The Landlord Gutting America’s Hospitals

Summary

Reveal Podcast: "The Landlord Gutting America’s Hospitals" Summary

Introduction and Scene Setting

In the spring of 2025, Reveal host Al Letson, alongside State Representative Michael Echols, reporter Hannah Leventova from Mother Jones, and producer Ashley Kleek, visit Glenwood Regional Medical Center in West Monroe, Louisiana. The team arrives in a seemingly vibrant small town, known for its live oak trees, Cajun cuisine, and picturesque river views. However, as they approach the hospital, the facade of normalcy quickly dissipates.

[00:03] Al Letson: "It's spring, 2025. We're in West Monroe, Louisiana. It's the kind of small town where you stop for lunch on a road trip and you're pleasantly surprised."

The Decrepit State of Glenwood Hospital

Upon entering Glenwood, the team encounters an eerie silence. The parking lot, typically bustling, is sparsely occupied, and the interior reveals a hospital in disarray. The reception area is empty, offices are closed with overgrown lawns outside, and critical areas like the cafeteria and labor and delivery wing remain shut down.

[02:15] Michael Echols: "The gift shop doesn't have any gifts."

[03:18] Hannah Leventova: "This is wild. I feel like we just walked into a vacant building. Like a movie set."

The abandonment is not merely superficial; critical services such as neurosurgery, labor and delivery, and urology have ceased operations. The absence of functioning elevators and closed departments underscores the hospital's operational collapse.

Unraveling the Financial Crisis

Investigations reveal that Glenwood, a 278-bed hospital, is part of a troubling pattern of closures across the nation. Hospitals like Kearney Hospital in Boston, Northside Hospital in Youngstown, Texas Vista Medical Center in Texas, and others have either shut down or are teetering on the brink of closure. Central to this crisis is Medical Properties Trust (MPT), a publicly traded real estate company owning hospital properties.

[04:04] Al Letson: "Louisiana, Massachusetts, Ohio, Texas, Pennsylvania. All across the country, hospitals like Glenwood, owned by the same company, are falling apart."

Impact on Staff and Patients

Current and former employees, exemplified by Charlie (a pseudonym to protect identity), describe a gradual deterioration in hospital services starting around 2022-2023. The hospital began missing payments for essential services and supplies, leading to operational inefficiencies and directly jeopardizing patient care.

[07:21] Charlie: "It got so ridiculous, they ran out of toilet paper. You cannot understand how across the board it was. It was embarrassing is what it was mostly."

[07:36] Hannah Leventova: "And it was also dangerous because Glenwood stopped paying some of its on-call doctors."

Steward Healthcare and the Role of MPT

At the heart of the financial turmoil is Steward Healthcare, a for-profit chain that, at its peak, operated 41 hospitals nationwide. Steward's CEO, Ralph De La Torre, became emblematic of corporate greed, especially after Patrick defined Steward's bankruptcy and subsequent legal troubles, including a subpoena from Senator Bernie Sanders.

[08:35] Hannah Leventova: "Steward is bankrupt, but MPT is still a multi-billion dollar company good at selling the promise of its business, Medical Properties Trust, at the very heart of health care."

Medical Properties Trust's Business Model Exposed

MPT operates as a Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT), specializing in purchasing hospital properties. Their strategy involves acquiring hospitals at inflated prices, leading to untenable rent obligations for the healthcare operators. This model has resulted in numerous bankruptcies among their tenants, including nine healthcare companies and over 50 hospitals nationwide.

[23:29] Hannah Leventova: "We've got that asset there in that big box building of theirs that they can do one of three things with nothing, or they can mortgage it, or they can come to somebody like us where we'll give them 100% of the value in that building."

Internal Resistance and Ethical Concerns

Employees like Alex Hubbard, a former underwriting analyst at MPT, highlight internal conflicts where their financial assessments were overridden to maintain high purchase prices and rents, directly contributing to the financial strain on hospitals.

[27:00] Alex Hubbard: "So if you produce zero cash because all of your revenue goes to just pay your expenses, then that hospital can't sustain the rent that's allocated to it."

Covert Retaliation Against Critics

Frasier Perring, a short-seller analyst from Viceroy Research, faced severe retaliation after publishing critical reports on MPT, including impersonation attacks and invasive surveillance orchestrated by Steward Healthcare. This intimidation extended to online harassment, with anonymous accounts targeting and threatening critics.

[34:53] Michael Echols: "The allegations were that MPT was engaging in these transactions with Steward. That was really a means to help Stewart stay afloat so that they could pay rent."

Legislative Hearings and Accountability Efforts

State Representative Michael Echols spearheaded a legislative hearing to hold MPT accountable. During the session, testimonies from healthcare professionals like Deborah Russell underline the dire consequences of MPT's financial maneuvers, including patient deaths due to neglect of essential services.

[11:50] Deborah Russell: "We had a patient that was having a heart attack... they didn’t have a cardiologist on call."

MPT's executive, Jonathan Turton, failed to provide transparent answers regarding lease payments, further obfuscating accountability. The hearing concluded with Echols passionately urging for legislative reforms to impose financial responsibility on landlords like MPT in healthcare.

