(Roughly) Daily

Care is deteriorating even as prices rise. There are a number of reasons; Fred Shulte explores a new and growing category of culprit…

Private equity is rapidly moving to reshape health care in America, coming off a banner year in 2021, when the deep-pocketed firms plowed $206 billion into more than 1,400 health care acquisitions, according to industry tracker PitchBook.

Seeking quick returns, these investors are buying into eye care clinics, dental management chains, physician practices, hospices, pet care providers, and thousands of other companies that render medical care nearly from cradle to grave. Private equity-backed groups have even set up special “obstetric emergency departments” at some hospitals, which can charge expectant mothers hundreds of dollars extra for routine perinatal care.

As private equity extends its reach into health care, evidence is mounting that the penetration has led to higher prices and diminished quality of care, a KHN investigation has found. KHN found that companies owned or managed by private equity firms have agreed to pay fines of more than $500 million since 2014 to settle at least 34 lawsuits filed under the False Claims Act, a federal law that punishes false billing submissions to the federal government with fines. Most of the time, the private equity owners have avoided liability…

The terrifying details: “Sick Profit: Investigating Private Equity’s Stealthy Takeover of Health Care Across Cities and Specialties,” from @FredSchulte at @KHNews.

See also: “Private equity, health care, and profits: It’s time to protect patients,” “Private equity health-care monopolies are on a profitable killing spree,” and “Private equity deals drive up healthcare use, costs among physician practices, JAMA study finds” (this last, source of the image above).

* Walter Cronkite

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As we muse on mercenary medicine, we might send healing birthday greetings to James Collip; he was born on this date in 1892. A biochemist, he partnered with Frederick Banting and Charles Best to discover insulin in 1921. The co-inventors sold the insulin patent to the University of Toronto for a mere $1. They wanted everyone who needed their medication to be able to afford it.

Today, Banting and his colleagues would be spinning in their graves: Their drug, on many of the 30 million Americans with diabetes rely, has become the poster child for pharmaceutical price gouging.

The cost of the four most popular types of insulin has tripled over the past decade, and the out-of-pocket prescription costs patients now face have doubled. By 2016, the average price per month rose to $450 — and costs continue to rise, so much so that as many as one in four people with diabetes are now skimping on or skipping lifesaving doses…

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