Press Releases

WASHINGTON, DC – Today, Congresswoman Lori Trahan (MA-03), a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Health Subcommittee, wrote to the Federal Tade Commission (FTC), U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) encouraging strong action to address the private equity model deployed by Steward Health Care that led to the company’s bankruptcy and jeopardized the company’s hospitals in Massachusetts.

“As PE investments continue to rise in the healthcare industry, there has been an increase in bad actors using the healthcare system to make a quick profit at the expense of our hospital systems. These predatory private equity companies have placed stakeholder profits squarely above the communities they are supposed to serve,” Congresswoman Trahan wrote. “I commend the Administration’s focus on ensuring our healthcare systems are protected from these profit-focused firms and their anti-competitive business models. I urge you to increase transparency and accountability for predatory private equity firm purchases of healthcare systems which place profits above the health and wellbeing of communities across the U.S.”

In the letter, Trahan notes that private equity firms have invested more than $1 trillion to acquire healthcare facilities over the past decade, and in that time, data shows a significant increase in patient falls, infections, and other conditions while they were in those facilities. In Massachusetts, the private equity model deployed by Cerberus and Steward has led to hospital closures, lifesaving equipment being repossessed, and widespread concern about the future of hospitals, particularly those serving lower-income communities.

“Community hospitals, already overburdened by a post-Covid ecosystem, are having to bear the brunt of Cerberus and Steward’s careless actions. The communities in my district and communities across the United States have been directly impacted by anti-competitive private equity models,” Congresswoman Trahan continued. “Cerberus and Steward used the hospital systems my constituents rely on to make a quick dollar and have been without consequences for their ruthless and unethical practices.”

The letter sent today is in response to the cross-department inquiry launched by the FTC, DOJ, and HHS into the impact of private equity and corporate greed in health care. In April, Trahan secured a commitment from HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra, the nation’s top health official, to work with Massachusetts leaders as they continue responding to the Steward crisis. Immediately after, she led members of the Massachusetts Congressional Delegation in writing to the leaders of Steward and UnitedHealth Group, the largest for-profit healthcare company in the United States, expressing concerns about the proposed sale of Steward’s physician group, Stewardship Health, to UnitedHealth-owned Optum Health. Also in April, the Delegation wrote to the DOJ and FTC requesting that they scrutinize the proposed sale of Steward’s physician group to Optum.

In February, Trahan led the introduction of bipartisan legislation to direct additional federal funding to local, nonprofit safety net hospitals that would be directly impacted by the closure of Steward facilities in Massachusetts.

A copy of the letter sent today can be accessed HERE.

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