California attorney general Kamala Harris, once dubbed the "female Obama," extended her political might into Prime Healthcare Services' $843-million purchase of six hospitals run by Daughters of Charity Health Systems (DCHS) in Los Altos Hills, California.

Harris approved the deal in late February but set more than 300 conditions, which, according to Prime, went far beyond the original terms of the agreement.  On March 9, the Ontario, California-based company pulled out, citing Harris's terms "as the most extensive and overreaching conditions in history."

From Modern Healthcare:

In essence, the attorney general is telling Prime Healthcare to operate the hospitals exactly as DCHS has and expect different results,” Prime General Counsel Troy Schell said in a news release.

Some of the same conditions that forced Daughters of Charity to put their struggling  hospitals up for sale in the first place are listed in 78 pages set forth by Harris.

Prime was required to maintain the majority of services at Daughters' hospitals for 10 years, twice as long as Prime had committed to in the takeover agreement.  Prime also noted that Harris's requirement was twice as long as other hospital transactions approved in the state.

Harris's decision barred Prime from canceling its contracts with Medi-Cal managed-care plans for ten years and its contracts with county health departments for five to ten years.  They would have to continue providing for indigent patients and providing community benefits, including a long list of acute-care services, for ten years.  The six hospitals involved in the sale would also have to provide abortion and other reproductive services not previously allowed at Daughters of Charity.

Harris imposed the tough conditions despite the fact that DCHS hospitals have been losing money on the order of $100 million a year.  Moreover, Daughters of Charity viewed Prime as their last real hope in keeping the hospitals from going belly-up.  So why would Harris sabotage the deal?

Because Harris and numerous Democrat cronies are in cahoots with leaders of the Service Employees International Union, who opposed the sale from the beginning.  SEIU cited concerns with potential job layoffs and endangering union contracts for the 2,600 DCHS employees they represent.  To appease the union, Harris played hardball by installing strict, unprecedented conditions.  Since many of SEIU’s rank-and-file union members employed by DCHS were in favor of the purchase by Prime, even staging public protests outside Harris’s Sacramento office with signs that read “save our hospitals,” the attorney general  was forced to make Prime an offer they had to refuse.

In the end, Harris doesn’t care if the Catholic hospitals go under and thousands are laid off.  She hasn't the foggiest notion what it means to hold down a non-lawyer job in the real world.  She is the offspring of upper-class Berkeley civil rights activists and the sister-in-law of Eric Holder's number two at the DOJ, Tony West.  She dances to the tune of those who helped her rise to power, like Obama, the SEIU, and her former lover, ex-San Francisco mayor Willie Brown.

And now that Harris has announced she's running for Barbara Boxer's Senate seat in 2016, she’ll get to flex her muscles on the national stage, leaving the working-class Joe Schmoes at DCHS behind.

Read more Evans at exzoom.net.