With Oregon precedent, WA lawmakers reflect on anti-corporate medicine legislation
An Oregon law that addresses hospitals’ corporate involvement in clinicians’ decisions regarding treatment has the attention of Washington state lawmakers.
As U.S. healthcare has increasingly consolidated into corporate ownership structures that include private equity interests, providers nationwide have relentlessly claimed that profits have been prioritized over patients. As a result, state legislative chambers have served as a hopeful avenue for people trying to remove private equity from medicine.
For the past two legislative sessions, Washington lawmakers have unsuccessfully tried to pass bills aimed at preventing the “corporate practice of medicine,” a broad term that generally describes corporations or shareholders — and not licensed clinicians — owning medical practices.
This happens often across the country when a local or regional clinician-owned practice is acquired by a larger corporation that installs a provider as the owner — so that the practice is still, technically, “physician-owned” — but in reality, is controlled by the corporation, which can be owned by shareholders, private equity, or sometimes, a confusing mix of both.
https://washingtonstatestandard.com/2026/06/24/with-oregon-precedent-lawmakers-reflect-on-anti-corporate-medicine-legislation-in-wa/
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