I think it should be illuminating to balance narratives like this with simple questions along classical economic lines:
1. Why is private equity ending up with all these resources? Who is selling to them and why? Why didn't this happen before? It's not like PE is new.
2. When PE loads up a firm with supposedly unsustainable billions of debt, someone is on the other side of that transaction, lending the billions. Who does that and why? Are they perpetual suckers, unaware of the decades of experience we have doing this?
I don't necessarily think the conventional prestige media narrative around PE is wrong, but it never seems to get around to asking these basic economic questions. It can't be as simple as some metaphor where bandits are roaming the economic countryside pillaging innocent victims. Voluntary transactions are occurring and we need to understand why to address any underlying issues.
"Unpleasant things are happening, we need some sort of regulation" doesn't seem like a sufficient basis for socially beneficial action. Whatever underlying issues are making healthcare an attractive PE target will probably persist, and maybe get worse, if all we do is pass some kind of "PE bad, stop PE" law.
1. Why is private equity ending up with all these resources? Who is selling to them and why? Why didn't this happen before? It's not like PE is new.
2. When PE loads up a firm with supposedly unsustainable billions of debt, someone is on the other side of that transaction, lending the billions. Who does that and why? Are they perpetual suckers, unaware of the decades of experience we have doing this?
I don't necessarily think the conventional prestige media narrative around PE is wrong, but it never seems to get around to asking these basic economic questions. It can't be as simple as some metaphor where bandits are roaming the economic countryside pillaging innocent victims. Voluntary transactions are occurring and we need to understand why to address any underlying issues.
"Unpleasant things are happening, we need some sort of regulation" doesn't seem like a sufficient basis for socially beneficial action. Whatever underlying issues are making healthcare an attractive PE target will probably persist, and maybe get worse, if all we do is pass some kind of "PE bad, stop PE" law.