[15:27] Michael Echols: "You can't run a hospital that way."

Bankruptcy and Continuing Crisis

Following the hearing, Steward Healthcare declared bankruptcy, acknowledging a staggering $9.2 billion in debt, mainly owed to MPT. Despite Steward's downfall, MPT continues to thrive, yet the systematic collapse of numerous hospitals under its lease agreements paints a grim picture of prioritizing profit over patient care.

[16:31] Al Letson: "MPT is still a multi-billion dollar company good at selling the promise of its business, Medical Properties Trust, at the very heart of health care."

Healthcare Systems of America (HSA) Takes Over Glenwood

After Steward's bankruptcy, Glenwood was taken over by Healthcare Systems of America (HSA), a company with dubious practices similar to Steward. HSA's handling of Glenwood raised further red flags, including allegations of unpaid bills and service cuts, perpetuating the cycle of neglect and financial instability.

[44:12] Charlie: "There was nothing. Everything was still operating under the way Steward did it."

Legislative Resistance and Ongoing Struggles

Despite strong evidence of systemic issues, legislative efforts to regulate MPT's influence failed narrowly. State Senator Katrina Jackson Andrews's comprehensive questioning did not yield immediate results, as MPT's CEO, Ed Aldag, continued to deny responsibility and distance the company from operational failures.

[50:20] Ed Aldag: "No. No, we certainly don't have any responsibility for the operations that failed at Steward or the operations that failed at Prospect."

Conclusion and Future Outlook

The podcast concludes with an unresolved tension between the collapsing healthcare facilities and the untouchable real estate landlords profiting from their demise. West Monroe remains anxious about Glenwood's future, fearing further service cuts or closure, while legislative and legal battles loom over MPT's accountability.

[51:58] Al Letson: "For months, MPT hasn't responded to our questions. So as everyone leaves the room, we try to finally get Ed to talk to us. He never agrees to one. Why have so many hospital systems MPT has worked with gone bankrupt?"

Key Takeaways and Insights

• Profit Over Care: MPT's REIT model prioritizes high-value real estate investments over the sustainability of healthcare services, leading to widespread hospital closures and compromised patient care.

• Corporate Greed: Steward Healthcare's bankruptcy and the intertwining with MPT highlight a broader issue of corporate greed undermining essential public services.

• Lack of Accountability: MPT's evasive tactics and legislative resistance underscore the difficulty in holding powerful corporations accountable for their detrimental impact on communities.

• Systemic Failures: The pattern of overpaying for hospitals and imposing unsustainable rents demonstrates a systemic failure in the intersection of healthcare and real estate markets.

• Future Legislation: Ongoing legislative efforts aim to curb MPT's influence, though significant challenges remain in implementing effective oversight and accountability measures.

Notable Quotes with Attribution and Timestamps

• Al Letson: "[00:03] Setting the scene for Glenwood Regional Medical Center in West Monroe, Louisiana."

• Michael Echols: "[03:27] 'I mean, this is terrorizing the health care market. That's why I called these people healthcare terrorists.'"

• Charlie: "[07:21] 'It got so ridiculous, they ran out of toilet paper. You cannot understand how across the board it was.'"

• Deborah Russell: "[11:50] 'We had a patient that was having a heart attack... they didn’t have a cardiologist on call.'"

• Alex Hubbard: "[27:00] 'So if you produce zero cash because all of your revenue goes to just pay your expenses, then that hospital can't sustain the rent that's allocated to it.'"

• Ed Aldag: "[50:20] 'No. No, we certainly don't have any responsibility for the operations that failed at Steward or the operations that failed at Prospect.'"

This comprehensive investigation by Reveal sheds light on the intricate and often hidden relationships between real estate investment trusts and healthcare providers, revealing the profound implications for public health and community well-being.

Transcript

[Al Letson]

From the center for Investigative Reporting and prx, this is Reveal. I'm Al Letson. And let me set the scene. It's spring, 2025. We're in West Monroe, Louisiana. It's the kind of small town where you stop for lunch on a road trip and you're pleasantly surprised. It's pretty big. Live oak trees, good Cajun food, fancy coffee, and a river.

[Michael Echols]

We're heading across in just a moment. The Ouachita river into West Aspen Row. Take a left here.

[Al Letson]

This is State Representative Michael Echols, and this is his district. Michael's in the passenger seat while Mother Jones reporter Hannah Leventova drives.

[Hannah Leventova]

Tell me more about where we're at right now.

[Al Letson]

And producer Ashley Kleek records.

[Hannah Leventova]

I'm not sure whether to call you Representative Echo's. Mike, she's coming.

[Michael Echols]

Michael.

[Hannah Leventova]

Mike. Mike. Okay, Michael.

[Al Letson]

The three of them are on their way to the local hospital, Glenwood Regional Medical Center.

[Hannah Leventova]

We're driving up to Glenwood right now.

[Michael Echols]

Yeah, that red brick building is with the green pyramid entrance.

[Al Letson]

The hospital was built back in the 1960s, and once it opened, businesses mushroomed out around it. All along the road leading to Glenwood are red brick doctor's offices.

[Hannah Leventova]

I'm seeing eye care.

[Michael Echols]

So these are medical offices.

