Steward Health Is a Case Study in Executive Greed
Why is populism on the rise? The gutting of a community hospital system illustrates why so many Americans feel betrayed by big business.
Not a healthy way to run a hospital business.
Photographer: Hannah Yoon/Bloomberg
How does the chief executive of a failing hospital chain afford a $40-million, six-bedroom yacht — plus a 90-foot, custom-built sportfishing boat? When his hospitals can’t pay their vendors, how does he buy a mansion — with putting green, pool, and “loggia” — in the same Dallas neighborhood as George W. Bush and Mark Cuban? And why would his hospital system, which couldn’t afford basic medical supplies, spend $7 million on a spy movie-style scheme to surveil its critics?
Those seem like reasonable questions, and perhaps Ralph de la Torre, head of the now-bankrupt Steward Health Care hospital chain, will have to answer them if Senators Ed Markey and Bernie Sanders are successful in getting the subpoena they’re now seeking.
No doubt the senators — one a Democrat from sapphire-blue Massachusetts, the other America’s favorite Vermont socialist — would use a hearing with the beleaguered Steward chief to do a little populist rabble-rousing. Such talk is all the rage these days — on both sides of the aisle, with former President Donald Trump praising protectionist policies like tariffs and immigration restrictions that economists fear could bring back inflation. After all, politicians have little to lose in beating up on big business, which is far less trusted now than it was two decades ago.