Four out of five U.S. physicians now work for a corporation. Private equity firms and insurance companies spent years buying practices, then running them through management companies so they could dodge state bans on the corporate practice of medicine.

The figurehead on paper is a doctor. The decisions on staffing, schedules, billing targets, and how long you get in the medical exam room come from investors.

That model is why care costs more and feels worse. The money leaves the clinic. Working families absorb the bill. The funds buying these practices already get a sweeter deal from the tax code than the people paying for the visit.

The Stop Corporate Takeovers of Physicians Act would end that arrangement. Sens. Warren, Wyden, and Merkley and Reps. Hoyle, Ocasio-Cortez, and Subramanyam would ban private equity, insurers, and other for-profit corporations from owning or controlling medical practices, close the loophole that let them hide behind a “friendly physician,” and strip out the non-compete and gag clauses used to keep doctors quiet.

State bans were supposed to stop this years ago. More than 30 states already prohibit the corporate practice of medicine, but investors treated those laws like a paperwork problem. They install a captive physician as the owner on paper, route the real power through a management company, and take over hiring, schedules, pay, and billing.

The result is that patients get shorter visits and higher bills. Doctors who object get trapped by non-competes and gag clauses. A federal ban is how you close that loophole in every state at once.

Oregon already proved this works. Doctors there used a state version of this law to stop an investor-backed staffing company from taking over a local emergency room. This bill would take that protection national.

Tell Congress to pass the Stop Corporate Takeovers of Physicians Act.