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The Asheville Citizen Times is reporting today that Attorney General Josh Stein filed a brief supporting the cities and counties suing HCA Mission Health for antitrust violations. The brief urges the judge presiding over the case to deny HCAs request to dismiss the case.

The case is one of two class action lawsuits filed against HCA in Western North Carolina alleging antitrust violations. Originally filed by the City of Brevard, it has since been joined by Buncome and Madison counties and the City of Asheville. The other lawsuit was filed by area residents in North Carolina business court. 

Source: https://www.citizen-times.com/story/news/local/2022/11/14/nc-attorney-general-supports-plaintiffs-in-western-nc-lawsuit-vs-hca/69640928007/

HCA has a monopoly on key health care services in Western North Carolina – and their own data proves it. That’s according to a revised complaint filed by attorneys for the plaintiffs in an antitrust lawsuit filed in state court last year. 

HCA has denied that its Mission Health subsidiary has a monopoly, but in June 2022, the hospital behemoth submitted an application to expand its number of hospital beds in Asheville that calls this assertion into question. Citing an inpatient market at or above 88% in that application, HCA admitted a larger market share than the 70-80% lower courts have defined as a monopoly, prompting the plaintiffs to submit the revised complaint.

The Asheville Citizen times has a report (link below) on the revised filing, including citing concerns raised in the complaint about the role North Carolina’s now repealed COPA law played in the creation of the HCA/Mission monopoly.

“Neither Mission nor HCA acquired monopoly power by outcompeting rivals on price and quality as our antitrust laws envision,” the complaint states. “Instead, Mission became a monopoly solely by virtue of a merger that would have been unlawful under the antitrust law but that was shielded from suit by the protection the COPA gave from antitrust scrutiny.”

Source: https://www.citizen-times.com/story/news/local/2022/11/08/mission-health-asheville-nc-updated-hca-monopoly-argument-uses-data-against-it/69626746007/

Nurses, community members, and patients have called on Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry to intervene in the sale of three HCA Healthcare-owned hospitals in the New Orleans area to LCMC. If this acquisition goes through, only two hospital companies would be operating in New Orleans: LCMC and Ochsner health.

Highly concentrated health care markets often result in higher costs and cuts to care over time, but HCA and LCMC have baked immediate cuts into the deal –  announcing plans to eliminate almost all inpatient services at Tulane Medical Center–a well-utilized hospital serving low-income patients. 

HCA has a long history of divesting from communities where they are unable to become the dominant health care provider. In 2021, HCA sold all of its hospitals in the greater Atlanta area to Piedmont Healthcare, cementing the not-for-profit health system as a regional powerhouse. 

Join nurses and community members in the fight to save Tulane Medical Center.

Source: https://www.nola.com/news/business/article_c00deac0-56dc-11ed-b245-63b22e25173a.html

Nurses at Austin’s Ascension Seton Medical Center overwhelmingly voted to join National Nurses United, becoming the largest unionized hospital in Texas. Nurses overcame Ascension’s anti-union campaign, voting 385 to 151 to unionize.

Ascension Healthcare is the largest Catholic hospital system in the country, operating more than 100 hospitals across 13 states. The nonprofit giant raked in $5.7 billion in net income in 2021, yet Seton nurses reported chronic staffing shortages and high turnover – issues exacerbated by restrictions on the nurses’ own ability to get appropriate medications under the company’s health plans.

While publicly touting their ethical guidelines to “respect our nurses’ right to organize”, behind the scenes the company engaged in an intense campaign to stop the nurses’ efforts including one-on-one confrontations, threats of retaliation, and high-pressure captive audience meetings that pulled nurses away from their patients in spite of ongoing short staffing.

Hospital care in Austin is dominated by two companies – Ascension, and HCA. When there are few options available for other jobs due to high concentration, nurses often must choose between staying at the bedside under poor conditions, or leaving the city, hospital care, or the profession altogether. Ascension Seton nurses are leading the way, however, on a different path. By forming a union, the Seton nurses are showing that they have the power to stand up to the hospital corporation and demand the vital improvements that patients need.

Source: https://www.texasobserver.org/austin-nurses-win-largest-hospital-union-in-texas/