Profits Over Patients? Private Equity Firms Increasingly Going Into Health Care

The number of Americans headed to emergency rooms is on the rise, with one 2017 study finding these visits cost Americans over 76 billion dollars every year. An NBC News investigation found that private equity firms are investing with the goal of increasing profits, according to critics, sometimes at the expense of patients.

Connect with NBC News Online!

#NBCNews #EquityFirms #Healthcare

[e.g.]

America doesn’t have healthcare, it has a health business. This is beyond shameful.

[erinh]

The healthcare professionals I know are consistently saying this will endanger their patients.

[buddymax]

Private equity firms are another word for corporate raiders of the 20th century, PURE GREED

[jansonshine]

While the business person inside of me drools at the prospect of investment in these medical corporations they are destroying our quality of life, in every way. It's far deeper and more serious than most folks realize. It is essential we join the rest of the free world in embracing Improved, Expanded Medicare For Everyone! Cult talking point: "How will we pay for it?" We are already being scammed and suckered into paying almost 300% MORE than the second most expensive healthcare system on our planet- already!

[jmtruesdale]

Thank you NBC, Thank you Dr.Brovant, Chief Medical board Dr. McMurray for being the Doctor/ Patient advocate🌹

[elizabethedwards]

Healthcare in the US is a joke. It should be in the top 10 in the world, but it is down at 40. Sad. Many of the young doctors are inadequately trained. For over 70 years, quality has declined.

[roopinderpalsinghrandhawa]

ER is super over priced in the country. Amazing method to milk the healthcare system.

[psychicpajamas]

😡😡😡😡😡 no more profits over human health!

[amocan]

I work in the field. I had an md tell me that his hospital fired half the md and put mor nurses in charge. HOSPICE is out of control down here in south FL if you go into the hospital and you are over a certain age they push Hospos over rehab. 🤷🏼‍♂️ it cost (Medicare) over $5000 a month in most cases a nurse wil come out one or two times a month to fill your pill box that would not cost more than maybe couple hundred dollars why can they charge 5000??? No wonder they get the hard sell in the hospital probably getting kickbacks. Oh ya Rick Scott is known around here for robing Medicare! Crooks the whole bunch of them!

[alesia]

the entire country puts profits over citizens.

[debbiemcconkey]

Private equity firms have been buying up houses and driving prices up beyond what private people can afford. Real estate and mortgage companies are pleased as it means more profit for them in the short term. However long term I believe it is going to lead to a similar problem to the 2008 real estate crash. The private equity firms are looking for a safer place to invest than the stock market, but removing houses from the market is unsustainable, raising prices artificially because of perceived shortages, and creating real shortages by putting houses which could be sold in the rental market. This is a recipe for disaster. Investors beware.

[sarayusarayu]

If I ever have to go to the ER, just let me die because this is a joke 💀

[benjiebenjamin]

I was left to die in an ER in the DFW, TX area, early '90s after I crawled in, literally on my belly, couldn't speak, was having a near fatal reaction to a procedure from another hospital earlier that day....I survived only because a neighbor came up to check on me in the nick of time. She also saw stats taken then as she threatened to call the law & stood guard until they helped me as she told them what was medically done to me previously. The paperwork they mailed me were lies on the stats, & it stated "no insurance", as if I was in fine health. They assumed I had no insurance, I did BUT that shouldn't of mattered, eh?.
I wonder to this day how many have died @ that hospital & how many other medical facilities, as the dead can't tell. Hospitals can say what they want & who is going to know the difference? How many hospitals do that?

[JLine]

This is probably the reason why they listed me as an outpatient with a broken neck and rushed me out of there within 2 days despite the pain I was in and the danger I was in.

[FireoftheRedSun]

They have also helped engineer the closing of rural hospitals across the country.

[bwj]

Envision came to my hospital and all of the Hospitalists left. The contracts were insulting to the hospitalists in that they would pay them less and cutt their staffing. We now have physicians barely out of school that think they know everything but in actuality don't have a clue!

[hubbs]

It's almost impossible to find decent healthcare anywhere in this country. Medicare For All would save $450 billion and 68, 000 lives annually.

[jonnygarland]

🤔Why speak to your law makers don't you know hospitals really are paying off lawmakers everyday only in America

[ardenmcconnell]

This isn't new. This is exactly why we need universal health care and Obama care. Work with Naturepaths. When my first baby was born, the Hospital bill, for 2 weeks, was $68.00 and the Dr. was $50.00. Now it's thousands.

[janetblack]

Between medical insurance companies and private equity firms receiving true healthcare is a crap shoot.