Salem, OR — In response to news that the Oregon Governor Tina Kotek has signed SB 951, a bill to close loopholes in Oregon’s corporate practice of medicine (CPOM) law and reverse the harmful trend of corporatization in the medical field, the American Economic Liberties Project released the following statement.

“By signing this landmark bill, Gov. Kotek has delivered a major victory to protect patients and medical professionals against the growing corporatization of medicine,” said Hayden Rooke-Ley, Senior Fellow for Healthcare at the American Economic Liberties Project. “Oregon is now set to become the first state to address the most common loophole that allows corporate investors to evade CPOM bans and obtain control of medical practices. But Wall Street and Big Medicine conglomerates may well fight back by threatening to shutter practices—as we heard when the bill was being debated. To ensure the success of this common-sense reform, the Oregon legislature should take action to shore up and expand capacity of clinician-led practices and community clinics.”

Across Oregon and the rest of the US, private equity investors and corporate conglomerates have been consolidating control over medical practices at an accelerating pace—raising patient costs, worsening health outcomes and increasing mortality rates, and demoralizing medical professionals. Like most states, Oregon has a longstanding CPOM ban meant to protect against these harms by requiring that for-profit medical practices are owned by the clinicians delivering care. However, corporate investors now use separate legal vehicles known as management services organizations to functionally control medical practices without formally owning them.

SB 951 closes this loophole and ensures that MSOs work for medical practices, not the other way around. The bill bans certain contracting arrangements that put the MSO in charge, like indirect corporate ownership and noncompete agreements that prevent doctors from leaving to found an independent practice. It also specifically prohibits corporate entities from having ultimate control over setting work schedules, employment terms, staffing levels, diagnostic coding decisions, clinical standards, or billing practices, all of which should appropriately remain with licensed physicians.

Learn more about what state lawmakers can do to fight consolidated corporate power in healthcare in our toolkit, “Tools to Challenge Big Medicine,” available here.

Learn more about Economic Liberties here.

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The American Economic Liberties Project works to ensure America’s system of commerce is structured to advance, rather than undermine, economic liberty, fair commerce, and a secure, inclusive democracy. Economic Liberties believes true economic liberty means entrepreneurs and businesses large and small succeed on the merits of their ideas and hard work; commerce empowers consumers, workers, farmers, and engineers instead of subjecting them to discrimination and abuse from financiers and monopolists; foreign trade arrangements support domestic security and democracy; and wealth is broadly distributed to support equitable political power.