HOW MANY NURSES DOES IT TAKE to change a patient’s blood. “The rising demand for dialysis has led to a boom in outpatient clinics that specialize in it. Two companies in particular — DaVita, which operates 286 dialysis centers in California, and Fresenius Medical Care, which operates 127 — have captured 70% of the market nationally, turning the decline in kidney health into billions of dollars in annual profits. Those centers and their profits are now the subject of a pitched battle in Sacramento over proposals to supplement federal regulations on the centers with new state requirements. Unfortunately, the proposals would raise the cost of dialysis without necessarily improving it.” Shocking, that.