WARREN, Ohio - The Trumbull County Commissioners held a special meeting Friday morning. It was characterized as a "roundtable" discussion focused on "the ongoing hospital situation and U.S. Senator Bernie Moreno taking on private equity." 

The special meeting, which was held at 10 a.m. and acted as a discussion among the commissioners and the Senator. 

During the meeting, Senator Moreno said his number one concern in the Trumbull County community is what's going on with Insight's hospitals. Moreno says he and his team have been working diligently to get those hospitals reopened.

"We gotta get this hospital up and running. But look, the problem is you got 700 people that used to work there. They can’t just put their lives on hold. So, reopening this hospital will be a monumental task if we can even get there," said Moreno.

Moreno discussed the possibility of getting another buyer to take over the hospitals to get them back open for the community. 

Moreno said Medical Properties Trust (MPT) came forward with a "very generous offer" to move the real estate to a new operator.

"The bankruptcy court process for Steward is pretty much at the tail end, which allows us to bring in another buyer. Insight is obviously stepping aside, so it's left open the opportunity for us to bring in a strategic buyer that can reopen and manage the healthcare system for the long run, bring the employees back and provide healthcare to the community," Moreno said.

Moreno said this means every group involved with the hospital will be out of the picture, including MPT.

"Everybody that's here now is out of the picture. MPT would sell the real estate to the new buyer, and at a favorable price. We're still working through those details, but they've been good partners," said Moreno. "If you can’t sell the real estate to the operator at a reasonable price, it prohibits them from having a long term, functional business."

Trumbull County Commissioner Chair Rick Hernandez asked Moreno about the idea of the hospital being operated under a non-profit entity similar to Mercy Health.

"Nonprofit entities who still pay wages, who are able to pay their wages, they operate with a lot of federal monies. There’s a lot of federal monies in the pipeline available for nonprofits. That’s unlike these privately owned hospitals [who] Don’t have available monies, at their, you know, disposal," said Hernandez.

Moreno responded saying he does not have anyone specific in mind, but that he is simply looking for an operator with a "strong balance sheet" and wants to be in the hospital business.

"What you saw with Steward Health, they didn't want to be in the hospital business. They wanted to be in the gutting entities, selling off real estate, selling off assets and ripping off employee business and in the meantime making themselves tens of millions of dollars," Moreno said.

"We're going to make certain that the operator is someone who has a vision to do the things that I outlined," Moreno said.

Moreno added that whenever a talks of who that new buyer is begins, he wants to get local officials involved to make sure they are comfortable with the new operator too.

"I don't want to play 'Whack-A-Mole.' The idea is that all of a sudden, 'oh we got a new buyer,' but we had that kind of with Insight, and then here we are not too long afterwards. We're all busy people and we don't want to be at this. We want to know whoever comes in that our grandkids are still serviced with that same operator," Moreno said.

Hernandez said having a conversation ahead of any sale could help ensure the success of the hospitals' future.

"We don't want to go down the same road again. We've had problems with Steward, we've had problems with Insight. We have 700 individuals laid off from insight hospital, and only at the gain of the owners of the companies," said Hernandez.

Moreno sent a letter to Steward Health Care System, Medical Properties Trust and Insight Health Systems after the abrupt closure of two hospitals in the county on April 6.

Moreno threatened to get the Department of Justice involved if he did not get answers from the companies. Moreno has since confirmed that Insight and MPT responded within five days.

Moe Tkacik, investigations editor for the American Prospect, said taking MPT out of the picture is a positive direction, but worries it could be too late.

She pointed to Orlando Health, a nonprofit who bought Steward hospitals from MPT last year. Within months of buying the hospitals, one closed its doors.

"There was a lot of deferred maintenance and then during the, you know, time that it took for these transactions to close, the deferred maintenance became an ever more dire situation," said Tkacik.

Moreno said there is no set price for MPT to sell the real estate, but is remaining optimistic about conversations with the group.