Private equity is killing us

American hospitals are under siege. The Trump administration just announced an increase from $1500 to $100,000 per year for H-1B visas that are used by foreign-trained physicians. The recently passed GOP budget dramatically cuts Medicaid funding, cuts that will drive the closure of many rural and community hospitals that are on the edge of insolvency. 

Now, a recent study shows that hospitals owned by private equity have reduced ED staffing and salaries and increased ED deaths:

 

“The study, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine on Tuesday, looked at Medicare data from 2009 to 2019 at 49 private equity hospitals, comparing them with 293 hospitals that had not been acquired by PE. After acquisition, private equity hospitals reduced emergency department salary spending by 18.2 percent, and ICU salary spending by 15.9 percent, likely due to a combination of reducing staff and filling roles with less expensive (often meaning less experienced) labor. Notably, these staffing and salary drops were not because there were fewer patients in the hospital.

 

“As staffing decreased, there were an additional seven deaths per 10,000 visits after PE acquisition compared to control hospitals. At hospitals that had not been acquired by a PE firm, deaths in the emergency department declined over time.”

To paraphrase St. Ronnie, the nine scariest words in the English language are “I’m from private equity and I’m here to help.”

 

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/09/23/business/private-equity-hospitals/

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