Washington Post: Business is booming for dialysis giant Fresenius. It took a bailout of at least $137 million anyway.

Business is booming for dialysis giant Fresenius. It took a bailout of at least $137 million anyway. Half of the money the Trump administration gave dialysis companies was collected by a global firm headquartered in Germany with a robust balance sheet.

It’s one of the bluntest examples yet of how the Department of Health and Human Services failed to direct taxpayer-supported bailout funds only to providers in crisis. 

For instance, HCA Healthcare, the for-profit hospital chain, posted a $1.1 billion second-quarter profit that included $590 million in government rescue funds.

“We’ve seen billions flow to wealthy hospital systems and health-care corporations that may not need the money,” said Kyle Herrig, president of Accountable.US, a government watchdog group and frequent critic of the Trump administration.

“We should have designed a program that was most likely to help those that actually needed the help.”