[Hannah Leventova]

It's all medical? Yeah, gps, dentists.

[Al Letson]

Most of these buildings are closed, their lawns overgrown and their windows dark.

[Michael Echols]

There were more. There were a lot more. So, like right up here on the.

[Al Letson]

Left, Michael, Hannah, and Ashley pull up to the.

[Michael Echols]

Normally, this parking lot would be just absolutely full of cars, and you see maybe 30 cars here at the most.

[Al Letson]

Inside, there's a wood reception desk. The TV in the waiting area is on low, and something immediately feels off.

[Michael Echols]

There's nobody here. This is crazy. There's nobody here.

[Al Letson]

The hospital is open, but there are no patients anywhere. No one is at reception. Every chair in the waiting area is empty. There's no security. To the right is a room with empty shelves.

[Michael Echols]

The gift shop doesn't have any gifts.

[Al Letson]

They walk down a quiet, empty hallway to the cafeteria, which is closed.

[Michael Echols]

There's an out of order sign on their elevator, their main elevator. I mean, these are how patients get to and from surgery and other places. And so when you don't have functioning elevators, you don't have functioning cafeterias, you don't have functioning gift shops. That's bizarre. Like, you can't run a hospital that way.

[Al Letson]

They walk past the hospital's labor and delivery wing. It's also closed. All the lights are off. Glenwood stopped delivering babies temporarily, but that was three years ago.

[Hannah Leventova]

It still says labor and delivery nicu. All of those are closed.

[Al Letson]

The other thing they notice, and this is a 278 bed hospital, is that there are no intercom announcements. There's no sound at all. Just their echoey footsteps. Hannah, Michael and ashley spend about 10 minutes walking up and down public hallways before they leave and walk outside.

[Hannah Leventova]

This is wild. I feel like we just walked into a vacant building. Like a movie set.

[Michael Echols]

Like Chernobyl. Ish, right?

[Al Letson]

Chernobyl. An empty wasteland.

[Hannah Leventova]

I'm sorry, but your face looks shocked and you look like you look actually upse pissed.

[Michael Echols]

I mean, this is terrorizing the health care market. That's why I called these people healthcare terrorists. They have blown up our healthcare delivery system and we're lucky we only have one hospital. Communities across the east coast have multiple that they've looted and left.

[Hannah Leventova]

Boston EMS is bracing for the closure of Kearney Hospital. We are learning Northside Hospital in Youngstown is closing its doors.

[Ed Aldag]

Next shutdown leaves thousands without a job.

[Hannah Leventova]

After nearly 40 years in business. Texas Vista Medical center on the south side is shutting down.

[Al Letson]

Louisiana, Massachusetts, Ohio, Texas, Pennsylvania. All across the country, hospitals like Glenwood, owned by the same company, are falling apart. And today, with the help of documents obtained by journalists from the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, we are bringing you the story of how this happened. How profit driven companies and Wall street traded these hospitals back and forth like stocks while staff and patients suffered. At the heart of this story is a publicly traded real estate company that at its peak claimed to be the second largest private owner of hospital real estate in the world, second only to the Catholic Church. Hannah picks up the story in West Monroe.

[Hannah Leventova]

Walking through Glenwood, it felt like there should have been yellow caution tape strung across the front door. An indication that something happened here, something that fundamentally upended this hospital. Glenwood is the only hospital in West Monroe, and for a long time it was the biggest employer. So we started talking to nurses, maintenance workers and residents about what they had seen. Can I just ask why? Why you even agreed to talk to us?

[Charlie]

Tough to answer that.

[Hannah Leventova]

This is a person we're calling Charlie. That's not their real name or their real voice. We hired an actor to read out their interview because they're worried that they could lose their job at Glenwood.

[Charlie]

I would say that it's just been so much bad on top of negative. It just reaches a tipping point. You just get sometimes tired of seeing what you see. And on top of that, being told you don't see what you see and you know good and well you do.

[Hannah Leventova]

For decades, Glenwood had been a busy hospital. And for years it was profitable. And then Charlie and others told us around 2022, 2023, they started to notice big changes. Doctors leaving, major departments closing.

[Charlie]

Well, you lost neurosurgery, labor and delivery, rehab and urology. All those we had, we don't have today.

[Hannah Leventova]

And then there started to be issues with supplies.

[Charlie]

It was a non stop escalating buildup of, I'll just say nonsense to be nice.

[Hannah Leventova]

In the course of reporting, we talked to more than a dozen people connected to Glenwood. And so many of them said the same thing. The hospital stopped paying its bills, all kinds of bills. They didn't pay the landscaper, so the grass went uncut. They didn't pay contractors who monitor and fix the H Vac and the elevators, so sometimes those stopped working. They didn't pay the blood bank or the company that manages the oxygen supplies. They didn't pay for the aquarium in the lobby, so the local business repossessed the fish.

[Charlie]

It got so ridiculous, they ran out of toilet paper. You cannot understand how across the board it was. It was embarrassing is what it was mostly.

[Hannah Leventova]

And it was also dangerous because Glenwood stopped paying some of its on call doctors.

[Charlie]

And it would have to get like months out before they said, okay, we're not, we're not taking call till, you know, till you pay us.

