(Important Action Alert for You Below)

Corporate raiders are turning their profiteers' gaze on our nation's nursing homes - and Michigan families should be very worried.

Recently, the investment giant Carlyle Group set its sights on buying HCR Manor Care Inc., which owns 28 nursing homes with 3,300 nursing beds in Michigan.

Carlyle is worth $75 billion and, as one of the world's most powerful private equity firms, has a diverse portfolio that includes interests in the military-industrial complex as well as holdings in Dunkin' Donuts and Hertz Rental Cars.

Now Carlyle wants to add Michigan's nursing homes to its portfolio of assets to maximize its profits - without making any commitment to improving health care.

SEIU Healthcare Michigan is partnering with citizens, healthcare providers, elected officials, businesses and countless others to ensure that our seniors aren't put at risk while private equity firms like Carlyle rake in massive profits - much of it public Medicare and Medicaid dollars - while ignoring patient needs.

If the national trend is any indication, we all have good reason to be alarmed.

In a stunning front-page expose on Sept. 23, 2007, a New York Times investigation found that large private equity firms that bought nursing homes across the country between 2000 and 2006 slashed the number of registered nurses far below levels required by law, experienced higher numbers of patient care violations and more deaths. In comparison, during the same period, homes that were not owned by such firms maintained or even expanded staffing levels and had better track records.

The NYT report also showed that private equity firms buy homes and strip them quickly for profit. At the same time, these firms insulate their new acquisitions behind complex layers of corporate ownership to thwart families from holding them accountable for the death or injury of a loved one.

The bottom line for these equity firms is that Michigan's nursing homes are acquisitions, to be bought and sold for maximum profit. The care and well-being of the elderly and often ailing men and women who live there is just collateral.

The horror stories are heart-breaking, as evidenced in the NYT report...

One woman's 81-year-old mother suffered repeated falls. She died three weeks after a massive infected bed sore was inadvertently discovered. Fifteen people died at that same Tampa, Fla., facility after a private equity firm purchased it, the NYT reported.

Carlyle's involvement in long-term care has been, thus far, a disgrace: Its lone chain of facilities, LifeCare Hospitals, currently stands accused of negligence after 24 patients died while waiting to be evacuated during Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

This doesn't bode well for the 3,300 Manor Care residents in Michigan. To begin with, Manor Care homes were already struggling to provide adequate care for our state's seniors. In the most recent reporting cycle, Manor Care's 28 Michigan homes were cited for 268 federal violations - some of them with double and even triple the number of state citations as well.

As part of its deal, Carlyle will also increase Manor Care's debt to $5.5 billion - 11 times more than Manor's 2006 profits. That puts Manor Care on the brink of bankruptcy, with little likelihood it will invest in health care services or staff. Quality will suffer. Our parents and grandparents will be put at serious risk.

Clearly, Carlyle's planned acquisition of Manor Care's Michigan homes will worsen the problems. If you need proof of how devastating these private equity buyouts are just look at how another equity firm, Cerberus Capital Management, recently slashed 11,000 more jobs over at Chrysler.

That's why we need to act now to protect seniors. A group of Michigan legislators has called on the state Department of Community Health to block Carlyle's purchase of these Michigan nursing homes unless the company meets some demands aimed at protecting quality care.

State Reps. Kathy Angerer (D-Dundee) and Robert Jones (D-Kalamazoo) have announced that they will hold crucial hearings to ensure that Carlyle won't slash health care quality, jobs and services. At the federal level, Congressman John Dingell has also announced he will hold hearings. And Michigan SEIU is urging the state Treasury Department - which has invested $786 million in state pension funds with Carlyle in the past decade - to hold the private equity firm accountable.

As Michigan's population ages, we must ensure that our parents and grandparents get the best care possible in what could be their final homes. We should do everything in our power to make nursing homes safer, more comfortable and more compassionate places.

We must stand up to Wall Street profiteers who want to throw elderly Michigan citizens to the wolves while they maximize profits. The residents of our nursing homes are our parents, our grandparents, our friends and our neighbors. They are not pawns to be used for Wall Street's gain.

Click here to contact your legislator about this urgent issue for our seniors.