It was not my plan to publish another post on this topic for some time, but you'll soon see why I felt compelled to.
As I was writing my recent piece about the potential financial slide of a private-equity-owned health care system, I never, ever, ever considered that part of the workout of such a system might be to sue an insurance company in another state for a terminated buy-out deal of another hospital.
And yet here it is. Here are excerpts from Robert Weisman's report in the Boston Globe (not The Onion):
Steward Health Care System, which terminated an agreement to buy a Woonsocket, R.I., hospital last fall, charged in a lawsuit Wednesday that Rhode Island’s largest health insurance company blocked the deal by failing to negotiate reasonable health care payments.
In a complaint filed in state Superior Court in Providence, Steward, which runs a chain of hospitals and doctors groups across Eastern Massachusetts, alleged Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island engaged in anticompetitive practices and interfered with prospective contractual relations to thwart Boston-based Steward’s proposed acquisition of Landmark Medical Center.
Steward, owned by the New York private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management, demanded a trial by jury and asked for Blue Cross & Blue Shield to pay unspecified financial damages as well as reimburse its attorneys’ fees involved in taking the court action.
The collapse of Steward’s deal to take over Landmark marked a setback in the health care chain’s efforts to build a national for-profit hospital and physician network.
But while it has negotiated with financially troubled hospitals in Florida and Maine, in addition to Landmark, it has yet to complete an out-of-state deal.
As I was writing my recent piece about the potential financial slide of a private-equity-owned health care system, I never, ever, ever considered that part of the workout of such a system might be to sue an insurance company in another state for a terminated buy-out deal of another hospital.
And yet here it is. Here are excerpts from Robert Weisman's report in the Boston Globe (not The Onion):
Steward Health Care System, which terminated an agreement to buy a Woonsocket, R.I., hospital last fall, charged in a lawsuit Wednesday that Rhode Island’s largest health insurance company blocked the deal by failing to negotiate reasonable health care payments.
In a complaint filed in state Superior Court in Providence, Steward, which runs a chain of hospitals and doctors groups across Eastern Massachusetts, alleged Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island engaged in anticompetitive practices and interfered with prospective contractual relations to thwart Boston-based Steward’s proposed acquisition of Landmark Medical Center.
Steward, owned by the New York private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management, demanded a trial by jury and asked for Blue Cross & Blue Shield to pay unspecified financial damages as well as reimburse its attorneys’ fees involved in taking the court action.
The collapse of Steward’s deal to take over Landmark marked a setback in the health care chain’s efforts to build a national for-profit hospital and physician network.
But while it has negotiated with financially troubled hospitals in Florida and Maine, in addition to Landmark, it has yet to complete an out-of-state deal.