When a company calls patients "customers" that's a giant red flag right there..

Corporate greed is ruining everything

Corporate greed needs to be checked. They are coming for homeownership, healthcare, our very basic existence

Sad part is people see the huge bill and think the DOCTOR is making too much, when in actuality the private equity billionaire on their yacht is real the reason why your $8,000 bill was sent to collections.

remember when you were a kid and you thought hospitals, ERs and ambulances were public services, not privately run corporations? good times...

Private Equity also is taking over elderly homes, and elderly people are dying earlier as a result.

One nurse put it this way...."Corporations disguised as Hospitals"....

“…for people who are in trouble, or scared or dying…to come into that space and say ‘How can we make money here?’, that seems unholy”. It IS unholy. That comment was PERFECT to sum up the entire situation.

The fact that hospitals have CEOs is a fucking sickening concept

I lost my mom to corporate healthcare greed. She had a heart attack, they stabilized her and kicked her to the curb. She died the next morning from a very violent and horrific heart attack. It was not the way anyone’s mom should go. I will forever be an advocate for Medicare for all.

It’s not just the ER. If you’ve been a patient in a hospital in the last 20 years you know that care is horrendous.

As a veterinarian, I can tell you this is happening to our industry as well.

Everything that is wrong with America…

We are living inside a corporation and it’s getting ugly. My health care should not be decided by a corporation pandering to their shareholders. We need to shift the paradigm……. Let us use this platform to change ideas on how we can get our sovereignty back

My dad was a doctor, he worked in emergency. He wanted more than anything that I would become a doctor. After he saw the direction of the medical field in general, he was happy i didn’t become a doctor.

The hospital I went to was sold. Including the Cardio Group. I went in 3 times for chest pains and hard time breathing. On a Monday I went in for a full workup that lasted a minute. Tuesday I was told the numbers looked good and go home and stay hydrated. I was lucky a visiting Dr was walking by and heard me say I was NOT ok. He came in listened to my heart and asked me to come back in at 5:30am 13hrs later. Wednesday, he did an angiogram. Within minutes he asked me when the last time I got this checked. Told him I was fighting them for 2 years. He did a quadruple bypass Thursday. I was lucky he was from 100 miles away and not with this hospital.

Greed is strangling every industry with no end in sight.

Rich people ruin everything for everyone 😢

I’m a doctor too. Corporate greed has already killed primary care. What could go wrong when private equity companies run health care?

All hospitals and emergency rooms should be non-profit by law. Just like in MA all health insurance companies are non-profit.

I’m a 60 year old ER doctor and I can’t wait until I can retire. Corporate medicine has stripped 90% of the joy from medicine. I never minded the long hours and unrealistic patient expectations, threats of lawsuits, drunks and body fluids and stress and panic and all the other tough issues that are inherent in emergency medicine, I mind the administration short-staffing the ER and whole hospital for the sake of corporate profit. Tide and Fords and hand lotion are fine in the free market, health care is not.

Don't forget that these groups are replacing Physicians with cheaper nurse practitioners and physician assistants while charging patients the same amount. Sure it had disastrous results, but at least the CEO can buy a second yacht!

I'm not a doctor, but I had dinner with a retired senior doc a while back and he told me that much of the fun, artistry, and autonomy has been stripped away in favor of a crawling bureaucracy of corporate greed and CYA. He seemed sad to have seen his profession run into the ground. It sounds as if he's not alone.

Treated only as a number! I was a ER Nurse for over 10 years and I saw the negative impact working for a corporation (HCA) that only cares about the all mighty $$$, not the patient!

I am 60 and I just started to visit the medical field due to some potential signs of declining health. I can easily say that the system is set up for the corporation and not set up to be any help to the human being. I can’t call my physicians or specialists directly…… it goes through a call center. These doctors are no longer owner operators. There is no room for personal care any longer.

Corporate greed is ruining everything in the United States.

Thank you to all healthcare workers who are brave enough to speak out about these issues. God bless you all!

I’m a Paramedic. Spot on. Also not mentioned, is that these health systems have purchased all of the private practices, ended admitting privileges for primary care physicians and replaced them with hospitalists. The physicians are now just employees. When you call your doctor with a question you are told you need to go to the emergency room. Most of these folks now just call an ambulance thinking they will get in sooner. They don’t, they go in a wheelchair for 15 hours…days..or weeks. This has placed untold stress and expenses onto EMS and the Emergency Departments. The ED has become the funnel where everyone gets dumped and the ED physician must sort it out. Horrible, horrible system.

