A coalition representing nearly all unionized state employees on Thursday slammed Gov. Ned Lamont and an analysis he commissioned that outlines options for selling or privatizing the University of Connecticut Medical Center’s John Dempsey Hospital in Farmington.
The Coalition of State Employees’ Bargaining Agents, which represents all bargaining units except the state police union, said the Democratic governor’s “endless pursuit of privatization and consolidation and his willingness to put corporate profits above community needs are a direct threat to the health and welfare of Connecticut residents.”
In a two-page response to an analysis released last week by Cayne Brothers, an investment bank that specializes in health care, union leaders wrote that the report underestimates Dempsey’s role in serving poor patients, unfairly compares individual hospitals to large health networks and ignores the risk of strikes that accompanies many privatization efforts.
“Governor Lamont has a responsibility to support an affordable and accessible public health care system across Connecticut,” the coalition wrote. “Hiring a pro-business consultant to recommend ‘improving’ our only remaining public hospital through further privatization and consolidation will have a negative impact on the growing number of patients who rely on UConn Health for their care.”
[RELATED: UConn Health has options to address financial woes, report says]
A spokesman for Lamont could not be reached for comment late Thursday afternoon, and a spokesman for Cain Brothers declined to immediately comment upon receiving the report.
The medical center, which houses the University of Connecticut’s schools of medicine and dentistry and John Dempsey Hospital, has been in financial trouble for years, but many of its problems have been linked to benefits and wage costs and have been caused primarily by the state government, not Connecticut’s flagship university.
About 13 percent of the center’s funding comes from the state budget, with most of the remainder coming from revenues from John Dempsey Hospital.
But the Kane brothers’ analysis concluded that the health center’s patient care programs were “small, unprofitable, and unable to financially support its academic mission or fund medical school recruiting or research.”
The health centers generated an average annual cash flow loss of $140 million from 2020-2023, the consultants wrote.
Medicaid and uninsured patients made up 26% of the total claims in 2022, compared with a total of 2,561 actual discharges in those categories two years ago. Discharges in 2022 ranged from 9,415 to 28,271 at Yale New Haven Hospital Network, Hartford HealthCare Network and Trinity Health of New England.
But the labour federation argued it was unfair to compare one public hospital with a much larger major hospital network.
Only Trinity Health had a higher percentage of revenue tied to Medicaid and uninsured patients than John Dempsey Hospital, just ahead of UConn at 27 percent.
Last week’s report also failed to highlight the disproportionate role that the University of Connecticut Health Center plays in providing outpatient care to low-income residents, particularly mental health, sickle cell disease treatment, poison control and specialty surgery, union officials wrote.
The consultants also called the University of Connecticut one of the smallest academic medical centers in the country, but union leaders countered that the Farmington facility is comparable in size to medical centers affiliated with Ohio State, Pennsylvania State and the University of Virginia, and better than the University of Illinois, proportionate to the population it serves.
The University of Connecticut center has struggled financially, but patient revenue has increased by more than 150 percent over the past decade and outside funding is expected to increase by 60 percent between 2017 and 2023.
Among the solutions proposed by consultants last week were partnering with the private sector and removing John Dempsey Hospital employees from the state employee union. The University of Connecticut could divest John Dempsey Hospital and other patient-care operations and merge with an existing hospital network to share revenue.
Public-private partnerships can also be formed, transferring management of care services to the private sector while retaining ownership of buildings and facilities.
Other options include leasing space at John Dempsey Hospital to private health care providers or partnering with other companies to jointly purchase goods and services. But union officials said the report did not take into account the risk of hospital staff strikes that could result from privatization. Dempsey public servants have waived their right to strike, but they can take disputes to arbitration.
The labor federation added that the report also fails to take into account the decline in quality of care that comes with privatization.
The report cited a 2023 Stanford University study of nearly 260 privatized hospitals that found consistent declines in access to care, especially for Medicaid patients, and physician staffing cuts of an average of 30%.
“Connecticut patients are seeing the effects of excessive hospital consolidation: higher costs, poor access and declining quality of care,” union officials added, citing a 2022 lawsuit filed by St. Francis Hospital in Hartford against Hartford Healthcare Network alleging anti-competitive practices. “Consolidation also gives large health systems the power to raise prices for services and negotiate higher prices with health insurers.”
Sen. Saud Anwar (D-South Windsor), co-chair of the General Assembly’s Public Health Committee, also expressed concern Thursday about the prospect of privatizing John Dempsey Hospital.
“I think the current public hospital model works for patients, for the people of our state and for our health care workers,” he said, adding that the University of Connecticut produces some of the best doctors, nurses and dentists in the country. “That’s why I’m hesitant to move. [private] direction. “
