Ridding Pennsylvania's health care system of private investors is part of Gov. Josh Shapiro's new budget plan, which calls for additional regulatory muscle to review hospital and nursing home sales, mergers and acquisitions. Shapiro this week asked the General Assembly for a bill that would empower the state attorney general to review health care transactions "with the community's best interest at the forefront." Two dozen other states already have such authority, but efforts to enact the necessary legislation in Pennsylvania have fallen short. House Bill 2344, which would have given the state attorney general the additional review powers Shapiro wants, passed the full House in July and was taken up in October by the Senate, where it died.
