I hear that private equity doesn't always result in the 'load with debt, take profits, walk away' playbook, but many of the famous examples (Sears, Toys R Us, this article) seem to all be of that playbook. I wonder what kind of regulation could be created to prevent this activity while preserving good management and not overly penalizing bad luck or bad timing.<p>Something like a time bound window were the principle beneficiaries have to repay their profits extracted, with actual federal prison time as a likely possibility. Wouldn't take too many examples of prosecuting the most egregious folks before the entire sector cooled.<p>The counter argument is that this action accelerated the 'creative destruction' that capitalism is known for - where weak companies are harvested by the an apex predator for profits before being committed to bones. But I think that ignores the real societal impact of some of these, specifically in this example where marginalized groups have lower access to health care and standards. If we can eminent domain private property to give to private groups (because the extra taxes and jobs are a public good), couldn't we also take a stronger hand in regulating some of these private equity actions because of the destruction of public good (and taxes and jobs, etc?)