In the House Energy and Commerce Oversight Subcommittee on Thursday, concerns related to the Carlyle-ManorCare buyout took center stage.

“For example last winter, the Carlyle Group, one of the world’s largest private equity buyout firms, completed a $6.6 billion leveraged buyout of HCR Manor Care, the nation’s largest nursing home care provider,” testified Tom DeBruin, former nursing home caregiver and President of SEIU Healthcare Pennsylvania. “Common sense suggests that there is reason to be worried about cost-cutting pressure at a company that has just taken on up to $5.5 billion in new debt.”

The hearing examined growing problems with nursing home transparency and accountability, particularly in this climate of private equity buyouts and chain consolidation. Representatives stressed the need for more readily available public information about ownership, operation, and quality in nursing homes.

“Our regulatory system — mired in the past when nursing homes were owned by small companies — is inadequate to address the problems and challenged posed by mammoth multi-state corporations, LLCs and private equity firms that dominate the industry,” testified Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal.

More than 60 nursing home caregivers from across the nation met with a dozen Senators or their staff, sharing their experiences working the front-line of nursing homes and asking the Senators to co-sponsor the Nursing Home Transparency and Improvement Act (S2641).

The bill would require better disclosure of who owns a nursing home and who is ultimately responsible for the quality of care, both of which are difficult to determine when buyout firms set up layer upon layer of business entities to run nursing homes. The bill also requires more disclosure about staffing levels and how public nursing home funds are spent, making it easier to taxpayers and nursing home residents to tell when public funds that should go to care are instead lining corporate coffers.

Call your Senators now! Ask them to co-sponsor the Nursing Home Transparency and Improvement Act, S2641.