I got slapped with a $3000 bill for an emergency room visit. My previous jobs refused to provide insurance. And I was denied Medicaid. Now the bill went to collections. And the icing on the cake is: People keep nagging about job shortages in Minimum Wage fields. (While keeping you out of better jobs). I never thought modern America would be this crazy and heartless.

Private Equity just needs to be made illegal. It would solve so many problems…

The most unemergent place I have ever been is my local ER. 8 hours to be told they need to refer me out. Then the specialist is 10 to 12 months out. What a joke.

Corporate greed has ruined the concept of even existing honestly.

I am a Nurse Practitioner Student almost done with my education-- I worked in hospitals from housekeeping to registered nurse and over the 7 years I worked at the same hospital I watched the changes take place as the hospital was acquired. For the next 7 years I worked in psych and homecare and realized that no matter how desperate the needs of the population, there is someone trying to make a profit off of that suffering and need. We need to stop it, medical care is a human right, not a privilege and no other developed nation allows this behavior. Let's fight this at every opportunity we can!

The ER, the floor, the icu, the OR, pcu, picu, nursing homes, home health, hospice.... not to mention the MD clinics. If you put the bean counters in charge then counting beans becomes the goal.

big thanks to the ER Doctors speaking up!!! As a student nurse, I respect doctors and all healthcare staff. WE ARE A TEAM. OUR OBJECTIVE AT THE END OF THE DAY IS TO EFFICIENTLY CARE FOR HUMANS.

Patients in our regional medical center's ED can wait up to 16 hours to get a room after being admitted. They don't wait in rooms, either. They wait on a gurney in the ED hallway. This is NOT about prioritizing patient care. It's about hitting dollar targets.

This is a jungle, not a country. How is profiting off of people's health allowed? Why? This is just sick.

Stories like this consistently convince me we need a Civil Service Corps which would include services like ERs, and EMTs, Mental health, etc. and get investors out of medicine.

Corporations call patients customers as if the people in pain had a choice. When is this country going to pass legislation that protects the citizens from the greed these predators soak themselves in?

I remember when HCA took over our teaching hospital/Level I trauma center. I was a social worker. We worker long hours and took call without pay. One day we were admonished fir coming to work five minutes late and told the amount of money that cost. It never occurred to them to look at what time we left. I was there until after 6:00 most nights and sometimes until 8:00. I spent Christmas Eve in the ER trying to place an abandoned foster child. We had 24/7 coverage and there wasn’t anything we weren’t asked to go. Now the Social Work Department is no longer there. The few social workers that remain are supervised by case managers who know NOTHING about social work. But the suits thought it was cost effective. The patients suffer. They don’t care.

Everything PE touches immediately starts failing.

As a non American, it blows my mind that anyone would privatise a health system. This is an essential service, should be free to all and run efficiently not for profit.

Tired of being literally robbed by rich companies for trying to get my basic healthcare needs.

This is why I do my best to support private practices … obviously that’s not really possible with hospitals. How sad. All my friends or family in health care have always talked about this. Corporate greed really is ruining everything

Imagine if companies would make money out of making people healthy, making safe and nutritious food, helping those in need, rather than taking advantage of the needy, making unsafe and unhealthy food, and making patients sicker.

my wife was a travel nurse at mission hospital.. up until about 8 months ago.. they were trying to give her a 30% pay cut she told em to pound sand.. i was so proud lol.. they are also still loosing staff at an alarming rate.. she also worked at Presbyterian in 2022 for 9 months.. and was complain about the same issues.. again that facility is hemorrhaging staff.. drs nurese and all health care workers deserve good pay.. they work extreamly hard at great cost to themselves.. but p.e. middle man are fucking shit up.. it isnt just hospitals either..

not so much in Canada (Ontario). insurance run by Provincial government with assist from the Feds. a great service overall for seniors like me. also meds assisted after $100. wake up USA.

