Handcuffs Please

The CEO of Steward Health Care system earned more than 250,000,000.00 while running the hospital chain into the ground.

If corporations are people, why is this guy not charged with criminally negligent homicide?

Steward Health Care System was in such dire straits before its bankruptcy that its hospital administrators scrounged each week to find cash and supplies to keep their facilities running.

While it was losing hundreds of millions of dollars a year, Steward paid at least $250 million to its chief executive officer, Dr. Ralph de la Torre, and to his other companies during the four years he was the hospital chain’s majority owner.

Steward filed for bankruptcy in May, becoming one of the biggest hospital failures in decades. Conditions at some of its hospitals have grown dire. In one Florida hospital, a pest-control company last year found 3,000 bats.

This month in Phoenix, where temperatures topped 100 degrees, the air conditioning failed at a Steward hospital, forcing patients to be transferred elsewhere, according to a court filing. Also, the kitchen was closed because of health-code violations. The state last week ordered the hospital to cease operations.

Steward’s bankruptcy has drawn government scrutiny. A Senate committee has launched an investigation and subpoenaed de la Torre to testify next month.

Last month, on the day Steward said it would close two Massachusetts hospitals, de la Torre was in France to attend Paris Olympics equestrian events at the Palace of Versailles.

How about we take Dr. "Let them eat cake" and make him, Dr. "Put him in handcuffs."

………

Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey called for de la Torre to be federally investigated. “He basically stole millions out of Steward on the backs of workers and patients and bought himself fancy yachts, mansions and now apparently lavish trips to Versailles,” Healey said.

………

The $250 million in payments from Steward to de la Torre and to his businesses are based on public disclosures from Steward or companies it dealt with. The total likely understates the full tally because Steward’s bankruptcy-court disclosures in most cases have covered only the 12 months before it filed for chapter 11. Some of the $250 million was paid to de la Torre directly. Other payments were to companies that did business with Steward where he had big ownership stakes.

He is being investigated, but he needs to be charged criminally, something something that magistrate in Malta has already recommended. (Too corrupt for Malta, that's an accomplishment)

Second, we need to change bankruptcy laws to expose senior executives greater liability for their misdeeds.