Hello partners,

Earlier this week it was announced that Dr. Ralph de la Torre, CEO and Chairman of Steward Health has refused to appear to testify at the Senate HELP Committee’s hearing next Thursday, on “Examining the Bankruptcy of Steward Health Care: How Management Decisions Have Impacted Patient Care.”

This is unacceptable for the thousands of workers and patients negatively impacted by Steward’s abuses; we continue to strongly support the committee’s efforts to investigate Steward’s mismanagement despite Dr. de la Torre’s refusal to appear and highlight the harmful role that private equity firms and the broader trend of the corporatization of health care are playing in our health system.

Our understanding is that the committee still plan to host the hearing as scheduled to highlight the patients, workers, and communities impacted by Steward’s behavior and we will share updates as we have them.

Under Dr. de la Torre’s leadership, Steward Health Care, which owns 31 hospitals in eight states, filed for bankruptcy on May 6 with more than $9 billion in debt. Steward’s financial problems have led to a lack of adequate staffing and supplies, endangering patients. There are also fears that the potential for closures could leave communities without crucial health care services and burden surrounding hospitals. The bankruptcy of Steward Health Care is just one example of the impacts of unchecked health industry consolidation and the proliferation of corporate greed in health care.

We urge the committee to advance policies such as price and ownership transparency, site neutral payments, and more, that will create a healthcare system that works for families, workers, primary care clinicians, employers, and health care consumers.

You can take action to support the committees’ efforts by signing on to signing on to our statement for the record for the hearing.

You can read the full letter here, and to sign on in support, click here, and submit the form. The deadline for submitting has now been extended to EOD Monday, September 9.

Thank you, and please let me know if you have any questions.

Mike Persley
Strategic Partnerships Campaign Manager
Families USA




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