Imagine the once called greatest country in the world doesn’t have a national health care system.. what a disgrace

We're supposed to be afraid of socialized medicine, but what we have is truly a nightmare and shows how greed creates disfunction and neglect everywhere it gets its way. Excuse me, not greed. Greedy people. Greedy people who have gotten what they want because people don't like politics and have no idea how politics creates this.

When healing is for profit there is no incentive to heal!!! For corporations out of our healthcare!!

This, heart breakingly, is why I no longer work in the medical field. I genuinely care for people however that doesn't meet the bottom line anymore and I couldn't, in good consciousness, continue under those circumstances. I don't think I will EVER understand that level of greed EVER!

Corp greed is sending us to the ER. Our primary physician fail at their oath too.

Healthcare needs to be separate from corporate profits.

Just remember, doctors take a hypocratic oath, not accounting. Meaning, it's somehow unethical if your doctor denies you treatment but not unethical if a bureaucrat steps between you while your doctor stands on the other side shrugging.

I work in a hospital full time. The environment has become toxic for the entire system. Patient care, medical staff, administrative, it's all horrible.

This needs to stop. Disgusted by corporate greed.

AMERICA! Stop these corporations. Stop private equity now. 😮

Three thoughts from a former ER doc: First: private equity firms are like the vultures who circle the dying animal waiting to extract their meal, before disgarding the picked-clean bones. This would not be happening if ERs were in healthy financial situations. Most ERs have been financially crippled over the years by the unfunded government mandate called EMTALA, which mandates care be provided to anyone and everyone who presents to an ER regardless of ability to pay, and public and private insurers doing everything possible to not pay the bills of those whom they insure. Second: it’s not only the private equity firms who are the bad guys. At least PE is upfront and honest about their financial motivations. How about the “not-for-profit” health systems which knowingly contract with these PE funded/owned contract management groups to run their ERs in order NOT to pay smaller, local physician groups who would require a “subsidy” in order to ethically run a crucial but low-profit department?? These not-for-profit health systems are NOT innocent here. The not-for-profits in question which contract with the PE vultures include nominally religious systems as well as academic institutions (some with prominent university affiliated names). Bottomline: the nation’s safety net (ER) is on fire, and the entire house of (healthcare) cards is on the brink of falling. We need to build a new healthcare system from the bottom up. Neither political party has the backbone to say the difficult truths and get it done right: they just want to get re-elected so all we will get is more bandaid fixes with never-ending unintended consequences

Private equity is why, as an ER nurse for 45 years, I quit nursing forever.

Yep, as an NP I was switched to seeing double the patients in a day with no support staff. I was responsible for testing, blood draws, insurance and charting in addition to assessing and treating the patient. It is insanity. Oh also inventory, receiving supplies and checking equipment.

Much as I hate Canadian winters, I am constantly reminded why I moved here. I feel so bad for Americans.

Thank you for covering this! I’m an ER doc and private equity and these big corporate groups are absolutely RUINING the ER and hospitals in general. Constantly being asked to do more with less! More people than ever are coming to the ER but we have less nurses, less beds…it is horrible.

EVERYONE should watch this video. Our healthcare system is slowly crumbling before our eyes and private equity is one of the primary driving forces. Excellent review of a complex issue!

I am a nurse and have worked all over the country and even for presbyterian. I can tell you for a fact though even the nonprofit hospitals are acting like for-profit organizations the absolute biggest offender i have seen in my entire career is advent health holy crap i dont understand how these hospitals can get away with the crap that they do i almost left nursing after working an assignment for them. There needs to be federal legislation against the crap they are pulling. also we need federal nurse to patients ratios because these hospitals intentionally understaffed to save money and that does cost pts their lives

For profit healthcare should be out lawed it's not a business we need it's as hospitals

I went to the ER two days ago. A private, not for profit hospital. I was out of the waiting room and being cared for in 10 minutes. That's the way it should be.

I worked at a hospital that HCA acquired from a struggling hospital system. They ran it until the wheels fell off. The MRI machine never worked in the two years I was there.

Profit should have nothing to do with medicine and healing. What a complete condemnation of this system.

Pretty much a universal statement that everyone can agree upon is Fuck private equity companies

Corporate greed is killing all of America.

I quit medicine two months ago because of corporations running hospitals.

Alot of people here in Canada complain about our healthcare. Whenever i hear that i point to stuff like this, how wanting that is a horrible idea.

