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HCA Healthcare took control of Asheville’s nonprofit Mission Hospital seven years ago, on Feb. 1, 2019, but Groundhog Day seems the more appropriate anniversary. As in the 1993 film, the people of western North Carolina are trapped in a time loop. They’re forced to revisit the same hospital failures year after year.
At least four times since the sale — 2021, 2024, 2025, and now 2026 — inspectors from the state and federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services have concluded that HCA/Mission’s noncompliance with federal health and safety regulations “has placed the health and safety of recipients in its care at risk for serious injury, serious harm, serious impairment, or death.”…