Massachusetts Senate approved bill intended to strengthen health care system

BOSTON (AP) — The Massachusetts Senate approved a bill Thursday aimed in part at addressing some of the issues raised after Steward Health Care said it plans to sell off all its hospitals after announcing in May that it filed for bankruptcy protection.

Democratic Sen. Cindy Friedman, Senate chair of the Joint Committee on Health Care Financing, said the bill is meant to address the state’s struggling health care system, which she said is putting patients and providers at risk.

“Most concerning of all is that we have lost the patient and their needs as the primary focus of the health care system,” she said. “The recent events concerning Steward Health system have exacerbated a preexisting crisis across all aspects of the system. They may not have been the cause, but they certainly are the poster child.”

Friedman said the bill significantly updates and strengthens the state’s tools to safeguard the health care system by focusing on the major players in the health care market — including providers, insurers, pharmaceutical manufacturers and for-profit investment firms — to ensure that patient needs come first.

The bill would expand the authority of state agencies charged with measuring and containing health care costs and strengthen the health care market review process with the goal of stabilizing the system.

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The bill would also limit the amount of debt a provider or provider organization in which a private equity firm has a financial interest can take on; update programs aimed at constraining health care costs and improving care quality; and require that for-profit health care companies submit additional information on corporate structure, financials and portfolio companies to the state’s Health Policy Commission.

The commission is an independent state agency designed to advance a more transparent, accountable and equitable health care system through data-driven policy recommendations, according to state officials.

The House has already approved their version of the bill. Both chambers will now have to come up with a single compromise bill to send to Gov. Maura Healey.

The debate comes as questions loom about the future of hospitals owned by Steward Health Care.

The Dallas-based company, which operates more than 30 hospitals nationwide, has said it plans to sell off all its hospitals after announcing in May that it filed for bankruptcy protection. The company said it does not expect any interruptions in its hospitals’ day-to-day operations throughout the Chapter 11 process.

Steward has eight hospitals in Massachusetts including St. Elizabeth’s Hospital and Carney Hospital, both in Boston.

Also Thursday, U.S. Sens. Edward Markey and Bernie Sanders said the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions plans to vote next week to subpoena Steward CEO Dr. Ralph de la Torre.

In a written statement, Markey and Sanders pointed to what they described as “a dysfunctional and cruel health care system that is designed not to make patients well, but to make executives extraordinarily wealthy.”

“There could not be a clearer example of that than private equity vultures on Wall Street making a fortune by taking over hospitals, stripping their assets, and lining their own pockets,” they said, adding, “Working with private equity forces, Dr. de la Torre became obscenely wealthy by loading up hospitals from Massachusetts to Arizona with billions in debt and sold the land underneath these hospitals to real estate executives who charge unsustainably high rent.”

A spokesperson for Steward Health Care did not immediately respond to a request for comment.