Thread by @SarahUnsicker

This story is absolutely wild. And horrifying. 🧵usatoday.com/story/news/hea…

In late March, I posted a thread about Noble Healthcare. At the time, I knew they had closed, and I knew it was bad. I didn't know it was this bad. 2/

https://twitter.com/SarahUnsicker/status/1507437540550320134

What my March thread didn't get into was that Noble didn't pay the last paycheck to employees and that they hadn't paid health insurance premiums of their employees. 3/

Along with people in that community, we've been trying to get the state to get involved.

The Attorney General's Office has said they don't have jurisdiction over wage theft. (Yes, that's @Eric_Schmitt's office - the guy running for Senate in Missouri.) #MOSEN

4/

The Missouri Department of Commerce and Insurance claims that, since the insurance companies didn't do anything wrong, they can't do anything. 5/

And the Missouri Department of Labor can investigate but cannot go after the company for stealing employee wages. (Image from an e-mail received from MO DOL.) 6/

Yup, that's right - in Missouri, workers who don't get paid by their employer have to find a private attorney to sue to get paid what they are owed - while meanwhile trying to scrape up enough money for food and housing. 7/

Oh, and by the way, if they quit their jobs because they're not getting paid, then good luck getting any help from the state with those living expenses since the Legislature thinks people should work to be eligible for state assistance. revisor.mo.gov/main/OneSectio… 8/

(Fortunately, "unsubsidized employment" counts as a work activity.) 9/

But the state did do an inspection in August of 2021. They found that "the severity and cumulative effect of these practices had the potential to place all patients at risk for their health and safety." The hospital closed it's doors 7 months later. 10/ documentcloud.org/documents/2171…

Even though it was set up to have more patients, there were three overnight patients at the time. 11/

Now, in the state's defense, DHSS did a follow-up visit in November and found the hospital "in compliance". There were two patients in the hospital at the time. 12/

Oh, and that state inspection in August? It was at the direction of the Federal government. 13/

Back to the employee pay, though: the Federal Department of Labor has been looking into that since early March. 14/ documentcloud.org/documents/2212…

So, to recap, the State of Missouri can't do anything about the employers not paying their workers, didn't investigate dangerous conditions at the hospital on their own, but the Federal government is stepping in to protect employees and patients. 15/

By the way, I wonder how the federal lawsuit against this is going? (And more importantly, why Missourians would want the federal government to stay out of their business when the state does such a poor job of protecting its citizens?) 16/end
revisor.mo.gov/main/OneSectio…