Hannah Levintova

Wall Street gutted Steward Health Care. Patients paid the price. One of America's biggest for-profit hospital operators is bankrupt, broken, and responsible for countless mistreated patients—thanks to its private equity overlords.

And it is one more data point showing how the private equity business model isn't compatible with providing the best patient care. I wrote about another example for our latest issue, that of the PE-fueled Steward Health Care: www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

This study, published earlier this month, is quite striking. Especially because studying the impacts of PE ownership on hospitals is quite hard. The industry is opaque; plus, PE firms buy and then sell off the properties so fast that it's hard to track when something is or isn't PE-owned.

Her baby Lilly died. Lisa's lawyer filed a motion to compel Steward to turn over records so she could figure out if understaffing led to this delay. Her filing was *5 days* before Steward declared bankruptcy. That paused the case. Which means she can't get company records anymore. /10

In the case of Lisa Malick, she was pregnant with a healthy baby girl in 2021; it was her ninth pregnancy, after years of fertility struggles and IVF. She had a placental abruption at a Steward hospital. It took nearly 3 hours for someone to perform a C-section while the baby's heart rate fell. /9

Nabil and I talked on Zoom for months, almost weekly. It was a front row seat to the evolution of grief, and the recognition that something so life-altering can flow out of decisions made in a boardroom by people far removed from patient care. /8

In the case of Sungida’s husband, Nabil, 1.5 years later every day feels like a small betrayal. Of the dreams he and Sungida had for themselves and for their daughter in America. This was so apparent when I visited him in Dhaka for the film. /7

Wall Street gutted Steward Health Care. Patients paid the price. One of America's biggest for-profit hospital operators is bankrupt, broken, and responsible for countless mistreated patients—thanks to its private equity overlords.

Picking this back up to talk a little more about the two cases featured in this story and film. Both of these families emphasized the wreckage that continues to rip through their lives from the business decisions made at Steward hospitals. /6 www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

Wall Street gutted Steward Health Care. Patients paid the price. One of America's biggest for-profit hospital operators is bankrupt, broken, and responsible for countless mistreated patients—thanks to its private equity overlords.

@h-lev.bsky.social and @melissa.news scraped every malpractice, personal injury, and wrongful death case tied to Steward hospitals in nine states. We found 469 cases involving 83 patient deaths. The chain's bankruptcy means many of these patients can't pursue justice: bit.ly/455xC7O

Wall Street gutted Steward Health Care. Patients paid the price. One of America's biggest for-profit hospital operators is bankrupt, broken, and responsible for countless mistreated patients—thanks to its private equity overlords.

Sungida Rashid died after giving birth at a Massachusetts hospital run by the for-profit chain Steward Health Care.

She wasn't alone: @h-lev.bsky.social and @melissa.news uncovered 12 more instances of moms and newborns who died at these hospitals over the last 14 years: bit.ly/455xC7O

Wall Street gutted Steward Health Care. Patients paid the price. One of America's biggest for-profit hospital operators is bankrupt, broken, and responsible for countless mistreated patients—thanks to its private equity overlords.

It's impossible to read this story about a mom dying after childbirth and not be devastated and furious about everything that @h-lev.bsky.social found in her jaw-dropping investigation about America's biggest for-profit hospital operator www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

YouTube video by Al Jazeera English Inside one of the largest hospitals scandals in US history | Fault Lines Documentary

@atwaheed.bsky.social and @lailaalarian.bsky.social at Fault Lines decided to turn this reporting into a film. I'm so grateful to them. We travelled around the world to follow two families whose lives were torn apart, including Sungida’s husband and daughter /5 www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXkE...

…12 more moms and newborns who died. And 21 who suffered severe injuries. Their stories lay bare the line from corporate greed to shattered lives. But what we rarely get a chance to see is the long arc of devastation from these business decision; the months and years of what comes after. /4

Brilliant data wizard @melissa.news scraped every malpractice, personal injury, and wrongful death case tied to Steward hospitals. @idgordon.bsky.social and I sifted through them, and found 469 cases involving 83 patient deaths. Plus, a troubling pattern of problems in labor and delivery…/3

I read about the death of Sungida Rashid in @bostonglobe.com, at what is to this day’s my family’s neighborhood hospital. She died after Steward hadn’t paid the bill for the device that could have saved her. I wanted to know how many more families there might be like hers. /2

Wall Street gutted Steward Health Care. Patients paid the price. One of America's biggest for-profit hospital operators is bankrupt, broken, and responsible for countless mistreated patients—thanks to its private equity overlords.

