Lawmakers in Washington turned their focus to the Steward Health Care bankruptcy scandal on Thursday, even as patients, doctors, and regulators across eight states continue to struggle with the hospital chain’s financially starved facilities.
Senators hoped to grill Steward chief executive Ralph de la Torre at the hearing in the Capitol but had to make do verbally attacking an empty chair. Despite a subpoena, de la Torre refused to appear.
The next step would be for lawmakers to hold de la Torre in contempt. That could lead to fines or imprisonment for the high-flying heart surgeon who built Steward into the country’s largest for-profit hospital chain while extracting hundreds of millions of dollars for himself and his financial partners, private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management and real estate investment trust Medical Properties Trust.
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