09.12.2024 / Press Release

Families USA Leads Call for Congress to Rein in the Health Care Industry’s Unchecked Consolidation and Corporate Greed

As big health care CEO refuses to testify, organizations representing families and workers call on Congress to take action to protect access to health care

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Families USA and 50 organizations sent a letter today to the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee calling for greater action to address the health care industry’s unchecked consolidation. The letter comes on the day of the HELP Committee’s hearing, “Examining the Bankruptcy of Steward Health Care: How Management Decisions Have Impacted Patient Care.” The Committee is moving forward with today’s hearing after Steward Health CEO Ralph de la Torre announced he would violate his subpoena and refuse to testify.

Representing families, workers, employers, and health care consumers, the organizations are calling for the committee to advance solutions that will protect access to health care and address the abusive price gouging and other anti-competitive tactics big health care corporations are using at the expense of people’s health and financial security.

Steward Health announced earlier this year that it would close two of its Massachusetts hospitals, Carney Hospital in Dorchester and Nashoba Valley Medical Center in Ayer —leaving thousands of patients without access to care and thousands of its workers without a job. To underscore the magnitude of the problem, Families USA connected with Mary Ann Rockett, an emergency department nurse who recently lost her job at Carney Hospital. Her story is available here.

“This hearing could not come at a more critical time. America’s health care consumers, workers, and employers are suffering the effects of a health care affordability and quality crisis that is driven by unchecked industry consolidation and the excessive corporatization of care. This is happening in large part because our current system rewards building local monopolies and price gouging instead of rewarding success in promoting the health, well-being and financial security of the community. Increasingly consolidated hospitals and large hospital systems are ratcheting up profits by setting inflated prices that have little to do with the actual cost or quality of the care they offer,” wrote the organizations in their letter. “The Senate HELP Committee has a key role to play in both uncovering concerning health industry behavior through bipartisan oversight and hearings such as this one, and in addressing those behaviors through legislation. We urge the Committee, along with your colleagues on other relevant Senate committees, to consider well-vetted, bipartisan, and commonsense legislation that would remedy some of these obvious health system failings, and to take on rising health industry consolidation among hospitals and other health care organizations that harms families and communities.”