To kick off a series of emails shining the spotlight on bad actors in our broken health care system, we want to start with Steward Health Care CEO Ralph de la Torre.

Under de la Torre’s leadership, Steward is responsible for buying up more than 30 hospitals from Massachusetts to Arizona, loading them up with debt, and selling the land underneath to real estate executives, leading many to shut down.

The company declared bankruptcy with some $9 billion in debt, at least 15 patients died at Steward-owned hospitals, and at least 2,000 other patients were put at risk due to a lack of medical equipment and staffing shortages.

Meanwhile, Steward CEO de la Torre was living the high life and raking in hundreds of millions of dollars, some of which was used to purchase a $40 million yacht (see below), a $62 million private jet for the company, and a $33 million backup jet for personal use.

This Boston Globe headline says it all:

This is what happens in a corrupt, for-profit health care industry, and it’s morally abhorrent. But Medicare for All champion Senator Bernie Sanders is doing something about it.

Under Sen. Sanders, the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) issued its first subpoena since 1981 to compel de la Torre to testify before Congress, but the CEO failed to appear at yesterday’s hearing.

Watch the hearing to hear Sen. Sanders make an example out of this corporate CEO who used our broken system to put profits and personal wealth before patients’ lives →

WATCH »

As patients continue to suffer due to the lack of needed care, de la Torre is just one of countless examples of the corporate greed that our for-profit system encourages. While Sen. Sanders and other health care champions continue to work to hold these bad actors accountable, we must keep up the fight to overhaul health care in America by passing Medicare for All.

In solidarity,

Nurses' Campaign to Win Medicare for All