Prime Healthcare Services Files Anti-Trust Lawsuit Against SEIU
ONTARIO, Calif., Nov. 15, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Prime Healthcare Services today filed a lawsuit under federal anti-trust law that alleges that the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and Kaiser Permanente engaged in an unlawful conspiracy to reduce consumers access to healthcare and limit their choices. The complaint alleges that Prime Healthcare is the latest victim of this unlawful conspiracy.
"Prime Healthcare's business model, which provides cost-effective and high-quality health care in underserved communities, threatens SEIU and its partner Kaiser Permanente," said Michael Sarrao, vice president and general counsel for Prime Healthcare Services. "SEIU is not concerned about those patients who rely on Prime Healthcare's hospitals for much needed healthcare, but instead is focused on driving out hospital operators like Prime Healthcare that pose a threat to SEIU's and Kaiser's anti-competitive partnership."
In the lawsuit, Prime Healthcare alleges that SEIU and Kaiser have conspired, through their use of a labor-management partnership, to attack competitors in order to create a monopoly in California. As part of this effort, SEIU has targeted Prime Healthcare. SEIU has produced propaganda which the SEIU disguises as "studies." That propaganda has been extensively distributed to complicit media outlets and other allies for the purpose of eliminating the threat to the unlawful SEIU-Kaiser conspiracy. This collusion has driven up health care costs, promoted inefficient practices and denied patients' access to health care.
The sixty-eight page complaint details over two-decades of anti-competitive practices by the SEIU and Kaiser pursuant to their unlawful conspiracy. It documents a long history of attacking competitors, and alleges, among other things, unlawful payments from Kaiser to the SEIU.
The complaint, filed in federal court in the Southern District of California, seeks an order enjoining SEIU and Kaiser from conspiring to destroy competition and monetary damages.
SOURCE Prime Healthcare Services
