Hospital Looter Says 'Nah' to His Senate Subpoena

[Passages]

The Steward yacht collector tells Bernie Sanders that testifying next week could jeopardize ‘patient care,’ or something; meets bipartisan contempt.

by Maureen Tkacik September 5, 2024


Steward Health founder Ralph de la Torre, who bought hundreds of millions of dollars worth of private jets, yachts, and luxury real estate while his three dozen community hospitals went for years without basic surgical supplies, functioning elevators, or air-conditioning, announced Wednesday he is refusing to comply with a congressional subpoena—because testifying, his lawyers (dubiously) claim, might cause more hospitals to close.

The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) voted 16-4 in July to serve de la Torre with its first subpoena since 1981 in the wake of news reports that the hospital chain, which de la Torre founded in 2010 with backing from the private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management, entered bankruptcy with $8 billion in debt while its CEO siphoned out more than a quarter-billion dollars and blew most of it on an epic midlife crisis, featuring a new wife 29 years his junior, a 500-acre ranch for her prizewinning racehorses, a $77,000-a-month detail for her security while traveling between the couple’s far-flung mansions, an Amalfi Coast wedding choreographed by Gwen Stefani and Blake Shelton’s wedding planner, and not one but two yachts.

Since then, news reports have revealed that Steward, despite stiffing vendors left and right, even for the lunch meat in its hospital commissaries, had spent millions of dollars paying private spies to illegally surveil, harass, and even fabricate bogus criminal schemes supposedly perpetrated by various critics of the company, including a former executive, a British hedge fund manager, and a Maltese health minister.

https://prospect.org/health/2024-09-05-hospital-looter-says-nah-senate-subpoena-steward/

[dutch777]

1. What a piece of work this guy is. I do hope there are lots of CMMS inspections going on at his hospitals.

The excuse that his testifying will risk hospitals closing is obviously bogus but is a threat. Likely some or all of these hospitals are the last medical lifeline to remote, rural or otherwise medically underserved communities. While hanging this a**hole out to dry may be highly desirable, impact to critically needed healthcare services is not. This guy seems to be of the same scum fabric as Trump but how you take him and the management team down, get the hospitals operating safely and well again and avoid their closing will be quite the trick. The private equity types bleeding scarce dollars from already challenged community hospitals should be some kind of crime but many on Wall Street see it as legitimate way to make a profit the cost of it to patients and communities that can hardly afford it be damned.

[RussBLib]

2. Over and over

...private equity firms loot a business, load it up with debt, take huge paydays, and declare bankruptcy. And it is still legal.

What a country.

[Midnight Writer]

4. Exactly.

[in2herbs]

3. When I read things like this I think that there has to be a CPA or other investment entity that is

managing his money and with the amount of money he claims to have made there has to be an off-shore account. Yet I never read about the feds going after the people who manage and funnel his money to these accounts. The prosecutions should be concurrent and not let the investment entity off the hook because of info it has/is providing to the feds to prosecute the guy.

[2naSalit]

5. The enablers.

[dchill]

6. Professional and profitable.

[C0RI0LANUS]

7. Ralph de la Torre sounds like an arrogant Russian oligarch. I mean, American oligarch.

Sic'em, Bernie!