Private equity is the worst.

I love how she’s proud to be a Republican. This is what republicans support. End for profit healthcare and enact single payer

I appreciate the research that went into this video, and the doctors who came forward to talk about this.

Some years ago I saw a video about some physicians who had set up a practice where they didn't take insurance. It was a kind of subscription that people paid which seemed very affordable and there was a list of the usual things that people seek out medical care for that was covered. It worked economically because they didn't have to hire a large staff whose job was to do nothing but deal with insurance. I always wondered how it is working out.

How can these investors sleep at night preying on the most desperate?

In Canada, ER's are facing the same problem. But our health system is public. So.....what's the actual problem?

Corporate Welfare has to STOP. Walmart Amazon etc YES GREED IS BAD.

Hospitals and ER are not supposed to be a profit making investment.

they won't stop until they own EVERYTHING, including all of us

Can’t tell you how many times ER Nurses and doctors saved my life…. THANK YOU 🙏🏻

I absolutely love the er and the chaoticness of a busy medsurge unit ❤️

Hospitals shouldn't be for profit. Imagine having kids. And then going into debt. Just so they can learn to read and write.

Twenty two hours in the hospital with the total diagnosis of two minor cuts on the forehead. Bill: $113,000!

I went to an ER recently due to an emergency. I was there 4-5 hours, and had to have a CT scan. The doctor never examined me, but just told me the results of the test. He was your typical unsympathetic doctor, very sarcastic and rude. Later I got a bill for $27,000.00. I'm not kidding.

1:03 "... and I think that really is at odds with the goals of a corporation." I mean, when you get right down to it, any human need is at odds with the goals of a corporation.

When capitalism becomes the most important thing... when patients become Wall Street commodities. Why is mass media not covering this problem? Afraid to lose sponsors?

Between corporate greed and large insurance companies denying coverage for needed medical care, I now carry a notice right with my state ID. I HEREBY REFUSE ANY AND ALL MEDICAL INTERVENTION UNLESS I AM ACTIVELY DIEING!!! I HAVE A LEGAL DNR!!! Thanks big business for making it no longer worth while to bother even trying to stay alive in America!!! I live in St.Clair Co. just sixty miles north of Detroit. Both hospitals in the area are for profit hospitals. I’m already on disability and was severely injured on the job. (I use to be a first responder and they took my insurance and retirement due to budget cuts, leaving me with SSDI alone.) I LITERALLY CANNOT AFFORD TO SAVE MY OWN LIFE ANYMORE IN AMERICA!!!

I work for a medical device manufacturer and the profit motive by a gargantuan corporation thinks outsourcing everything to Mexico and India to cut on labor costs will not harm patient safety despite several recalls on our devices already in place due to poor manufacturing processes with our vendors and overseas workers.

Just ran up 20,000 in medical bills. So much for having a saving account. I’ll be slipping out of the middle class which is exactly what they want. Rich, poor, nothing in between. Dark consciousness is behind it, like most of our public institutions

Some things should not have a profit motive. Hospitals, schools, and prisons are 3 of them.

UGH I hated TeahHealth. I left that physician group in 2021. So glad I did.

“Well if you don’t like that ER don’t go there or don’t live there” You know, those people.

Opposing the commodification of healthcare is self defense.

people who dont care about getting rich are superior life forms in every profound way.

I work in EMS, finishing my undergrad in a year and applying for Medical School in a couple months. We have a hospital system where I run EMS and this exact thing happened. They bought out all the Hospitals in the 75 mile radius. All the urgent cares and they built a medical school. Longer wait times, massive bills and patient suffering. I initially wanted to do emergency medicine and I found myself gasping for air trying to find the passion I had prior. Seeing patients deteriorating that I had brought into the ED 2hrs prior.

@More Perfect Union I LOVE the short format of these videos! You produce targeted important topics without tons of fluff to extend them. Keep producing and we will keep watching ⚕️

A private equity firm bought the local hospital a few years ago. They closed it down last year. Now, the closest hospital is an hour away.

So often, i hear people who oppose public healthcare act like it is an imposition on the healthcare practitioners, but what they dont understand is that this is a field that people get into because the overwhelming majority of them want to help people, and public health systems give them more ability to do that for more people.