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August 4, 2025
Connecticut’s Attorney General William Tong is suing the Trump administration for withholding funds from education, Planned Parenthood and disaster relief. He is also suing this adminstration for restricting health care to transgender youth. Whether these cases have merit remains to be seen.
But there is one group that Mr. Tong has so far given a pass: the venture capitalists who ravaged Connecticut hospitals while enriching themselves with hundreds of millions of dollars.
Attorney General William Tong
First some background. Prospect Medical Holding is a private equity group that purchases hospitals “with a core mission to provide quality, compassionate, and accessible healthcare.”
In actuality, their goal is to buy hospitals, suck out the equity and pay investors and company executives gargantuan sums of money.
How did this happen? In 2010, a venture capital group, Leonard Green and Partners, bought a 60% stake in Prospect Medical Holdings for $363,000,000 and assumed their $158,000,000 debt. They then went on a rampage, buying hospitals across the country. In Connecticut, they purchased Manchester Memorial Hospital and Rockville Hospital for $105,000,000 and Waterbury Hospital for an undisclosed amount.
These hospitals owned the land on which they were housed. But Prospect Medical Holding sold this land along with the land of other hospitals across the country for $1.4 billion to a REIT (Real Estate Investment Trust) called Medical Properties Trust (MPT). Thus, the hospitals now had a huge expense they did not have before, monthly rent. Meanwhile, Leonard Green and Partners used Prospect Medical Holdings as the conduit to receive the money for these land purchases along with the cash flow from the hospital to borrow $1.1 billion. They paid off previous debts and then the executives of these companies took obscene salaries.
The Prospect Medical Holding CEO Sam Lee took home $128,000,000! Leonard Green and Partners, the majority owner of Prospect Medical Holdings, received $658 million [ [link removed] ]in dividends and management fees during its ownership of the hospital chain. While there are no public disclosures on how much the executives of Leonard Green and Partners pocketed, there are two managing partners, Jonothan Sokoloff and John G. Danhakl. Sokoloff’s net worth [ [link removed] ] is estimated to be $150 million and Danhakl is worth a cool $1.7 billion. [ [link removed] ]It’s safe to say these two each put at least $100,000,000 in their pockets.
Meanwhile, the once-thriving 102-bed Rockland Hospital that served the working-class Vernon community now only offers an emergency room, one-day surgical service and behavioral health services. And at Manchester Memorial doctors have not been paid, nurses are short-staffed and working like dogs while Prospect Medical Holding stopped funding their pensions.
And what happened when the staff tried to receive their compensation, if you said Prospect Medical Holdings declared bankruptcy [ [link removed] ], go to the head of the class!
So now what happens to these hospitals? Either some other conglomerate buys them, or they must close. Yale attempted [ [link removed] ] to do so but no agreement could be reached. Prospect Medical Holdings’ bankruptcy caused two hospitals in the Philadelphia area to close and then patients had to pay $75 to get access to their records.
And it gets worse. For example, Waterbury Hospital owes the Town of Waterbury $29,000,000 in back taxes. But with Prospect Medical Holdings in bankruptcy, the taxpayers will get the bill.
And to add insult to injury, the bankruptcy judge approved an incentive program for six top executives, including undisclosed salary boosts, aimed at retaining key personnel during the hospital-sale process. Thus, the same people who raped the hospitals will generate huge fees by trying to sell the hospitals they destroyed. You can’t make this up.
Mr. Tong simply cannot allow this without a fight. Leonard Green and Partners must be sued along with Sokoloff, Danhakl and Lee personally – preferably in the Waterbury Courthouse.
State governments are often reluctant to take on corporate America because these corporations have extensive political connections and access to brilliant lawyers. But Tong graduated from Phillips Academy, Brown University (with honors) and the University of Chicago Law School. Even if one does not agree with his politics, he must be a sharp guy. He can figure out how to make a strong case while showcasing the malfeasance of these executives.
And even if Tong does not win, he will become a hero to many voters outside of the Democratic bailiwick. This destruction of community hospitals by avaricious venture capitalists who game the system cannot go unchallenged.
Contact Dr. Bentivegna at [email protected] [ mailto:[email protected] ]
Follow Dr. Bentivegna on Twitter(X) @joebentivegnamd
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