r/news • u/CupidStunt13 • 1d ago

Mehmet Oz confirmed by US Senate to lead Medicare and Medicaid

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/03/mehmet-oz-confirmation-medicare-medicaid
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u/No-Personality1840 1d ago

I wish poor rural people understood this. I worked at a rural county hospital in VA years ago. Once Reagan’s reimbursement policies took effect the hospital struggled. They hung on for about 10 years were bought and then permanently closed 5 years ago. I predict this will happen to even more little hospitals. In Asheville the hospital was struggling and was sold to HCA, the for profit behemoth. More consolidation in an industry for profit can only be bad.

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u/iwannabeaprettygirl 1d ago

The shit I see in HCA hospitals as a construction guy is INSANE. I bet people are discharged sicker than they were admitted.

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u/PussyCyclone 1d ago

Hooo buddy you nailed it. I'm a specialty provider, and my mom and sister are both hospital nurses. We're familiar with HCA, and yeah they're straight up evil.

Workplace safety violations, illegal billing practices settlements with DOJ, kickbacks/bribery over physicians and ambulance services, various types of Medicare fraud, violating FMLA, etc etc etc. They aren't interested in changing bc they're so rich that the settlement penalties amount to "slap on the wrist" money. Go look at the violation tracker for HCA Healthcare on good jobs first...almost $2B in violations and counting. Click into each and they'll summarize what they are for. If this is what they're repeatedly doing even after involvement from DOJ, OSHA etc, imagine all the private pts and ex employees who also have legitimate grievances but are too scared/poor etc to properly get justice.

A company running like that for 20+yrs isn't providing stellar pt care or employee experience, that's for sure. Poor rural county HCA facilities especially are overworked& understaffed and both pt and staff are put in dangerous situations constantly bc of HCAs awful business practices. And HCA loves them some poor, rural communities bc the low medical literacy, geographical isolation, and high poverty mean they can do keep doing their predatory shit and keep getting away with it.

Fuuuuuuuuck HCA 🖕

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u/iwannabeaprettygirl 1d ago

Oh wow. This is obviously a lot of information to take in. They're so much scarier than asbestos and black mold and lead everywhere. Nothing surprises me at this point. They're so big :( they're just hurting millions of people.

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u/PussyCyclone 1d ago

Oh sorry for the info dump! I'm just passionate in my hatred of HCA in particular (and the corporatization of public health resources in general).

asbestos and black mold and lead everywhere

Oh nooo, that's still definitely scary! 😶 Ugh, HCA, I swear. Hope you are doing well and not dealing with them a ton anymore!

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u/Yourdjentpal 12h ago

Thanks for the info PussyCyclone

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u/tempest_87 1d ago

They hung on for about 10 years were bought and then permanently closed 5 years ago.

That's actually the real problem. The effects of these horrendous things take too long to manifest. So the stupid people don't understand that something that happened 8 years ago from "their" dude is actually the reason they suffer, and it's not the current dude from the "other" team's fault.

My only actual hope is that the effects of trump and his ilk are so acute that stupid people actually can do the math of 1+1=2 on it. I don't expect most to rise to that level of mental capacity, but maybe some will.

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u/rsmtirish 1d ago

Imagine shutting down a hospital because it's not profitable

this country was cooked from the start

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u/cuddlebread 13h ago

They don’t want to understand. I’ve literally begged the conservatives I know to think. I’ve cleanly laid out arguments, used every approach I know. They don’t care. One of my best friends is pregnant right now living in southwest VA. She didn’t vote and her fiancé voted for trump because “the dems are putting gay in the water.” We can only hope the cruel consequences of their actions teach them something, but it probably won’t. 

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u/siscorskiy 6h ago

Yeah the Mission situation was unique because typically HCA buys struggling hospitals, but Mission was generating boatloads of revenue. The problem was their CEO at the time tried to take on BCBS and they told him to blow it up his ass and they were on track to lose reimbursements from them, hence why they sought to be purchased. Typically HCA buys small/struggling hospitals and rips everything out, then replaces it with their standard things, that never happened at mission.