Some are quick to ridicule authoritarian leaders. [FN1] These past two weeks, crises of trump’s disparagement at the hands (or off-hand remarks) of late-night comedy show hosts have raged. Some feel this distracts us from more important issues, [FN2] such as health care. 1/11

A study published this week examined health care & economics. [FN3] “After hospitals were acquired by private equity firms, patient death rates in the emergency departments rose by 13% compared with similar hospitals.” [FN4] You might question academics’ motives. 2/11

These people neglect stroking the ego [FN5] of trump in order to focus on the far less important search for truth in an effort to save people’s lives. In epidemiology [FN6] sample size and the time over which the study occurs lend greater significance to the findings. Here, 3/11

“1,007,529 ED visits and 121 080 ICU hospitalizations across 49 private equity hospitals were compared with 6,179,854 ED visits and 760,377 ICU hospitalizations across 293 matched control hospitals.” [FN7] Big numbers were over 10 years. [FN8] 4/11

Conclusion: “After private equity acquisition, hospitals on average reduced salaries and staffing relative to nonacquired hospitals, notably in the EDs and ICUs, which are higher-acuity and staffing-sensitive areas. This decreased capacity to deliver care...” [FN9] You might 5/11

find it absurd that a lot of people are dying so that a handful of billionaires can buy nicer sex toys or better drugs. Relax! The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health and Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. [FN10] That kind of gov’t funding is being cut. 6/11

A popular expression is what the initialism “FAFO” represents. Under RFK, Jr, and his merry band of cut-throats, those studies will be relics. So we no longer shall be able to know how or even if they FA on our health care. We shall, however, FO. 7/11

Footnotes:
FN1. a/k/a, dictators, actual or wannabe.
FN2. In weighing protections of the First Amendment as against trump’s damaged ego, some on the left - and, for that matyter, some on the right, too - have inexplicably felt the Constitution’s protection of free speech is of far greater importance. 8/11

FN3. Because these are two areas in which the current occupant of the Oval Office lacks either knowledge or competence, disparaging remarks might not take off, much less fly.
FN4. Gretchen Morgenson, “Death rates rose in hospital ERs after private equity firms took over, study finds,” NBC News, 09/24/25. 9/11

FN5. Or, to employ a more relevant metaphor, kissing the ass.
FN6. “[t]he branch of medicine which deals with the incidence, distribution, and possible control of diseases and other factors relating to health.” Oxford Languages, accessed 09/24/25. 10/11

FN7. Kannan, MD, et al, “Hospital Staffing and Patient Outcomes After Private Equity Acquisition,” Annals of Internal Medicine, 09/23/25, accessed 09/24/25.
FN8. Id., Morgenson.
FN9. Id., Kannan, MD, et al. 11/11