UnitedHealth’s Optum to buy Steward physician group

Senator Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts, chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Subcommittee on Primary Health and Retirement Security, released a on news that UnitedHealth’s Optum Financial is seeking to purchase the physician group of Steward Health Care: “Steward Health Care-which operates nine health care facilities across Massachusetts-is currently facing significant financial insecurity as a result of previously accumulated debt. Steward Health Care was previously owned by Cerberus Capital Management, a private equity company that generated $800M in profit from Steward. After Steward recklessly took on massive debt that is continuing to that put hospitals in Massachusetts and across the country into financial crisis, the Massachusetts health care system must move away from Steward’s financial insecurity. With this announcement, Optum must demonstrate that it can meet the even greater responsibility to preserve and protect health care access in the Commonwealth, and I hope they will live up to that responsibility by controlling costs and putting patients and providers first. But a health care system that focuses more on profit motive than patient outcomes needs reform. That is why I am holding a congressional hearing in Boston and have invited Steward CEO Dr. Ralph de la Torre to testify and explain Steward’s position. For-profit companies that elect to participate in the health care system must understand that their decisions have direct impacts on communities, and they must and will be held accountable.”