The head of the nation’s top consumer protection agency swung through Baraboo, WI (population 12,600) last week to attend a town hall-style meeting where residents aimed to pressure state regulators into blocking a proposed sale of the county nursing home.
If the goal was to get bureaucrats’’ attention, the Thursday attendance of Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan and her anti-consolidation comments most likely did the trick.
Residents have said they are opposed to the sale of the government-owned Sauk County Health Care Center to the for-profit Aria Healthcare. The Sauk County Board of Supervisors approved the sale last month, but the Wisconsin Department of Health Services still must sign off on the deal
“The concerns that you’ve raised about what you worry will happen if this sale goes through is very salient for us,” Khan said to the crowd, as reported by Wisconsin Public Radio. “We’ve been watching with some alarm as more and more mergers and consolidation mean that fewer and fewer players are coming to control important parts of the healthcare system.”
Khan’s comments are in line with Biden administration rhetoric on nursing homes, which has targeted for-profit owners and private equity investors, in particular. Under Biden, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has ramped up its ownership reporting requirements and made information about operators and owners more visible on its consumer website.
Attacking for-profit providers has led to more public interest in nursing home transactions. States also have become more proactive about intervening in sales to companies or individuals with known business failures elsewhere.
But the FTC has rarely, if ever, intervened in limited nursing home transactions, going after bigger fish such as mergers of healthcare systems or anticompetitive behaviors among pharmaceutical companies.
It was unclear Monday why Khan chose to attend the Wisconsin meeting or how she became involved in it. Representatives in the FTC press office did not return voicemails or emails Monday from McKnight’s Long-Term Care News seeking comment on the visits or any related policy stance.
The state told WPR it had yet to receive an application for purchase of the Sauk facility.
In an indirectly related note, the health department recently intervened in another case, stopping — at least temporarily — the sale of three unrelated nursing homes.
Rick Abrams, president and CEO of the Wisconsin Health Care Association, said he hoped regulators would keep political leanings against for-profit operators out of any decisions regarding the Sauk County facility’s future.
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A prospective facility buyer’s tax status is irrelevant,” Abrams told McKnight’s.
“Here’s what is relevant: Is the buyer committed to the community? Is the buyer committed to providing the highest quality of care to the facility’s residents? Is the buyer committed to the facility’s staff who are truly the healthcare heroes of our time? Does the buyer have the operational and financial resources necessary to address the challenges the prompted the seller to have to sell the facility?” Abrams asked. “If the answer to all of these questions is yes, that’s a good thing, not a bad thing.”
