Two major health care bills, addressing hospital regulations and prescription drug pricing, are set to be voted on by the Massachusetts Senate. The bills aim to increase oversight of private equity investments in healthcare and provide financial relief for patients taking chronic medications.
The Senate plans to take up two health care bills - one concerning regulations for hospitals and another concerning drug reform s - on Monday. State health care regulators may soon gain heightened oversight and enforcement authority over private equity investors, as lawmakers look to avert another crisis like the Steward Health Care situation.
Bay Staters taking prescription drugs for chronic conditions like diabetes are also poised to see financial relief, under a pair of major late-session agreements that emerged from closed-door talks on Friday evening. The two health care bills – the last breakthroughs of the session – were held up in tangled negotiations for four months as House and Senate negotiators tried to swap policies between a hospital oversight bill with deep roots in the House and prescription drug legislation that the Senate has been pressing for years. The Senate plans to take up the bills on Monday, according to the branch's agenda. The House accepted the hospital oversight bill within minutes of gaveling in on Monday. The two-year legislative session must end on Tuesday, with a new Legislature being sworn in on Wednesday. The health care oversight agreement (H 5159) imposes steeper penalties for hospitals that fail to comply with reporting requirements, mandates that lessors notify the state 60 days before repossessing medical equipment, and blocks the state from issuing or maintaining a license for hospitals whose main campuses are leased from a real estate investment trust. Those provisions are largely inspired by the Steward crisis. The agreement also requires private equity investors, real estate investment trusts and management services organizations to comply with financial reporting requirements to the Center for Health Information and Analysis. Fines for failing to submit data on time would soar from $1,000 to $25,000 a week – without a cap
HEALTHCARE LEGISLATION HOSPITAL REGULATION DRUG REFORM PRIVATE EQUITY
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