Nurses with the Minnesota Nurses Association today raised serious concerns about HealthPartners’ proposed acquisition of Essentia Health, the third major consolidation involving Minnesota health systems announced in the past six months. Nurses say the accelerating consolidation of Minnesota healthcare demands close scrutiny over what it could mean for patient choice, healthcare costs, access to care and the healthcare workforce.
The proposed acquisition follows Sanford Health’s acquisition of North Memorial Health, announced in May and completed earlier this month, and Sutter Health’s proposed acquisition of Allina Health, announced in March. The HealthPartners acquisition of Essentia would bring 22 hospitals, more than 135 clinics and HealthPartners’ health insurance business under one healthcare system.
“Nurses working for both HealthPartners and Essentia learned about this acquisition at the same time as the public, despite the enormous impact it could have on our patients, our jobs and the care we provide,” said Mary Siedschlag, RN at HealthPartners and Methodist Hospital Bargaining Unit co-chair. “That disregard for frontline healthcare workers is deeply concerning. If HealthPartners expects nurses to believe this acquisition will improve healthcare, it needs to start by giving the people who provide that care a meaningful voice in decisions that will affect our patients and our workplaces.”
The acquisition raises additional questions because HealthPartners operates as both a healthcare provider and health insurer. HealthPartners provides insurance coverage to approximately 1.4 million members while also operating hospitals and clinics. Bringing Essentia’s hospitals and clinics under HealthPartners would significantly expand the healthcare delivery system controlled by an organization that also administers insurance coverage and establishes provider networks.
Nurses say regulators must closely examine what that increased concentration could mean for patient choice, insurance networks, healthcare costs and access to providers. HealthPartners and Essentia have said the acquisition will improve access, affordability and quality; nurses say patients and healthcare workers deserve concrete evidence and enforceable commitments demonstrating how those promises will be delivered.
“Minnesota has now seen three major back-to-back healthcare consolidation announcements, and nurses are deeply concerned about what that could mean for our patients and communities,” said MNA President Chris Rubesch, RN at Essentia Health. “Every time control over healthcare is concentrated in fewer hands, we need to understand what patients and communities stand to gain, what they could lose and who will be accountable for those outcomes. HealthPartners and Essentia must show how this acquisition will lower costs, preserve patient choice, protect access to care and put resources where they belong: at the bedside.”
Under the proposed acquisition, the organization would operate under the HealthPartners name and current HealthPartners President and CEO Andrea Walsh would lead the combined system. HealthPartners and Essentia say they expect the transaction to take effect Jan. 1, 2027, pending regulatory review.
“Nurses understand that Minnesota’s healthcare system faces real challenges, particularly in rural communities, but consolidation alone does not guarantee better care, lower costs or greater access,” said member of MNA Board of Directors Stacee Rosier, RN at Essentia Health. “Before this acquisition moves forward, nurses, patients and communities deserve clear answers about what will happen to hospitals and services, staffing and healthcare jobs, insurance networks and patient costs. Nurses and other frontline healthcare workers must have a meaningful voice in that process because we see every day how decisions made at the corporate level affect care at the bedside.”
MNA nurses are calling for a thorough and transparent review of the proposed acquisition, including its potential effects on healthcare costs, insurance networks, staffing, patient choice, access to providers and services, and the future of hospitals and clinics throughout the Essentia system.
Nurses are also calling on HealthPartners and Essentia to provide full financial transparency and make clear, legally binding commitments to protect all union contracts, access to hospitals and essential services, safe staffing, healthcare jobs, and patients’ ability to choose and afford the care they need.
