A recent study named New Mexico the top state in the country at risk of harm by private equity and points to health care in the state as especially vulnerable to potentially predatory actions.
Private equity investors usually invest in private companies with the goal of taking over and restructuring to cut costs. It touches a lot of industries, from health care to housing, and often leads to big cuts in jobs and services.
Chris Noble is the policy director for the Private Equity Stakeholder Project, which is a nonprofit that collects data and advocates for policies to minimize the impact of private equity on people who rely on those businesses.
Noble said New Mexico got the top spot for risk in a state ranking because its workforce, health care and public pensions are all highly influenced by private equity.
“Those could be patients. Those could be tenants. Those could be first-time homebuyers. Also folks that work at private equity on jobs,” he said.
A quarter of the hospitals and about a third of the nursing homes in the state are owned by private equity.
About a tenth of the private sector workforce is also controlled by private equity. Those workers saw almost 2,000 layoffs between 2015 and 2022.
And about a quarter of state pension assets are invested in private equity.
Noble said his organization is encouraging state leadership to pass laws that would require more reviews and transparency when health care providers merge. It also advocates for more regulation around mass layoffs.
“Guaranteeing severance for workers is very important,” He said.
New Mexico passed a law this year that will require more transparency in hospital acquisitions. Lawmakers say it’s meant to help curb harm caused by hospital acquisitions.
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