Thread by @LaurenWeberHP

This is the story of how a Miami entrepreneur and his business associates amassed a rural hospital empire -- and drove it into the ground, devastating towns across the country. Communities lost more than life-saving medical care and hundreds of good jobs. khn.org/news/rural-hos…

Jorge A. Perez said he was out to save rural hospitals. It was his “secret sauce,” Perez would smilingly tell people in their no-stoplight towns. The money-making ventures he proposed sounded complicated, sure, but he said they would bring in enough cash to save their hospital.

But now the hospital empire his companies helped manage is in ruins, and some of the communities that once welcomed him can barely speak his name. As @barbfederostrov and I found in our months of reporting…

Perez acknowledged his company stopped covering payroll taxes and insurance for hospital employees as the debt grew insurmountable. Some of the hospitals that closed owe hundreds of thousands in property taxes.

At Drumright Regional Hospital in Oklahoma, HR Director Allyson Lunsford said they ran out of oxygen and blood. By December, she said, they were so far behind on bills that the company that rented them hospital beds came to repossess them — despite patients still using them.

Tara Brewer, Chamber of Commerce head in Sweet Springs, Mo., where I-70 Community Hospital closed in Feb., said Perez’s company, EmpowerHMS,“is like a curse word.” Town Mayor Francis Vaught: “We were robbed.”

Brewer worries her town won’t survive the loss of its hospital. “What is it that we’re going to have for our kids?” she asked. khn.org/news/rural-hos…