the entire developing world.
messe
A mix of public and private can work with proper regulation (especially when combined with state owned private companies).
This article only refers to the US. This is the second time I've brought it up over the last week, but it'd be nice if the US and "the west" weren't constantly conflated.
Not all of us have fucked over their citizens and spiraled into borderline dictatorships that are well on their way to becoming international pariahs as much as the US have.
immibis
Everything suddenly makes a lot more sense once you realize the US is a developing country, one that happens to control the global money printer (due to a few accidents of history).
It's the only developing country that is also "first-world" or "western", and unfortunately, also the most powerful of those.
JumpCrisscross
> why do we continue to allow them to operate Healthcare facilities?
We don’t want to pay for them. When private equity is forced to sell, someone has to buy or the providers get shuttered.
On the other hand, we’re clearly willing to blow the money and deficit on stupid stuff. But only if it goes boom, apparently.
lukev
Who do you mean by "we", here?
The only possible entities who could buy a company are either a bigger company, or private equity.
That the leavings of a PE business are unattractive to either of them is not a surprise.
That has nothing to do with what society at large (a better definition of "we") actually wants or needs.
UqWBcuFx6NV4r
> The only possible entities who could buy a company are either a bigger company, or private equity.
The American mind virus at work.
My (non-US) state government literally purchased a private hospital late last year. Now it’s public.
Keep telling yourself that corporations are going to save you. Maybe it’ll happen eventually.
hermanzegerman
They could be owned by Physicians or by the Local Government. But the US has practically banned the first one
https://www.cms.gov/medicare/regulations-guidance/physician-...
JumpCrisscross
> Who do you mean by "we", here?
Voters, broadly and monolithically.
> only possible entities who could buy a company are either a bigger company, or private equity
Communities. Forcing PE to divest from healthcare would require setting up a lending facility communities can borrow from to buy back their healthcare infrastructure. (Or have the government just buy it outright.)
I guess you could make it work as a window-dressing bill. Force PE to divest. Leave unsaid that you’re letting billionaires and family offices buy it up to continue the same shit. But actually solving the problem means ponying up cash to buy this stuff back. Even if it’s out of bankruptcy. (I’m not even touching the politics of paying PE and its lenders with public money.)
SkyeCA
> We don’t want to pay for them.
Perhaps we should have kept taxing the rich the we did during WW2 and the few decades following it? No, clearly that would never work!
JumpCrisscross
> we should have kept taxing the rich the we did during WW2 and the few decades following it?
Genuine question: source for any of the rich having paid more in the 50s than they did in the 90s? My understanding is that while published rates were high, effective rates were roughly flat until the Bush and Trump tax cuts.
phkahler
>> > why do we continue to allow them to operate Healthcare facilities?
We don’t want to pay for them. When private equity is forced to sell, someone has to buy or the providers get shuttered.
Sell? The point is that PE should never have purchased these things in the first place.
JumpCrisscross
> The point is that PE should never have purchased these things in the first place
You can change the present. Not the past. Private equity owns these things. If you want them to not own it, you have to buy it back. Even if out of bankruptcy. Even if via eminent domain. Then you have to run it. All of that costs money.
nradov
You're missing the point. It's too late to unwind those transactions.
In theory state or federal governments could seize ownership of those healthcare provider organizations. But then legally the government would be forced to compensate the current owners at fair market value.
cyanydeez
Had a creepy interaction with Fraser. They absolutely did a marketing spiel and sounded nothing like a medical intervention.
When you review the findings on the standard behavioral intervention, autism, on average requires 2.5 years of 40hr/week.
Thats basically one persons job.
john-h-k
Your citation's statistics [1] actually says the exact opposite of your claim!
It shows a -0.2pp DECREASE in in-hospital mortality, with no significant change on 7 or 30 day mortality. The authors suggest this could be due to:
* selecting for healthier patients - the paper shows an average change of 0.1 years younger for patients. this is not significant!
* transferring out sicker patients - 30 day mortality would show this (it doesn't), and the transfer rate does not change meaningfully
So based on the evidence you have provided, private equity purchasing hospitals saves lives. Maybe that is wrong, but it is the conclusion of that evidence.
They also don't claim PE is killing people in the conclusion; did you read the paper?
hermanzegerman
The age difference was significant
They've had more bloodstream infections, surgical infections, and falls. Everything which traces back to staff cuts and lack of hygiene.
Also they dumped the complicated, and probably expensive cases to real hospitals In contrast, transfers to other acute care hospitals increased 12.2% at private equity hospitals compared with control hospitals
john-h-k
A 1 month average age difference is not medically significant.
They had more bloodstream infections yep. Surgical infections was NOT statistically significant. And again, mortality went down!!
The “dumping cases” thing is incredibly suspicious. So they’re so motivated by money that they … don’t keep patients who would spend a lot? On top of that, the 30 day mortality doesn’t show an increase, which is what you’d see if they dumped deaths onto other hospitals.
xnx
In all these critiques, "private equity" is a stand-in for "capitalism" in general.
MarkusAllen
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Hnrobert42
Private equity is into this. Into that. The problem is some folks just got too much damn money. They gotta put it somewhere.
burnt-resistor
That's it. And everything they touch turns to shit to feed their insatiable, sociopathic greed.
46493168
>“Private investors making a little bit of money while expanding access is not a bad thing, per se,” Singh said. “But we need to understand how much of a bad thing this is and how much of a good thing this is. This is a first step in that direction.”
Who gets to say what "a little bit of money" is here?
whydoineedthis
They started slapping my kids hands, forcibly shoving him back in his chair, and grabbing my kids face and torquing his neck. Jon Paul Saunders, a leader in ABA, swore up and down 'this is the best in ABA'. When I looked at the data, my kid had all but stopped screaming/crying with other RBT's, but was more than double the crying/screaming with the rbt's doing the slap, push, face yank teqnique.
At this point, my son had done 18 months of ABA and was being used to train new RBT's (high turnover field of course). The prescribed hitting was creating behavioral problems at home, but was being used to justify extensive hours of ABA.
I dont think a profit driven model is great for these kids.
packeted
If anyone wants to see how private equity has transformed the veterinary industry check out www.privateequityvet.org/vet-list - over 7000 practices mapped across the US so far. Our dog died at the hands of a recently acquired PE practice :(
dizlexic
Are you surprised? there's money to be made.
xvedejas
You are implying people should shut up about it because it's not novel information. I think "are you surprised?" is a very lame and unoriginal response I see everywhere and doesn't even care to engage with the problem. I think HN's rules suggest you should put in more effort than this.
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Services that PE has ruined in my city by rent-seeking:
I go out of my (sometimes significantly) to go to non-PE owned companies and services, and the experience is so much better it's like experiencing an entirely different quality of life. My 2¢ is that a decent chunk of the "dissolution of the social contract" in the US is due to the way that people are treated when they interact with these soulless entities.