U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren introduced legislation Tuesday morning aimed at warding off future cases of "corporate greed" in the health care landscape, like the kind that her office says led to Steward Health Care filing for bankruptcy.
Standing across the street from Steward's St. Elizabeth's Medical Center in Brighton, Warren outlined her "Corporate Crimes Against Health Care" bill that would establish new penalties and guardrails for health care executives who endanger patient safety and access to care -- including a new criminal penalty that could send executives to prison for up to six years.
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That punishment would be for those who "loot health care entities like nursing homes and hospitals, if that looting results in a patient’s death," according to Warren's office.
“Turning private equity and greed loose in our health care system kills people,” said Warren outside St. Elizabeth’s hospital in Brighton, a Steward location. “We need real accountability and we need it now.”
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The proposal could gain steam on Capitol Hill, Steward Health Care owns hospitals in multiple different states. Warren says she has already made calls to her colleagues to build momentum for the bill.
But the American Investment Council shares a different view. In a statement to NBC10 Boston, the group said that private equity in Massachusetts helps develop cures and improve access for patients, adding, “Senator Warren’s bill is a purely political attack – not a real solution that will help patients, providers and hospitals.”
Legislators, patients and health care workers are wrestling with the results of financial management of Steward under the helm of CEO Ralph de la Torre. Steward sold the land its Massachusetts hospitals sit on in 2016, a transaction that has since saddled the system with massive debt as executives struggled to keep up with payments to the landlord, Medical Properties Trust, and to vendors.
As for Steward Health Care, bids for the company’s various hospitals are due on June 24 with a sales hearing scheduled in Texas for July 11.
Warren's proposal would authorize state attorneys general to claw back all compensation to private equity executives within a 10-year period, spanning before or after an acquired health care provider "experiences serious, avoidable financial difficulties due to that looting," according to her office. The bill also lays out more reporting requirements for health care providers that receive federal funding.
