Private equity snaps up disability services, challenging regulators

Healthcare, especially the patient-facing part, isn’t like other services.

If we want private ownership of this infrastructure it has to look more like either a utility, where the state has a direct say in service changes and pricing, or a partnership, where unlimited liability flows through to the owners. I’m a fan of the latter.

Limited liability was an amazing invention. But it’s not appropriate for healthcare. Turn these services into partnerships and you’ll see the give-a-shit factor quintuple overnight. (You’ll also probably see a reduction in leverage.)

That would have to come with some liability reform however. Injury lawyers are another cancer on society along with many practices of Private Equity.

When you take care of sick or disabled people, bad outcomes, even death, can come along with that. Nobody in their right mind is going to form a health care partnership with unlimited personal exposure to liability unless that is strictly limited to actual losses in cases of proven negligence.

This is the hard part imo. Thinking about the argument for a government run single payer system, someone is still having to make a calculation on appropriate treatment. It’s what happens at the NHS, perhaps a single payer can do it more efficiently and no I am not defending the American system but I do think there are a lot of hard to answer questions.

The American government hasn’t had a good track record for solving difficult problems in my life time.