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The collapse of Australia's second-largest private hospital operator reveals a collision between healthcare as public service and healthcare as investment opportunity - with profound implications for how we structure critical infrastructure.
Key Observations:
- Private equity financial engineering created unsustainable debt structures that prioritized returns over resilience
- Only 3-5 of Healthscope's 37 hospitals were profitable, exposing fundamental model flaws
- Government faces impossible choices between market ideology and healthcare necessity
- Foreign ownership of essential services tested when financial imperatives override public need
Behind the $1.6 billion debt figures and receivership headlines lies a deeper story about policy choices made when times were good that are now colliding with healthcare realities. The Brookfield ownership model - loading hospitals with debt while selling off the real estate - worked until it didn't.
The core narrative isn't just about one company's financial troubles - it's about whether critical infrastructure should be treated as purely financial instruments, and what happens when overseas investment priorities clash with domestic healthcare needs.
While immediate crisis management will likely prevent hospital closures, the underlying questions about healthcare sustainability, foreign ownership limits, and government intervention remain unresolved - setting the stage for broader policy reckonings ahead.
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