[Hannah Leventova]

Behind Glenwood's stack of unpaid bills was a for profit chain called Steward Healthcare. I've spent a lot of time reporting on Steward. At its peak, the company ran 41 hospitals all over the country. It became the largest for profit hospital operator in the nation. The CEO, Ralph De La Torre, bought himself a yacht and an apartment in Spain while hospitals like Glenwood suffered. And then last year, Steward went bankrupt. I reported extensively on patients who died in Steward hospitals. So did the Boston Globe. The company got a lot of bad press. Senator Bernie Sanders subpoenaed De La Torre, the now former CEO, to testify in front of the Senate. And when he didn't show up, Sanders put him on blast. Perhaps more than anyone else in America.

[Ed Aldag]

Ralph De La Torre, the CEO of.

[Hannah Leventova]

Stuart Healthcare, is the poster child for this outrageous type of corporate greed that is permeating our for profit healthcare system. At first it was easy for Charlie and others in West Monroe to put all the blame on Steward or De La Torre. But there was more to it than just Steward.

[Charlie]

I think a lot of people didn't know MPT was in the loop for years. I Mean many years, Steward was running.

[Hannah Leventova]

Glenwood, but mpt medical properties trust is the company that actually owns glenwood. In fact, MPT owns almost 400 medical facilities around the world. The real estate, the buildings, and the land the hospitals sit on. MPT is a landlord, and Steward was its tenant. Steward and MPT joined forces at Glenwood in 2017 as part of a massive real estate deal where MPT bought a bunch of hospitals around the country and then Stewart agreed to run them. The promise of this deal was growth. A bunch more hospitals paying rent to MPT and for steward, a huge expansion and a large infusion of cash. But at Glenwood, Charlie saw no signs that any of the money swirling from this deal was trickling down. We reached out to Stuart for comment on this story, but they did not respond to our questions. By 2023, things were really bad at Glenwood, and Michael Echols, the state rep, was getting calls from doctors and nurses every week.

[Michael Echols]

I mean, they were telling me, michael, don't go to that hospital. It's a dangerous situation.

[Hannah Leventova]

So Michael called the state health department. When the state came in, they were shocked at what they saw. There weren't enough staff or doctors on call, and patients were at risk of being hurt. Three times in four months, the state gave Glenwood what's called an immediate jeopardy citation, meaning the hospital was unsafe and wasn't allowed to admit patients until it fixed its problems. By 2024, Michael is at his wit's end. He hears that staff at Glenwood are being asked to clean the hospital themselves.

[Michael Echols]

These are healthcare professionals, and they're cleaning the lobby that are cleaning out trash and other things.

[Hannah Leventova]

As Michael's talking to hospital staff, he's trying to figure out why Glenwood is so broken. And he keeps hearing that Glenwood's rent to MPT is a big part of the problem. Only no one at Stuart or MPT will show him the lease or tell him how much the hospital owes each month. So Michael and his colleagues in the legislature decide to hold a hearing. They ask hospital staff and other people from the community to come testify.

[Deborah Russell]

My name is Deborah Russell. I'm an acute care nurse practitioner. I've been at Glenwood for. And I don't want to get emotional. 33 years. I walked out this past November.

[Hannah Leventova]

Deborah is trying to communicate to a room full of legislators, most of whom have never been in her hospital, just how much working there has meant to her.

[Deborah Russell]

I wrote all these bullet points, but I'm just going to speak to you from my heart. We had a patient that was having a heart attack. We run this fella. I want to be real general so it's not violating anything. We run him to the emergency room, and I look, the ER doc's taken over. Things are looking okay. They start calling a cardiologist. Well, guess what? They didn't get paid. So I don't even have a cardiologist on call.

[Hannah Leventova]

Debra doesn't say what happened to this patient. But we looked through hospital inspection reports and federal deficiency reports from this time and found a similar case. In that one, a patient needed to be transferred from Glenwood to another hospital that had a higher level of care. The doctor on call at Glenwood didn't answer their phone to approve the transfer. The patient coded, was given CPR and died. And there were so many other issues in these reports. Not enough staffing, no one to run the ultrasound machine, no one to put in catheters. They were so behind on their bills that the blood bank would only supply blood if they were paid in cash. Upon delivery, they had to move a patient to a different bed when the vendor came to repossess hospital beds in the middle of the night. And because there weren't enough beds, they also had to transfer patients out of state. Glenwood frequently ran out of the basic supplies needed to do biopsies, dialysis, and other things.

[Deborah Russell]

I don't know how many of you are physicians or in the healthcare field, but you would ask for a guide wire. Now, I'm talking about a $5 piece of equipment. And you would send a nurse to go get it. And she would come back and say, oh, Ms. Deborah, I don't have any. I said, go to another unit. And I'm standing here holding. Keep blood from flowing. Go to another unit. Go find me one. Call every unit. We don't have one.

[Hannah Leventova]

Michael Echols and his colleagues wanted answers about how things got this bad and who was responsible.

[Michael Echols]

Sir, would you introduce yourself, please?

[Al Letson]

Good morning. Good afternoon. My name is Jonathan Turton. I'm a board certified healthcare executive with more than 30 years of experience.

