Since last week, when I sent you the note below about private equity, I’ve introduced a new bill focused on targeting the corporate greed and private equity abuse in our health care system.

It’s called the Corporate Crimes Against Health Care Act.

And it’s badly needed because — I’ll just come right out and say it — turning private equity loose in our health care system kills people. Lax corporate accountability and transparency laws have allowed executives to plunder hospitals, nursing homes, provider practices, and other health care entities with impunity, and patients pay the price.

My bill would hold private equity executives accountable for ransacking the health care sector. Here are three pieces of what it would do:

• Create a new criminal penalty of up to 6 years in prison for executives who loot health care entities like nursing homes and hospitals, if that looting results in a patient’s death.
• Provide state attorneys general and the Department of Justice with the power to claw back all compensation, including salaries, issued to private equity and portfolio company executives within a 10-year period before or after an acquired health care firm experiences serious, avoidable financial difficulties due to that looting.
• Authorize an associated civil penalty of up to 5 times the clawback amount.

I’m rolling out this bill alongside my friend and colleague Senator Ed Markey. I’d love to know if you’re also on board. We’ll need to work hard, together, to overcome the private equity industry’s lobbyists and get this passed.

If you’re ready to become a grassroots co-sponsor of the Corporate Crimes Against Health Care Act, please add your name here.

This issue hits home in Massachusetts, where private equity greed and mismanagement recently drove Steward Health Care — which operates eight of our Commonwealth’s hospitals — into bankruptcy.

My new bill would prevent what happened to Steward from ever happening again, and it would finally hold private equity executives accountable for wreaking havoc on our health care system.

This is a matter of life or death, and I’m fighting with everything I’ve got to get this done. Add your name if you’re with me, and let’s work to pass my Corporate Crimes Against Health Care Act.

Thanks for being a part of this,

Elizabeth

--- Forwarded message ---
From: Elizabeth Warren
Date: Saturday, June 7
Subject: The truth about Red Lobster 

Don’t blame it on the endless shrimp.

Recently, Red Lobster declared bankruptcy, and even though it’s no laughing matter, the jokes practically wrote themselves — how could a company that offers endless shrimp NOT run out of money?

But if you look right beneath the surface, you’ll see Red Lobster’s real downfall wasn’t endless shrimp — it was private equity’s endless greed.

You see, a private equity firm bought Red Lobster in 2014, and did their thing: Looted profits, loaded Red Lobster up with debt, and saddled the restaurant chain with extra real-estate costs — following a model that reaps rewards for private equity owners but leaves communities, workers, and customers holding the bag.

Now, even though Red Lobster is a recent example of this blood-sucking phenomenon, private equity’s harmful effects go far, far beyond the restaurant industry — from retail stores to nursing homes to fisheries to manufactured housing communities to hospital systems (including Steward Health Care in Massachusetts).

Private equity should not be allowed to loot one business after another, and I have introduced the most comprehensive bill to overhaul the private equity industry.

My Stop Wall Street Looting Act would put private investment fund managers on the hook for the companies they control, end looting, empower workers and investors, and safeguard the markets from risky corporate debt.

But it’ll be an uphill battle to overcome the powerful interests who want to preserve a status quo that means big profits for them — even as stores get closed, consumers get cheated, workers get laid off, and pensions get raided.

Say you’re in this fight to stop private equity from ransacking our economy, and sign on as a grassroots co-sponsor of my Stop Wall Street Looting Act.

Here are a few big pieces of what my Stop Wall Street Looting Act would accomplish:

• Fundamentally reform the industry by closing the legal, tax, and regulatory loopholes that allow private equity firms to capture all the rewards of their investments while insulating themselves from risk.
• Require private investment firms, the firm’s general partners, and their insiders to share responsibility for the liabilities of companies under their control — including debt, legal judgments and pension-related obligations — to better align the incentives of private equity firms and the companies they own.
• Ban dividends to investors and the outsourcing of jobs for two years after a firm is acquired — ending the extraction of resources from acquired companies.
• Prevent private equity firms from walking away when a company fails and protect workers by improving rules so workers are more likely to receive severance and pensions in a bankruptcy.
• Require private equity managers to disclose fees, returns, and other information about their funds so that investors can monitor their investments and shop around.
• Reinstate Dodd-Frank provisions that require regulators to address risky leverage.

Big private equity firms have fat profits on the line here, so they’ll do everything they can to block our reforms. That means we can win only if we link arms, raise our voices together, and fight from the heart.

Add your name here to say you support my Stop Wall Street Looting Act, and side by side, we’ll tackle the private equity industry’s abuses.

Thanks for being a part of this,

Elizabeth