Prime's chairman, Prem Reddy, is also a generous political donor.

Over the
last seven years, he has contributed more than $375,000 to federal and state
campaigns across the country; his personal website contains a section -- "Dr.
Prem Reddy with Political Figures" -- that includes photos with presidents
from Ronald Reagan to Barack Obama.

3480 E. Guasti Road | Ontario, CA 91761 | Tel (909) 235-4400 www.primehealthcare.com

Early in Prime's expansion efforts in New Jersey, the Prem Reddy Family
Foundation made a $25,000 donation to the Drumthwacket Foundation -- the
non-profit attached to the governor's mansion and headed by first lady Mary
Pat Christie, foundation documents show.

DuHaime's firm launched a public-relations campaign of radio and direct-mail

ads to encourage residents of Passaic and southern Bergen County to attend
hearings and speak in favor of the St. Mary's sale. The Attorney General's
Office noted it "received an unprecedented number of comments," including
"hundreds of preprinted postcards signed by citizens in support of the sale,"
when it recommended court approval of it.

Prime also lined up the support of the nurses’ union at St. Mary's, the city's
mayor and state legislators, including Sen. Paul Sarlo, D-Wood-Ridge, deputy
majority leader and chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, and
Assemblyman Gary S. Schaer, D-Passaic, a onetime St. Mary's board member.
It needed the state to agree to absorb $22 million of St. Mary's debt at a time
of severe budget pressure in Trenton. It succeeded.

Other North Jersey hospitals that were taken over by

private owners engaged in similar campaigns.

* Hackensack University Medical Center spent tens of thousands of

dollars in its push to reopen the former Pascack Valley Hospital inWestwood
as a for-profit hospital, busing supporters to public hearings and sponsoring
rallies and petitions against the relentless opposition of two other Bergen
County hospitals. Campaigning for governor, candidate Chris Christie
stood in the parking lot of the then-empty hospital and promised that, if
elected, he would see it open anew. Helping to guide the venture through the
thicket of objections and state regulations was the politically prominent
Teaneck law firm of DeCotiis, FitzPatrick & Cole.

* The owners of Bayonne Medical Center have been represented by the

lobbying firm of former U.S. Sen. Robert Torricelli, which tried unsuccessfully
last year to thwart Prime's purchase of St. Mary's. Two years earlier,
Bayonne's owners had more success, when the state provided millions of

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dollars to help finalize the sale of Hoboken's failing hospital to the Bayonne
investment group. They are generous political contributors as well, with gifts
of more than $100,000 to Democratic state legislators, $25,000 to Christie's
political action committee and $150,000 to the Republican Governors
Association, now headed by Christie, records show.

* The owners of Meadowlands Hospital rely for legal representation on the

firm of Wolff & Samson, now in the news for partner David Samson's close ties
to Christie and his actions while he was chairman of the Port Authority that
are being investigated by authorities. Meadowlands used the firm to challenge
fines imposed by the state for delays in filing financial reports.
The owners have also contributed generously to politicians. The year their
purchase was approved, Richard Lipsky gave $25,000 to the Republican State
Committee; his contributions to state political campaigns over the last seven
years have totaled nearly $200,000, records show. Co-owners Anastasia
Burlyuk, Tamara Dunaev and Pavel Pogodin also have donated thousands of
dollars to state and national campaigns, records show.
The hospital hired a former Christie administration official, Insurance
Commissioner Tom Considine, as its CEO in May. Considine left the position
three months later.

Email: washburn@northjersey.com

3480 E. Guasti Road | Ontario, CA 91761 | Tel (909) 235-4400 www.primehealthcare.com