Media coverage highlights state momentum to rein in PE in healthcare
December 4, 2025
As states across the country confront the growing risks of private equity ownership in hospitals, nursing homes, and physician practices, PESP’s 2025 State Healthcare Policy Review: Tracking Private Equity Oversight and Reform and online legislation tracker have helped contextualize a significant year of reform. Recent media coverage underscores how lawmakers, reporters, and advocates are paying closer attention to the financial structures shaping healthcare access, quality, and stability.
Below is a roundup of three recent stories that featured PESP’s analysis and highlighted the importance of transparency, oversight, and accountability in healthcare ownership.
Stateline : New state laws target private equity’s growing role in healthcare
Read the full story:https://stateline.org/2025/11/21/new-state-laws-tackle-private-equitys-growing-role-in-health-care/
In Stateline, reporter Shalina Chatlani examined the surge of legislative proposals aimed at better monitoring and regulating private equity acquisitions in healthcare. The story noted that at least seven states passed laws in 2025 strengthening oversight of investor-backed transactions, expanding reporting requirements, and giving attorneys general new investigative authority.
Michael Fenne, Senior Policy Researcher at PESP, emphasized the role of states in filling a federal oversight gap, telling Stateline:
“There’s not really federal law that targets private equity acquisitions in the same way [as laws] that states have been passing recently.”
Fenne’s comments helped frame why state-level action has accelerated. With little federal regulation governing private equity consolidation, states are increasingly stepping in to require disclosure of ownership, assess market impacts, and protect access to care.
Skilled Care Journal : States race to rein in private equity in nursing homes
Read the full story:https://skilledcarejournal.com/states-race-to-rein-in-private-equity-in-nursing-homes-setting-up-a-2025-showdown/
Skilled Care Journal reported on the rapid rise of state proposals focused specifically on private equity’s footprint in nursing homes. The outlet highlighted PESP’s release of its legislative tracker, which identified 25 bills across 18 states related to nursing home oversight.
The article detailed concerns about investor-driven staffing cuts, quality declines, and debt-laden acquisition models, noting that state efforts could shape national policy even as federal action remains limited.
While this story featured extensive industry and advocacy perspectives, it relied heavily on the scope and structure of PESP’s tracker to frame the landscape. The tracker’s visibility into the volume and variety of bills introduced this year helped illustrate why legislators view private equity as a key factor in nursing home instability.
McKnight’s Long-Term Care News : States reach a ‘turning point’ on private equity in healthcare
Read the full story:https://www.mcknights.com/news/private-equity/
In McKnight’s Long-Term Care News, reporter Kathleen Steele Gaivin highlighted PESP’s finding that 2025 represents a “turning point” in state policy responses to private equity’s influence on healthcare delivery. Coverage emphasized the breadth of reforms passed this year, including:
- Increased ownership transparency
- New approval and enforcement authority
- Prohibitions on certain financial practices
- Strengthened corporate practice of medicine safeguards
McKnight’s featured several statements from Michael Fenne that summarized the national significance of these developments:
“From Massachusetts to Oregon, states are moving to close the gaps that have allowed private equity to reshape healthcare with little scrutiny.”
“Lawmakers are beginning to connect opaque ownership structures and profit extraction to real-world impacts on patients, workers, and their communities.”
“States are developing the oversight frameworks needed to bring accountability, transparency, and continuous access to the healthcare system.”
These insights helped contextualize the legislative momentum as part of a broader, bipartisan push to ensure financial strategies do not compromise patient care.
About the Report and the Online Legislation Tracker
PESP’s 2025 State Healthcare Policy Review and the accompanying online tracker provide a detailed, comprehensive look at how states are responding to the risks posed by investor-driven ownership models.
What the report shows
Drawing from dozens of bills introduced or enacted in 2025, the report identifies four major areas of reform:
- Transparency and reporting requirements that illuminate complex ownership structures
- Approval and enforcement authority allowing regulators to condition or block high-risk transactions
- Targeted prohibitions such as limits on sale-leasebacks and debt-funded dividends
- Corporate practice of medicine enforcement to protect clinical independence
These reforms reflect a national shift toward greater accountability as states attempt to prevent the kinds of instability seen in recent bankruptcies and closures, including Prospect Medical Holdings, Genesis HealthCare, and Weiss Memorial Hospital.
Why the tracker matters
The legislation tracker provides a state-by-state overview of bills introduced, passed, or failed. It helps policymakers, journalists, and community stakeholders:
- Monitor real-time legislative developments
- Identify patterns and emerging policy trends
- Understand how other states are approaching similar oversight challenges
- Access concrete examples of transparency, enforcement, and accountability frameworks
Together, the report and tracker offer one of the clearest available pictures of how states are confronting the financialization of healthcare and developing tools to protect patients, workers, and communities.
