Friday, November 16, 2007

Herb Kohl's Statement on ManorCare/Carlyle Deal Laughable


The Washington Post did a story on Capital Hill hearings related to The Carlyle Group's acquisition of huge nursing home provider, ManorCare. Of course there is no mention of the private equity underwriter's failure to patients in its LifeCare hospital after Hurricane Katrina. LifeCare had the largest number of hospital patient deaths.

One might expect regulators to consider a firm's track record owning health related companies. Not this Executive or Congress. The Post piece closed with a quote from Senator Herb Kohl, D-WI, "Often the only way to ensure the improvement of any entity is to bring its failings to light." Great advice, Mr. Kohl, if only you and your committee would follow it.

The White House already showed its incompetence in this regard. One might expect the hospital with the largest patient death toll post Katrina to warrant a mention in Bush's Lessons Learned report. Nope, nada, zippo, not one word. I bet the boys at Carlyle were most grateful for the White House pass. They're likely all smiles if the Capital Hill hearings made a similar omission.