[Hannah Leventova]

This is the interim head of Glenwood. At the time of this hearing, he'd only been there about six months.

[Ed Aldag]

But let's walk through your model. Okay.

[Hannah Leventova]

This is state Senator Stuart Cathy Jr and Glenwood's in his district, too. And these lawmakers want to know if stewards rent to MPT is contributing to the hospital's financial crisis.

[Ed Aldag]

What's your monthly payment to the medical property's trust in rent for Glenwood?

[Al Letson]

Senator, to be quite honest, with all due respect, I Actually don't know because I have had my hands full focusing on the health and safety of our patient population.

[Ed Aldag]

So you don't. As the CEO of the hospital, you don't know what your monthly rent payment is?

[Al Letson]

I do not know right now.

[Ed Aldag]

Who in the audience is from Steward that could make. Can you answer these questions, sir?

[Michael Echols]

You can't talk from the audience. Mr. Turton, who are your colleagues?

[Al Letson]

My colleague here today is Josh Putter.

[Michael Echols]

His role.

[Al Letson]

This is South Region President Stewart Healthcare.

[Michael Echols]

I think that his testimony would be very valuable. Is Mr. Putter going to come to the table? He's refusing to test God. Thank you. Let the record show the south regional president of Stuart has refused to testify.

[Hannah Leventova]

Michael and others are at a loss over this secrecy.

[Michael Echols]

I'm going to wrap up my commentary now. Do you feel personally responsible for any deaths or declining care at your facility?

[Al Letson]

Yes.

[Michael Echols]

Thank you. So that will conclude my questions. I just want to say what has happened at Medical Properties Trust, Stewart Health Group and Glenwood Mergeville Medical center is a descent service to our community. You've killed people, you've maimed people, and you forced our market into places it should never go. I'm embarrassed that we even have to have this hearing today. It is an absolute disgrace to our patients, our people of Northeast Louisiana.

[Hannah Leventova]

A month after this hearing, Stewart declared bankruptcy. And in those filings, Stewart admits that it is $9.2 billion in debt across its dozens of hospitals. The majority of that debt, more than 6 billion, is rent payments to MPT. For its part, MPT has tried to distance itself from Steward. But these two companies are intertwined. And for years they were involved in a series of hospital takeovers that would benefit their companies at the expense of patients.

[Al Letson]

So Stewart is bankrupt, but MPT is still a multi billion dollar company good at selling the promise of its business, Medical Properties Trust, at the very heart of health care. An inside look at MPT as hospitals are collapsing. That's next on Reveal.

[Najeeb Momini]

Following the Project 2025 playbook to the letter, the Christian nationalists wielding government power are systematically erasing millions upon millions of us from federal laws, government programs and any other form of basic recognition. While these outrageous attacks add up daily, it's important to know organizations are fighting back to defend every individual's rights and and freedoms. Americans United for Separation of Church and State is one of those organizations. AU is doubling down on fighting back against Christian nationalism in the courts and the public square. And this summer, they need your help more than ever. During the month of July, one of AU's progressive supporters created a dollar for dollar match for their freedom without favor. Funding this fund was established to support au's legal and policy work over the next four years as they continue the fight to end Christian nationalism and support every individual's right to live as they choose, so long as they don't harm others. Join the fight by donating today. Visit au.org reveal to become a member of AU and fight back.

[Al Letson]

Hello listener. My name is Najeeb Momini and I am a producer here at Reveal. Reveal is a nonprofit news organization and we depend on support from our listeners. Listeners like you. Donate [e-mail] donate. It helps fund the stories that we tell and helps me feed my cat. So thank you from the center for Investigative Reporting and prx. This is Reveal. I'm Al Ledsense. We've been telling you about a hospital in West Monroe, Louisiana that was so strapped for resources, its CEO admitted he felt personally responsible for the deaths and declining care. But the company running the hospital didn't own the facility, it was a tenant. A real estate company called Medical Properties Trust owned the hospital building and the land it sits on. MPT is based in Birmingham, Alabama, and the company's founder, Ed Aldag, is well known there.

[Ed Aldag]

What I thought I'd go through today is a very brief overview of who Medical Properties Trust is.

[Al Letson]

This is a 2011 Rotary event for young business people to maybe inspire some.

[Ed Aldag]

Of you guys to do the same things that we did.

[Al Letson]

Ed Aldag wouldn't talk to us for this story, but we found this speech where he lays out the origins of mpt.

[Ed Aldag]

So I went to New York, packed my bags, went to raise all this money. I got at least 100 no's, but we didn't quit there.

[Al Letson]

It's a good founders narrative. Perseverance, gumption, success after loads of rejection. And for Ed, this is a true culmination of an American dream. He says his grandfather came to the US from Germany and worked as a locksmith on Wall Street.

[Ed Aldag]

And here we were almost 60 years later and I was ringing the bell of the New York Stock Exchange. And that's true.

[Al Letson]

Ed rang the bell in 2005, which meant that now NPT could say, sell its stock. And here's what they were selling. MPT is called a REIT, a real estate investment trust. REITs are companies that typically buy up malls or apartment buildings. But MPT found an undeveloped niche. It buys up hospitals.

