Patient care experiences worsened after private equity firms took over hospitals, according to a difference-in-differences analysis.
From 2008 to 2019, the percentage of patients rating hospitals a 9 or 10 (on a scale of 0-10) was unchanged at 73 hospitals acquired by private equity firms (65% before the acquisition and 65.2% after), while it rose at matched control hospitals that weren’t acquired (66.2% to 69.2%), according to Rishi Wadhera, MD, MPP, MPhil, of Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, and colleagues.
That amounted to a difference-in-differences estimate of -2.4 percentage points (95% CI -3.9 to -0.9), they reported in JAMAopens in a new tab or window.
Furthermore, the percentage of patients who would definitely recommend the hospital declined at those acquired by private equity (66.9% to 65.5%), while it increased at control hospitals (68.2% to 69.3%), for a differential change of -2.1 percentage points (95% CI -3.6 to -0.7).
Wadhera noted that the difference in overall measures of patient care experience between hospitals acquired by private equity and control hospitals grew each subsequent year […]
The perfect example of corporate takeover of a government-run program is the penal system. So many states have allowed their prisons to be run by corporations whose only concern is making money! Look at the death rate in prisons now—-it has risen tremendously because patients are not getting proper medical care. The food is such low quality and often leads to riots. More solitary confinement is used that actually causes a lot of mental illness. Even prisoners can only stand so much abuse!
The Federal Government, however, is slowly (under Biden) taking back private Federal prisons from these corporations because they see the ineptitude and poor service that prisoners are getting.
It’s time the Federal Government stepped in and worked to change what is going on state-wise with their prisons. It’s inhuman, it’s cruel, it’s counterintuitive that prisoners could be rehabilitated under those conditions. We need only to look at Scandinavian penal institutions to see how often prisoners do not commit crimes again and become productive members of society.
This is the United States. We certainly can do the same, considering how much conservatives bring up their religion and yet act less godly than most others who are religious as well. America has to change if we want better outcomes in all categories that we have allowed to become owned by corporations whose only concern is their bottom line.