Hinson took campaign funds from private equity owners of for-profit Ottumwa hospital

Iowa U.S. Senate candidate and current Republican U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson says improving health care is one of her top priorities. Yet she has accepted tens of thousands of dollars in campaign donations from executives at a private equity company that was accused in a bipartisan 2025 Senate report of harming patients at an Iowa regional hospital.

“Health care should be affordable and accessible,” Hinson says on her official House of Representatives issues page. “I will continue advocating for patient-centered care to ensure Americans have control over their personal health decisions without sacrificing affordability or quality.”

A campaign finance analysis by the nonprofit research organization American Bridge 21st Century found that Hinson’s campaigns collected about $30,000 in contributions in 2024 and 2025 from executives at Apollo Global Management. The private equity firm, which is headquartered in New York, has owned Lifepoint Health since 2018. 

In Iowa, Lifepoint operates rehabilitation hospitals in Clive and Coralville and the Ottumwa Regional Health Center, a 217-bed acute care hospital in Wapello County. 

In January 2025, the then-chair of the Senate Budget Committee, Rhode Island Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, joined with the committee’s top Republican, Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, to announce the results of a 2024 bipartisan committee staff investigation into the impact private equity investment in health care has on providers and patients.

The 171-page ”Profits Over Patients: The Harmful Effects of Private Equity on the U.S. Health Care System” report focused on Apollo’s ownership of the Ottumwa facility and on one other private equity firm. 

According to the Private Equity Shareholder Project, as of April 2025 about 488 U.S. hospitals were owned by private equity firms. More than a quarter of those facilities served rural communities.

“Documents obtained by the Committee detailed how private equity’s ownership of hospitals earned investors millions, while patients suffered and hospitals experienced health and safety violations, understaffing, reduced quality of patient care and closures,” the senators’ press release said. 

The press release said: “ORHC has been repeatedly failed by its private equity-owned operators, including current operator Lifepoint Health, which is owned by funds affiliated with Apollo. ORHC’s private equity-owned operators failed to fulfill seven promises—including legally binding ones—made to ORHC when it was first acquired by a private equity-owned operator in 2010. … The failed leadership of ORHC’s private equity-owned operators has decreased patients’ quality of care and caused the hospital financial harm. … Apollo has made millions in profits as a result of its investment into Lifepoint Health and ORHC’s previous private equity owners, even as the hospital’s operations have suffered.”

According to the report, the committee’s investigation found that underinvestment by the hospital’s owners “created dangerous conditions for patients. This report previously described how insufficient staffing, the lack of standard diversion prevention infrastructure, and the maintenance of a provider with questionable behaviors may have contributed to nine sexual assaults at ORHC. Insufficient staffing may have also been a contributing factor to the hospital’s higher than average falls and falls with injury rates in 2021-2023.”

Apollo’s corporate communications team did not immediately respond to a request for comment for this story.

In January 2025, a company spokesperson disputed the report, telling NBC News: “Apollo Funds have invested billions of dollars in Lifepoint and its predecessor companies, which has been used to improve facilities, expand local healthcare services, recruit care providers, build new centers of care and upgrade technology across Lifepoint’s network. Apollo Funds continue to support Lifepoint management’s emphasis on continuous improvements in quality of care, including at Ottumwa Regional Health Center.” 

Iowa’s senior senator, however, was critical of Apollo’s stewardship of the Wapello County hospital.

“The Ottumwa community has personally felt the impact of private equity on its health care system. Under private equity ownership, wait times at Ottumwa Regional Health Center have gone up as patient experience has gone down. The diminishing quality of care, service availability and care capacity at the hospital is forcing Ottumwa residents to travel significant distances in order to receive appropriate treatment. Iowans deserve better,” Grassley said in his office’s press release. “A dependable health care system is essential to the vitality of a community. As always, sunshine is the best disinfectant. This report is a step toward ensuring accountability, so that hospitals’ financial structures can best serve patients’ medical needs.”

The Hinson campaign did not immediately respond to the Iowa Independent’s request for comment for this story.