[Ed Aldag]

They've got that asset there in that big box building of theirs that they can do one of three things with nothing, or they can mortgage it, or they can come to somebody like us where we'll give them 100% of the value in that building.

[Al Letson]

But that 100% value doesn't come cheap, because once a healthcare company sells its hospital to mpt, it's got a landlord and it's on the hook for rent, and many won't be able to keep up. We dug through bankruptcy documents and found that at least nine health care companies that had lease agreements with MPT have gone bankrupt, impacting more than 50 hospitals all over the country. Nine hospitals closed permanently. Dozens of others were sold or remain entangled in bankruptcy proceedings. And then there are those, like Glenwood, that became depleted shelves. Mother Jones reporter Hannah Levintova and Reveal producer Ashley Kleek wanted to learn more about the company lurking in the background behind these bankruptcies. But as they reported, they found a code of silence around mpt. So many people would not talk, and when they did, they wanted their names withheld, including a woman. We're going to call Samantha.

[H]

I told a friend, I'm like, this is the last time I will speak on these people, because I'm like, I'm just so exhausted.

[Al Letson]

Samantha didn't want to use her real name because she was worried about retaliation. Hannah is going to take it from here.

[Hannah Leventova]

When MPT offered Samantha a job in 2018, it was for more money than she had ever made in her life.

[H]

And to be honest, I had never been anywhere like Medical Properties Trust.

[Hannah Leventova]

The company knew how to impress. They gave her a corporate amex card and tickets to Gala's. They had a couple of corporate jets, threw lavish Christmas parties, and the office was gorgeous, open and airy.

[H]

When you step in, you're like, oh, this is so beautiful and peaceful. But you spend time there and you realize that it's a very tense environment where you're not encouraged to speak up because there are people who are early in their careers and who are less likely to rock the boat.

[Hannah Leventova]

Alex Hubbard joined MBT a few months after Samantha. It was his first job at a business school. He was young and hungry.

[I]

And you're like, I can be CEO in three years. You know, not really, but it's like you just got a lot of, like, excite.

[Hannah Leventova]

Alex worked in underwriting, so he tried to figure out how much MPT should pay for the hospitals it was buying. He would check financials, look at how much the hospital made every year and how much other hospitals nearby had sold for. And then he would bring his research to his bosses here's what we should pay for the hospital. And here's about how much rent the hospital could afford. But all his work, Alex says it was not reflected in the final numbers he saw.

[I]

NPT has a great, educated team of asset managers, but when they do the analysis, come back and bring what they believe could be reasonable and market rate. The executives go a different direction. And a different direction is typically offer more money for the same real estate, request more rent from that more money.

[Hannah Leventova]

Alex remembers a deal in 2019 where Stewart Healthcare bought a hospital in Texas for $11 million. The same day, MBT bought that same hospital from steward for 26 million. And as I started looking into it, I saw that actually from the beginning of their relationship, MPT overpaid for Steward's hospitals. For example, in 2016, MPT bought St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Massachusetts for $189 million. That is 10 times more than Steward had paid six years earlier. MPT also bought Kearney Hospital for $263 million. That is 21 times more than Stewart paid for it eight years earlier. Why would MPT pay so much? Well, according to mpt, these values make sense. Ed Aldec often says that big upfront cash payments like this help hospitals improve. These purchases, though, also drive up the value of MPT's portfolio and make the company look more successful to investors.

[J]

What we're seeing is a clear example of health care being used purely as a financial asset.

[Hannah Leventova]

This is Rosemary Bot. She's an academic at Cornell University. Rosemary studies all the different Wall street actors that have turned hospitals into assets. NPT for profit providers like Steward and the investors who own them.

[J]

And what we mean by that is that a healthcare organization is not conceptualized in terms of serving patients. It's purely conceptualized as an asset to be bought, managed for extraction of wealth.

[Hannah Leventova]

And sold healthcare that's bought, managed and sold like a stock. And that language masks what hospitals lose when greed overtakes care. Important supplies, entire departments and dedicated staff. Like what happened at Glenwood.

[J]

I think this is very. I think this is predatory. I think these are financial actors that prey on the vulnerable, that prey on systems where there's very lax regulation and where they know they can get away with financial deals that enrich themselves at the expense of the public.

[Hannah Leventova]

So how does MPT make money if it's overpaying for hospitals? Rosemary says that this is a key part of their business model.

[J]

MPT is willing to do that because it will be able to charge very inflated rents for a long term. So it's going to make a lot of money over time.

[Hannah Leventova]

And Alex had a front row seat to these kinds of deals. He was monitoring stewards, hospitals, and he could see that some of them could not afford their high rents.

[I]

So if you produce zero cash because all of your revenue goes to just pay your expenses, then that hospital can't sustain the rent that's allocated to it.

[Hannah Leventova]

Alex says on rent days at the office, there was this intense flurry where executives would be monitoring which companies were paying and which weren't. And if they weren't paying, did they need a loan? Eventually, Alex says, he stopped believing MPT's story that it was helping hospitals and improving health care. It's one of the reasons he ended up leaving.

[I]

It's really frustrating from like an analyst perspective for me to like, do all this reporting stuff and then ultimately, when the metrics are not good, to just say, oh, well, Ed and Steve will just take care of it.

