The recent opening ceremony for the Obama Presidential Center on Juneteenth stirred considerable controversy. Marking the day that honors the end of slavery in the United States, the event seemed to stand in stark contrast to the realities faced by many African Americans. This is especially striking given Obama’s history of policies that have harmed black wealth. The event, characterized by a takeover of a public park, questionable architectural design, and an elite guest list, felt particularly tone-deaf amid ongoing global crises.
Many people idealize the past, believing that if we could only return to Obama’s presidency, things would be better:
Someday, let’s get back to this, America. pic.twitter.com/25GZ6DHUB3
— Protect Kamala Harris ✊ (@DisavowTrump20) June 18, 2026
To counter such nostalgia, let’s look at a significant event that occurred just days before Juneteenth, only about 15 miles away from the celebratory chaos at Jackson Park. This incident speaks volumes about the challenges surrounding Obama and the Democratic Party.
On June 11, the West Suburban Medical Center in Oak Park closed its doors after the last functional elevator broke down. Firefighters were called to assist patients stuck on upper floors. According to the Chicago Tribune:
Even though the hospital’s owner had suddenly closed the facility in March, some medical providers were still operating within its walls.
A dialysis clinic that served approximately 140 patients each week on the fifth floor continued to function, along with three clinics run by PCC Community Wellness Center.
However, they left once Oak Park officially locked the buildings to the public. Currently, only security and maintenance staff are allowed inside.
“We’ve basically been scrambling to move 140 patients,” said Dr. George Naratadam, a nephrologist at West Suburban. “They can’t really miss dialysis or they could die.”
Patients must now relocate to different dialysis centers, which may be further away and do not guarantee their usual schedules, Naratadam added. Dialysis typically requires patients to visit three times per week for four-hour sessions.
The closure of West Suburban epitomizes the detrimental effects of private equity, which drained resources and abandoned the facility. Like other Chicago-area hospitals such as Weiss Memorial (closed last year) and Westlake (closed in 2019), West Suburban also fell under the ownership of Pipeline Health, a private equity hospital chain. Pipeline still has a $67 million subordinate note affecting the broader operations of Resilience Healthcare, which purchased West Suburban in 2022.
Currently, Ramco, Resilience, and other firms, including Rialto Capital Advisors, are locked in a legal battle over significant financial sums, while the affected patients suffer.
Nevertheless, The Real Deal assures that the situation at West Suburban does not reflect the overall investment appeal of the Chicago-area healthcare sector:
Despite severe distress in some areas, demand for medical office properties in Chicago remains high. Investors are viewing clinical space as a stable investment amid a sluggish traditional office market, with local medical deal volume exceeding $600 million this year.
Such trends suggest that more closures like West Suburban might be on the horizon. But fear not, as a symbol of hope has allegedly emerged:
🚨WATCH: Former First Lady @MichelleObama declares the Obama Presidential Center a “beacon of hope” founded on values such as equality, empathy, and fairness. pic.twitter.com/yNAxcwa8IK
— Off The Press (@OffThePress1) June 18, 2026
A beacon of hope.
So, what connects Obama, the towering structure, and the evacuated dialysis patients facing the aftermath of private equity’s influence on healthcare?
The shortcomings of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) are well-known, but it’s crucial to remember how Obama’s approach to the housing crisis enabled private equity firms to acquire homes at low prices, only to rent them back to the very people who lost them. Similarly, the ACA contributed to the growing role of private equity in healthcare.
While private equity had long been present in the healthcare sector, its influence surged after 2010. Staying in Chicago, an insights report from The University of Chicago Business Law Review observed:
Mergers and acquisitions within the healthcare sector have gained traction as a way to enhance efficiency, boost revenue, cut costs, and improve patient care. The trend of hospital consolidations has dramatically increased over the last three decades. In 1990, 65% of Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) had highly concentrated hospital markets, a figure that grew to 77% by 2006.
These moves are premised on the belief that larger operations yield lower costs.
The federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) encouraged this consolidation post-2010 through the Affordable Care Act, which aimed to reward hospitals for better patient outcomes while lowering costs. This policy inadvertently promoted hospital mergers, as facilities sought to share the financial burdens linked to enhanced care quality mandated by the ACA. Additionally, hospitals began acquiring physician practices to boost revenue by shifting patient care to outpatient settings, thus increasing overall profits.
This shift has left private financial mechanisms, debt leveraging, and asset-stripping largely untouched by the ACA. The emphasis on care coordination and management led to enhanced information-sharing, which, without proper oversight, can result in price-fixing. The ACA also expanded a loophole in the Sherman Antitrust Act, initially established during the Clinton administration to promote healthcare accessibility.
Such policies facilitated instances in which the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) would not challenge:
- Hospital mergers;
- Joint ventures involving costly medical equipment;
- Physicians sharing information with healthcare service purchasers;
- Hospitals exchanging pricing and cost information;
- Collaborative purchasing initiatives;
- Joint ventures among medical practitioners.
These regulations saw further leniency in 1996 and once again in 2011 under the ACA’s provisions for Accountable Care Organizations. The DOJ justified these changes as measures that would lessen uncertainty for healthcare industry stakeholders and lead to lower healthcare costs.
But how effective has that been?
The more profound issue lies in a creeping economic erosion within the sector, as described by Matt Stoller regarding the merger of major healthcare entities Qualtrics and Press Ganey Forsta, which administer the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) survey:
The HCAHPS survey isn’t genuinely aimed at improving healthcare. It exists to facilitate private rationing under the guise of “value-based care.” Efforts like the ACA were designed to curb perceived over-treatment, thereby encroaching on the clinician-patient relationship. Direct governmental rationing is frowned upon; thus, the focus has shifted to allowing the market to dictate access and treatment. Today, hospitals and providers receive fixed payments to manage patient care, incentivizing cost-cutting at the expense of genuine treatment needs.
While the earlier fee-for-service model had its flaws, it relied more on medical expertise. In contrast, the value-based care model centers more on financial metrics. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services approve vendors for these surveys, creating dependencies that obscure the actual costs to patients.
All of this helps explain how Obama could amass nearly a billion dollars for the structure on Michigan Avenue. Influential figures like Marty Nesbitt, Obama’s former national campaign treasurer and co-founder of a private equity firm, have played crucial roles in fundraising for the Obama Foundation.
Despite some lawmakers recognizing the detrimental impact of private equity on healthcare—with 79 bills in 25 states proposing solutions—the question remains: what meaningful change will emerge from these efforts?
As we mark 17 years since the enactment of the ACA and a decade since Obama left office, there continues to be a reluctance among Democrats to acknowledge the adverse effects of policies that favored a limited few. And while the Obama Center is framed as a “beacon of hope,” it often appears more like a memorial for a sophisticated brand of political misrule, both abroad and at home.