I wrote about the rise and fall of Steward Health Care—fueled by a private equity firm, a real estate trust, & multimillionaire executives. The saga is a stunning indictment of what happens when financiers try to squeeze huge returns from the places that save people's lives. /1 shorturl.at/TcvV7

A DOGE Aide Involved in Dismantling Consumer Bureau Owns Stock in Companies That Could Benefit From the Cuts Gavin Kliger helped oversee mass firings at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau while holding stock in companies that experts say likely stand to benefit from dismantling that agency — a…

A DOGE staffer involved in dismantling the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau holds as much as $365,000 worth of shares of companies that the CFPB can regulate. Ethics experts say his actions are a potential violation of federal ethics laws.

Never a bad moment to revisit our blowout issue on private equity, kicked off by this banger of an essay by @h-lev.bsky.social: www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

The California fires could scorch the state's broken insurance market "It's very likely that we will see losses that exceed the existing reserves."

The roughly $2.5 billion California's insurer of last resort (FAIR) said it had lined up for quick claim fulfillment in 2024 is not even half of its nearly $6 billion exposure in the now-charred Palisades. www.motherjones.com/environment/...

This is exactly what happened in 2001, driven by the tax preparation industry, in order to kill a public option for tax reporting. The goal, then and now, is to force citizens to pay private companies in order to do their tax returns.
donmoynihan.substack.com/p/how-the-ta...

Exclusive: Fund manager Bessent scores double on Trump victory As a money manager, Scott Bessent's years of inconsistent performance have contributed to a nearly 90% decline in his hedge fund's assets. Now, with other business lines expanding, he has scored on perhaps his biggest bet yet: President-elect Donald Trump.

Trump’s Treasury Secretary nominee comes to the post from the hedge fund world where he lost 90% of the approximately $6 billion of assets entrusted to him. Nine zero. www.reuters.com/business/fin...

Medicaid May Face Big Cuts and Work Requirements Republicans in Congress are eyeing cuts to Medicaid, which could threaten health coverage for tens of millions of poor Americans.

So the Republican plan to pay for their tax cuts for the wealthy is to...you'll never guess...kick low-income people off their health insurance!

Party of the working class over here.

www.nytimes.com/2024/11/20/h...

Always read @sarahzhang.bsky.social

Trump allies believe the Federal Reserve leans left Conservatives increasingly see the Federal Reserve as an organization stacked with Democrats.

The Fed has a problem on the right, where it is increasingly seen as an arm of the Democratic establishment rather than as an apolitical technocracy. The political donation patterns of Fed system staff and boards of directors don't help.

www.axios.com/2024/11/18/f...

Pete Hegseth is ready to bring the culture war to the Pentagon The Fox News host is a perfect choice for implementing Project 2025.

I want to use bluesky to share pieces that taught me stuff. Here's a list of great stories today:

www.motherjones.com/politics/202... via @isabelaalhadeff.bsky.social

www.motherjones.com/politics/202... via @smencimer.bsky.social

www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc... via @jerusalem.bsky.social

Our starter pack is live!!! So come meet your MoJo BlueSky journalists!! 🤩

Matt Gaetz 1 month after Roe was overturned: "Why is it that the women with the least likelihood of getting pregnant are the ones most worried about having abortions? Nobody wants to impregnate you if you look like a thumb." www.tallahassee.com/story/news/2...

Here goes the earnest personal intro!

I’m Hannah Levintova, Special Projects Editor @motherjones.bsky.social, mom, and resident of the Best State™️, Rhode Island. Reporting on business, especially private equity, is my jam (I have an MBA), говорю по-русски. Other loves: 10-Ks, thrifting, New England

I’m sure others have already observed this but it’s hilarious that an efficiency commission requires two co-chairs

I feel like this site's demographics can be described as "still mad about the loss of Google Reader"

What's the quote about the definition of insanity being doing the same thing and expecting different results? Feeling that today. (Hello new social media platform, I guess I will be using you now!)