[Hannah Leventova]

That's Ed Aldag and Steve Hamner, MBT's chief financial officer. And what Alex understood was that Ed and Steve would find a way to underwrite a deal with the numbers they wanted to and keep the purchase price and the rent high. And there was another incentive to do this. In public filings from this time, NPT wrote that executives pay would be based on the dollar amount of acquisitions. So the more hospitals they bought and the more they spent on them, the more money the executives made.

[Ed Aldag]

2021 is shaping up to be another fantastic year for MPT.

[Hannah Leventova]

This is Ed on an earnings call, talking to shareholders and Wall street analysts. The company's stock price is at a high point, nearly $23 a share.

[Ed Aldag]

We have successfully executed approximately $5 billion in transactions.

[Hannah Leventova]

To Wall street, big purchases can signal growth. A company that's on the rise and more money. For investors, these billions in purchases also meant more money for MPT executives like Ed. That year, his salary and bonuses totaled $17 million. MPT staff would listen to these earnings calls. And for Samantha, the CEO's message of growth and success was always confusing because she was hearing a very different story inside the company.

[H]

Just always somebody was saying, stuart's broke. They're asking us for money because they're broke.

[Hannah Leventova]

Samantha says this was a regular refrain. She heard it all the time. In fact, at the same time that Ed is announcing this massive growth, he's also telling investors that MPT has loaned Steward $335 million. But he doesn't say it's a loan. He puts it like this.

[Ed Aldag]

We've also increased Our investment in Steward by an additional 330, 35 million investment, which provides strong returns and additional opportunities with Steward.

[Hannah Leventova]

What were your thoughts when you heard that from MBT leadership on the earnings calls? I don't know.

[H]

Like, you don't know what to think. It's like, well, you know, it's like, it's like being a kid, right? And you know, your mom's at home, everything's falling apart, Mom's at home. And then somebody out, you know, neighbor at the grocery store says, oh, how you doing? And mom said, everything's great. And you're a kid, you're like, mom, you're lying, cuz. But, but who's going to tell mom she's lying like you? You know that it's, it's not true, but you don't know how, how far it reaches.

[Hannah Leventova]

Samantha says she didn't really get how bad Steward's finances were until years after she left mpt. But this whole time, journalists and analysts have been digging into MPT's public disclosures and pointing out numbers that just don't make sense. First, a series of articles in the Wall Street Journal questions the close connections between Stuart and mpt. The journalist shows that Stuart is losing hundreds of millions of dollars a year, and Steward is MPT's largest tenant. So Steward's survival is essential to MPTs. And the journalist starts to connect the dots. Maybe MPT's loans to Steward are a way to keep it afloat. MPT pushes back.

[Ed Aldag]

We have heard from many of you, our shareholders and others that we should take the opportunity to set the record straight and correct some of the erroneous information that has been published.

[Hannah Leventova]

On an earnings call in the spring of 2022, Ed says that its relationship with Steward was like that of any landlord and tenant. And if one day Steward can't pay rent, MPT would have no problem finding new tenants. But analysts keep poking.

[I]

Did you provide any operators at all.

[Hannah Leventova]

Financial support in fourth quarter?

[Al Letson]

Do you anticipate the need to provide.

[Hannah Leventova]

Any additional loans to any of your tenants? All of this starts to affect MPT's stock price. And we know how MPT's executives are reacting as the share price plummets. We got access to leaked documents obtained by journalists at the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, or occrp. In emails, executives at MPT speculate that some analysts are working together to sink the company's stock price. Ed asks an employee to make a list of, quote, bad actors who listen to their earnings call. Ed writes to him, quote, I sure Wish we could prove the collusion. And then six months later, something really serious happens to one of MPT's most provocative critics.

[Michael Echols]

Sorry, I was just shutting the door.

[Hannah Leventova]

This is Frasier Perring. He runs a short selling firm called Viceroy Research and he's on the phone with his bank.

[Michael Echols]

Okay, thank you for getting back to me.

[Hannah Leventova]

Am I speaking to Fraser Perry?

[Michael Echols]

Yes, I am.

[Ed Aldag]

Thanks very much, Mr. Perry.

[Hannah Leventova]

Short sellers like Frazier play the stock market in reverse betting that companies are going to fail. They do this by digging deep into a company's financials to see if it might be hiding something. And Fraser's firm, Viceroy, had been publishing multiple reports about shorting mpt, saying it was a, quote, fraud. And then Frasier learned that someone had impersonated him and broken into his bank account.

[I]

It was a very. It was a very long call.

[Hannah Leventova]

It was over half an hour.

[Michael Echols]

Jesus Christ. Can you tell me what they use to identify themselves?

[Hannah Leventova]

Then it is date of birth, post.

[I]

Code and overdraft limit.

[Michael Echols]

Jesus Christ. I can get that data on anyone.

