Burns: House moves to strengthen AG role in sales of hospitals
Approves bill that could stop what happened to Conemaugh Health System
Rep. Frank Burns June 17, 2025
EBENSBURG, June 17 – After sharing fallout from the 2014 Conemaugh Health System sale with many of his colleagues, state Rep. Frank Burns is pleased the House voted 121-82 to give the state attorney general a stronger oversight role in health system sales to private equity firms.
Burns, D-Cambria, said the strong bipartisan support for H.B. 1460 may keep other rural areas from suffering the same type of for-profit slicing and dicing of health care displayed at Conemaugh Hospital under control of Apollo Global Management, the nation’s second-largest private equity fund.
“Private equity firms have one goal – maximize short-term profits for the investors at the expense of long-term stability – which makes hospital patients and employees mere afterthoughts,” Burns said. “Their playbook is always the same: Buy a struggling health care provider, load up debt, cut staff and services to keep the hospital profitable, and then cash out and walk away before the bills come due.
“Heath care should be about helping people, not boosting profits. Our health care should not be determined by some Wall Street brokers in New York – and giving the Pennsylvania attorney general more power to stop these damaging transactions makes total sense.”
_____________________________________________________________________
“Private equity firms have one goal – maximize short-term profits for the investors at the expense of long-term stability – which makes hospital patients and employees mere afterthoughts.” – State Rep. Frank Burns.
____________________________________________________________________________
Burns said H.B. 1460 seeks to prohibit for-profit and investor-owned health care entities from entering into sales or mergers that are “against public interest” without approval from the attorney general.
Apollo Global Management is the parent company of Lifepoint Health, part of the for-profit Duke/Lifepoint partnership that purchased Conemaugh Health System 11 years ago.
Burns said the ownership change never lived up to rosy predictions, instead becoming fraught with employee layoffs, staff shortages and patients waiting too long to receive emergency room care.
“Conemaugh Hospital/Apollo has also sold the health system buildings and properties to Medical Properties Trust in a purchase/lease back deal, which makes money via rent payments for shareholders of Apollo while putting Conemaugh Hospital in debt,” Burns said. “Make no mistake that all these things are done to cut costs and maximize profits, while patient care and staff morale suffer.”
Burns said the U.S. Senate has documented these debilitating practices through its own investigation of private equity firms, with Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse concluding, “As our investigation revealed, these financial entities are putting their own profits over patients, leading to health and safety violations, chronic understaffing and hospital closures.”
Burns noted that while it may be too late to prevent those afflictions from impacting Conemaugh Hospital – as the long-term negative impacts were not sufficiently documented at the time of its 2014 sale – strengthening the attorney general’s oversight hand should prevent other rural areas from suffering the same health care fate.