Health Over Wealth Act

Key Points

• The bill would require for-profit companies and private equity firms that own hospitals and clinics to publicly report detailed data on their debts, the fees they collect, staffing levels, and closures. Firms owned by private equity face 38 categories of disclosure covering the past 10 years.
• To prevent owners from draining money out of facilities, the HHS Secretary could require private equity backed firms to keep an escrow account with enough money to cover at least 5 years of operating and capital costs, including paying staff and helping nearby providers if a facility closes.
• Hospitals in Medicare would have to give at least 90 days notice before closing or stopping important services, submit a mitigation plan, and go through a public comment and review process to protect community access to care.
• Private equity firms would need a federal license to invest in or buy health care businesses. The Secretary could deny or revoke licenses for price gouging, understaffing, or access barriers, and force revoked firms to divest their health care investments.
• If a health care business goes bankrupt, the bill moves worker pension withdrawal liability to first priority in the payout order, ahead of most other creditors, to better protect health workers retirement money.
• The bill limits use of real estate investment trusts (REITs) in health care and ends favorable REIT tax treatment of rents from health care property, targeting sale-leaseback deals that can weaken a facility financially.