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FTC acts against private equity firm’s acquisition of veterinary clinics

ftc.gov

51–60 of 299 posts

Re: FTC acts against private equity firm’s acquisition of veterinary clinics

#51
post #2

Interesting. I'd like to see more action against the financialization of many other industries / domains, like healthcare and even housing, that I feel are not well served by a purely-market driven perspective. One wonders what the Private Equity firm's intention was here.

> One wonders what the Private Equity firm's intention was here. no, i don't think anyone's wondering that. private equity firms have one purpose and one purpose only.

[deleted]

Re: FTC acts against private equity firm’s acquisition of veterinary clinics

#52
post #4
post #2

Interesting. I'd like to see more action against the financialization of many other industries / domains, like healthcare and even housing, that I feel are not well served by a purely-market driven perspective. One wonders what the Private Equity firm's intention was here.

There's a number of these where there's a desire to make it appear there is competition, but actually all are owned by the same conglomerate. I would be 0% surprised if similar things haven't been done or tried in optometry, dentists, etc.

BlackStone

Vangauard

Etc.

There have been COUNTLESS videos about the above and how much they own.

These are the monopolies we should be going after.

Re: FTC acts against private equity firm’s acquisition of veterinary clinics

#53
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One wonders what the Private Equity firm's intention was here. no, i don't think anyone's wondering that. private equity firms have one purpose and one purpose only.

Make the pile of money bigger no matter the cost?

no matter the cost to the rest of society. obviously they're trying to reduce costs for their investors

Re: FTC acts against private equity firm’s acquisition of veterinary clinics

#55

I don't understand how some ( to me ) obvious anticompetitive corps seem to go unnoticed, but in this case veterinary clinics are receiving scrutiny.

My partner works in this industry and in fact has friends that are affected by this merger. While the FTC can and does have the ability to do many things simultaneously, the current situation in the vet industry is dire . Corporate vets are more profitable (through price-gouging), have a virtual stranglehold on increasingly limited labor pools, and are pretty much the only ones that can afford to invest in specialty…

Could you explain this more? If the corp vets are price gouging, why are consumers choosing them over the smaller vets?

Re: FTC acts against private equity firm’s acquisition of veterinary clinics

#56
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a number of these where there's a desire to make it appear there is competition, but actually all are owned by the same conglomerate. I would be 0% surprised if similar things haven't been done or tried in optometry, dentists, etc.

BlackStone Vangauard Etc. There have been COUNTLESS videos about the above and how much they own. These are the monopolies we should be going after.

Index funds almost never vote with their shares. To say that vanguard having equity ownership without utilizing their voting rights leads to market failures seems incredibly naive.

Re: FTC acts against private equity firm’s acquisition of veterinary clinics

#57
post #2

Interesting. I'd like to see more action against the financialization of many other industries / domains, like healthcare and even housing, that I feel are not well served by a purely-market driven perspective. One wonders what the Private Equity firm's intention was here.

A bit of apples and oranges here. The goal of the FTC is not to make big companies smaller, it's to protect the market. They are not supposed to be the ones to determine if whales are natural or not to an ecosystem - so they don't generally go hunting them.

Re: FTC acts against private equity firm’s acquisition of veterinary clinics

#58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Healthcare was more affordable back when individuals payed for it. The problem was that some could not, so we introduced insurance. At this point no one can afford it anymore without insurance. So our fix for one problem created a new problem.

What about the fact that we also introduced more complex medical procedures and developed costly technology? Plus more health care red tape and over-site increasing administrative overhead. Perhaps the advent of insurance helped bring more advanced and therefor better medical care to the average person that would otherwise be unaffordable.

That makes sense, but you can also see the clear increase of basic services like simply visiting the ER or having a cavity filled.

Re: FTC acts against private equity firm’s acquisition of veterinary clinics

#59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My partner works in this industry and in fact has friends that are affected by this merger. While the FTC can and does have the ability to do many things simultaneously, the current situation in the vet industry is dire . Corporate vets are more profitable (through price-gouging), have a virtual stranglehold on increasingly limited labor pools, and are pretty much the only ones that can afford to invest in specialty…

Could you explain this more? If the corp vets are price gouging, why are consumers choosing them over the smaller vets?

Because there are no smaller vets. Or they suck equally hard, there’s no guarantee that being smaller == better.

Re: FTC acts against private equity firm’s acquisition of veterinary clinics

#60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My partner works in this industry and in fact has friends that are affected by this merger. While the FTC can and does have the ability to do many things simultaneously, the current situation in the vet industry is dire . Corporate vets are more profitable (through price-gouging), have a virtual stranglehold on increasingly limited labor pools, and are pretty much the only ones that can afford to invest in specialty…

Emergency vets in many places will demand you pay $5,000 upfront (within minutes before surgery is performed) or your pet dies. Then, your pet will die anyway. It is a sad and exploitative industry.

I've found that the people actually providing veterinary healthcare are some of the biggest animal lovers you're ever going to meet. They adore animals to frankly unhealthy degrees. If even the local family-owned vet clinic is also doing something, it's usually not because they want to exploit hurt animals and exploit you, it's motivated by the necessities of the industry.

In this case, non-payment is a huge issue for vets and they need to keep their doors open for everyone else that needs care. Running a specialty like emergency medicine is even more expensive and carries higher prices as a result. They don't want to deal with trying to collect after the fact. Hence, they'll usually give two options: Pay at the time of service or sign up for something like CareCredit that will pay the vet upfront and deal with the collections on the backend. Some places offer third options, but these are usually problematic or involve charities.

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