Thursday, August 13, 2020

Getting to Know Kamala Harris

The saga started in 2014 when for-profit Prime Healthcare Services made an $843 million bid for six insolvent hospitals operated by the Catholic Daughters of Charity Health System.

The Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West, which represented 2,000 hospital workers at Daughters, opposed Prime's takeover because the company refused to sign a neutrality agreement that would let them organize all of Prime's hospitals.

California's Attorney General must approve nonprofit hospital acquisitions, and Ms. Harris attached dozens of poison pills to the deal.

According to the lawsuit, Daughters' executives had told Prime that Ms. Harris would block the sale "Or require financially crippling approval conditions" if Prime did not reach an agreement with the union.

Later in 2015 Ms. Harris approved the Daughters' hospital sale to the BlueMountain Capital hedge fund for $260 million including $160 million in debt.

While imposing similar conditions on BlueMountain as on Prime, Ms. Harris allowed the hedge fund to operate the hospitals as tax-exempt nonprofits for several years.

A bankruptcy judge recently said the SEIU had rejected Prime's proposals "Without good cause." The judge said the hospital "Would not continue to operate as a going concern, and all of the [union] represented employees would lose their jobs" unless the labor agreements were renegotiated.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/getting-to-know-kamala-harris-11597273754 

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