Open Thread - Thurs 15 May 2025 - Hospitals as Well?
Hospitals As Well?
Apparently private equity is starting to take over hospitals. As this article, 'Private Equity and Hospitals: Have They Finally Gone Too Far?', on Racket News says when talking about how people would have reacted in the old days -
I would hazard to guess that if some speculator came in who wanted to buy the hospital, leverage it up to the hilt, squeeze every last nickel out of it by skimping on supplies, cancel vital services and risk running it into the ground, well, that speculator would have been run out of town on a rail.
Private Equity! From an old lecture called 'Introduction to Private Equity'
Sounds about right to me. But, those days in the past when communities owned and controlled community resources are gone, and private equity is doing just what's described above as it gobbles up hospitals now. After all, gotta make money from health care, right? It's the 'Merican Way'!
Matt Stoller wrote about private equity in several pieces dating 6 or more years ago. I read them then, and still go over them from time to time now, just to remind myself of what private equity is and how damned evil it is. The first piece is called 'Why Private Equity Should Not Exist'. The second piece is 'Is There Anything that Private Equity Doesn't Own?' I'd say 'No, there is nothing private equity doesn't own, including hospitals!' and that's basically what Stoller says in his article. BTW, Big, Matt Stoller's newsletter, has another, more recent article by Basel Musharbash about the recent fires in LA and how, ummhmmm, the disaster was worsened as a result of over 1/2 of the LA fire department vehicles being out of service when the fires happened, because of private equity!
Is there anything good about private equity? I mean, it's probably good for some investors, and maybe little people like me can get a share, but has private equity done anything good for the public? Are some hospitals better because of private equity? Some fire departments? Some... anything?
Another Thing:
I started to pay a bit more attention to the news about teens doing violent things and, at least locally, those numbers are up. The teens with the guns, oftentimes stolen, modified guns, don't think anything will happen to them when they are caught. And they are right, there are little to no consequences. They get released back out into the public and get back to doing what they were doing, because they have to be arrested five times, with five different guns, before a judge can hold them. That is NUTS!
Ohh and locally again, yet another teen has stabbed someone at school. So, yep, it seems like teenage violence is increasing (teen points a stolen glock 19 at another student at school), although these types of things have happened in the past as well.
Ok, this thread is open! What's up, whatcha doing? Reading? Thinking? Remember, everything is interesting if you dive deep enough, so tell us about where you're diving!
Comments
Happy Thursday Everyone!
Hope it's a great day for y'all. We have cloudy skies, might even get some rain. That would be good, we are low on rainfall this month, very low. Kinda weird for a temperate rain forest area.
Whatcha doing today? How's it going? Whatcha learning and reading?
If you're poor now, my friend, then you'll stay poor.
These days, only the rich get given more. -- Martial book 5:81, c. AD 100 or so
Nothing ever changes -- Sima, c. AD 2020 or so
Senator Rick Scott
wikipedia
He was governor for quite a while. When term limits blocked running again, he ran for the Senate. He fits right in. I'm pretty sure his company acquired public hospitals as part of their business.
Scott's nickname is "skeletor." With a net worth over 200 million in 2020 he was described as the wealthiest member of Congress. I don't know if this includes his wife's fortune. How does he keep getting elected?
語必忠信 行必正直
dont miss this bad example.
dont miss this bad example. Two 16 year olds stalked and murdered a kid at a mickey D's on the "good side" of town.
https://abc30.com/post/2-teens-charged-murder-shooting-killed-caleb-quic...
Private equity firms simply indulge in rentierism, they
serve no useful function whatsoever. What they do is also a form of speculation in that they keep bidding up the prices of the businesses which they target, thereby exerting an "inflationary" pressure on prices all across the board.
Slight warming trend here. Meanwhile, the Z man is still whining about shit because some parts of the world do not revolve around him and his dictatorship.
History - This is the anniversary of "Bloody Thursday", May 15, 1969, During a demonstration and march over the enclosure of "People's Park" in Berkeley, CA; police and affiliated "law enforcement" warriors opened fire on the protesters, wounding many and killing James Rector.
(This should not be confused with the other "bloody Thursday", July 5, 1934, when, during the West Coast waterfront strike, police in San Francisco fatally shot two striking longshoremen)
On that cheerful note
be well and have a good one
edit - typos, punctuation
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
In the last three years,
my health insurance company has paid out ~$180k (after discounts, graft, and corruption) to the hospitals I was stuck in before, during, and after surgeries. The initial billings totaled nearly $700k.
I would hate to be one of the people without an insurance plan that had the magic recipe to get the "discounted" "negotiated" rates. Those people are seriously screwed.
I've always been amazed that the hospitals haven't simply been bought up by the insurance companies, to cut out the middle man. Let them kite their own numbers privately to themselves. There's no problem with monopolies in this country any more- there hasn't been any meaningful antitrust activity since they broke up Ma Bell. And in the current political climate, I don't see any on the horizon.
The concept of multitiered healthcare pricing is an obscenity, intended entirely to rape the unwary and/or unfortunate.
Twice bitten, permanently shy.
Good morning, sima!
A local hospital temporarily closed due to a funding issue.
It didn't used to be this way.
Meanwhile, what follows is a PSA:
If you are a middle aged divorcee who decides you want custody of your pre-teen son, avoid the following activities: Do not show your son porn. Do not get arrested twice for violent crimes during the pending litigation. Do not post videos in social media of yourself sitting on the sofa next to your naked underage gf drinking booze and smoking pot. Engaging in any or all of the above activities makes it too damn easy for your ex-wife to keep custody of said son. Moreover, you just might get sentenced to life in prison, stupid son of a bitch!
I hope this PSA is helpful, dear friends.
Thanks for the OT, chica!
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Reminds me of this classic Chris Rock “PSA”:
https://rumble.com/vfoc7p-chris-rock-explains-how-to-not-get-your-ass-ki...
Boy that’s a melancholy tune
It could be a prelude to a dark and stormy night.
The message echoes from Gaza back to the US. “Starving people is fine.”
The kid has already learned the sekret of modern music -
dance around and shake your bootie while holding an instrument.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
An obvious frame-up job if there ever was one. Shame on the ICAO
https://johnhelmer.net/the-us-has-pushed-the-international-civil-aviatio...
And:
That time when the U.S. awarded Mafia mobster boss Meyer Lansky the Medal of Freedom:
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20220614-mobster-s-wwii-medal-of-f...
Hmm! Where have heard this line before???
As much as I dislike
many of the posters and most of the commenters at Zerohedge, I go there often- because there are some things that are of value.
And then, every once in a great while, they have one with which I can agree wholeheartedly.
I hope (against hope!) that this one leaves a mark...
https://archive.ph/Du6bP
Twice bitten, permanently shy.
Same here regarding Zerohedge.
Her knows about that which she doth speak.
I go to various winger sites, seldom read comments, just go for the news and substance, typically disregard the opinion.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981