Pennsylvania lawmakers plan to introduce legislation that would place a moratorium on private equity and other for-profit firms from buying hospitals in the state, following closures and cutbacks that curtailed care in parts of suburban Philadelphia, Bloomberg reports.
The package of bills would also prohibit owners from taking out dividends within two years of an acquisition and limit a type of financing known as sale-leaseback transactions on hospitals’ real estate. The legislation was floated at the end of the session last year but didn’t progress. A separate bill introduced this year, meanwhile, would make it more difficult to close hospitals.
The legislation, which is similar to efforts to curb corporate ownership and closures in a handful of states like Rhode Island and Illinois, comes after cutbacks at private equity-owned Crozer Health and its closure of two Pennsylvania facilities: Springfield Hospital early last year in a move it called temporary, and Delaware County Memorial in November amidst a court battle over its future. Read more.
