Ed Markey: “Thank you, Mr. Chairman, very much. Thank you for your great leadership on this issue. Thanks to Senator Cassidy. We…”

“Thank you, Mr. Chairman, very much. Thank you for your great leadership on this issue. Thanks to Senator Cassidy. We have made this bipartisan from the very beginning in order to ensure that the American public can completely understand what has happened to this Steward Health Care chain, and I thank him for the leadership in holding Dr. Ralph de la Torre accountable for his greed and shining a light on the deadly consequences that result from the involvement of for-profit forces in our healthcare system. Steward Health Care declared bankruptcy in May. It was a culmination of a financial tragedy. Over the past decade, Steward, led by its founder and CEO, Dr. Ralph de la Torre, and his corporate enablers, looted hospitals across the country for their own profit. And while they got rich, workers, patients, and communities suffered. Nurses paid out of pocket for cardboard bereavement boxes for the babies to help grieving parents who had just lost a newborn. Hospital beds collapsed underneath patients. Patients died alone in hallways. The Boston Globe Spotlight team has laid out the details in eye- watering fashion. Meanwhile, Ralph de la Torre and his corporate cronies got just what they wanted: hundreds of millions of dollars in profit, yachts, private jets, luxury vacations. They used hospitals to fund their own episode of ``Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.'' And its star is CEO Dr. Ralph de la Torre. Today, we are here because Dr.…”