Although expected since the summer, now it is official: Seattle-based Virginia Mason is folded into CommonSpirit Health, a massive national health care system which includes the CHI Franciscan system here in Washington State.

These sorts of mergers are nothing new. Years ago, Providence took over Swedish Medical Center, while the University of Washington did the same to Northwest Hospital and Valley Medical Center.

More recently, CHI itself gobbled up most of the heath care providers in Kitsap County, including Harrison Hospital and The Doctors Clinic.

Now, Virginia Mason is the latest institution to fall under the auspices not only of a larger health care system, but a Catholic-run one. Although a spokesman from VM said it would remain “non-Catholic”, that doesn’t square with two new changes: now no abortions or physician-assisted death will be available.

You may recall some prior discussions in our earlier coverage regarding the concept of a “non-profit” hospital system like CommonSpirit that in fact earns billions of dollars every year thanks to returns from their private venture capital funds.

As a result of aligning their philosophy with their new Catholic parent company, Washingtonians who may benefit from either (or both) of the now banned medical offerings will have even fewer places to go: as Virginia Mason is folded into CommonSpirit Health now 41% of all hospital beds in Washington are in Catholic facilities.

You can read more about the consolidation here.