When you dial 911 and Wall Street answers

A Tennessee woman slipped into a coma and died after an ambulance company took so long to assemble a crew that one worker had time for a cigarette break.

Paramedics in New York had to covertly swipe medical supplies from a hospital to restock their depleted ambulances after emergency runs.

In each of these cases, someone dialed 911 and Wall Street answered.

The business of driving ambulances represents just one facet of a profound shift on Wall Street and Main Street alike, an investigation by The New York Times has found. Since the 2008 financial crisis, private equity firms, the “corporate raiders” of an earlier era, increasingly have taken over an array of civic and financial services that are central to everyday American life.

Today, people interact with private equity when they dial 911, pay their mortgage, play a round of golf or turn on the kitchen tap for a glass of water. Private equity put a unique stamp on these businesses. Unlike other for-profit companies, which have years of experience offering a service, private equity is primarily skilled in making money. And in many of these businesses, The Times found, private equity firms applied a sophisticated moneymaking playbook: a mix of cost cuts, price increases and litigation.

In emergency services, this