[Hannah Leventova]

You know. The impersonator didn't take any money from Frazier, but some of Frazer's bank transactions ended up in the hands of a private security firm. We know this because we reviewed a document obtained by occrp. That document analyzed Fraser's transactions and questioned who he was sending money to. Was he getting payments from Viceroy? Sending money to his ex wife? And in the months after this call, Fraser would learn that what was happening to him was much bigger. A team was following him and his young daughter and filming him while he watched TV at home. The Boston Globe and OCCRP detailed this in a big investigation last year. They found that it was Steward that had hired the private surveillance firm that was tailing Frazier. Steward, MPT's biggest tenant. NPT, denied any involvement. And when we spoke to Frazier, he said that the surveillance was the most extreme backlash he has ever received over his research and that his daughter still lives in fear. Frazer's lawyer, Richard Elias, explained what Frazier had been publishing about mpt.

[Michael Echols]

The allegations were that MPT was engaging in these transactions with Steward. That was really a means to help Stewart stay afloat so that they could pay rent.

[Hannah Leventova]

Viceroy claimed that MPT was overpaying for hospitals so that hospitals could then use that money to pay it rent to maintain the illusion that it is a healthy landlord. MPT called Frazier's criticism defamatory. A giant lie. All of this is in court documents because MPT sued Viceroy and Frazier. By that spring, there had been a lot of bad Press about MPT and its stock had sunk to around $7. MPT had started trying to salvage its image in leaked emails. The company's head of investor relations asks a crisis PR firm if there's a way to clean up criticisms on its Wikipedia page. He writes, quote, without it being traced to MPT or anyone known to be connected to MPT. Favorable edits on MPT's Wikipedia appear less than a week later. And while all this is going on, anonymous accounts are attacking MPT's critics on X.

[Michael Echols]

There's a guy who tweets under the handle, I think Abe.

[Hannah Leventova]

Abe is one of the most active MPT defenders online. He posted the home address of an analyst who criticized MPT and insinuated that his kids might be in danger. And one day, while Richard is at a soccer game with his kids, he says he gets an email from someone named Abe.

[Michael Echols]

And it just said, you know, if you keep down this route, you know, something. Something bad's gonna happen. Like this. This is not normal, okay? And. And it's. And it's a little scary.

[Hannah Leventova]

We don't know who sent this or who impersonated Frazier to his bank, but we do know that the private intelligence firm Steward hired to surveil Frazier also hired people to question other MPT critics online with anonymous X accounts and even a fake Reddit user. We reviewed emails from the firm Audir International telling the contractors which analysts to focus on. They call them targets. One of the analysts Abe harassed, he was a target. We reached out to Odhir, but the firm told us they could not respond to questions about confidential work. MPT also didn't answer our questions, but in emails entered into the court record, when MPT's lawyer was asked if MPT was involved with the surveillance of analysts, the company acknowledged hiring Adir, but for different work. MPT settled its lawsuit against Viceroy last year.

[Ed Aldag]

I'd like to express my deepest appreciation to all the shareholders who continue to place their trust in our company.

[Hannah Leventova]

Throughout all of this, Ed Aldec never wavered in his public message that MPT is doing well financially and doing good.

[Ed Aldag]

For hospitals, we pride ourselves on maintaining the high road, even as our share price has come under pressure from others who stand to benefit financially from such a decline.

[Hannah Leventova]

By the time Ed put out this video In October 2023, Stewart had stopped paying most of its rent.

[Al Letson]

Back in Louisiana, Glenwood Hospital is open and still struggling, and lawmaker Michael Echols wants mpt held accountable.

[Ed Aldag]

Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to come speak.

[Al Letson]

Today, Ed Aldag makes an appearance. That's up next on Reveal.

[Hannah Leventova]

Hey, this is Missa from Reveal. How many episodes have you listened to? 5, 500. And how many times have you donated? It's free to listen to these shows, but great journalism is anything but free to produce. It takes millions of dollars a year to make Reveal, and the truth is it would not be possible if listeners did not support it. So please donate today. Just text the word give to 888-57REAL. That's 888-577-3832 or visit revealnews.org donate. Thank you.

[Al Letson]

From the center for Investigative Reporting and PRX, this is Reveal. I'm Al Letson.

[Hannah Leventova]

So we're going up here.

[Al Letson]

It's June in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and spring is in full bloom. Smells good.

[Hannah Leventova]

Smells really good. Honeysuckle. It's honeysuckle. Right there. Right there. Honeysuckle. The white thing. Yep. Good thing. You know, plants. That's why I flew down.

[Al Letson]

Not exactly Mother Jones reporter Hannah Leventova and Reveal producer Ashley Kleek are here to attend a pretty important legislative hearing.

[Hannah Leventova]

We are walking over to Rep. Michael Echols his house to quickly chat with him. So here, let's go on the sidewalk.

[Al Letson]

Michael's the lawmaker that first took Hannah and Ashley to Glenwood Regional Medical Center. When they get to his house, the doors open and he's drinking coffee. He looks excited.

[Michael Echols]

You know, I've got probably two of the most important bills that I've ever run going today. Obviously, the biggest one, in my opinion, is the medical property holding those corporate raiders accountable.

[Al Letson]

Michael is taking a big swing. His bill would require landlords like MPT to pay a hospital's expenses for one year if their tenant falls into serious financial distress like Stewart did. It would fine executives and board members if their hospitals become insolvent. And landlords like MPT would have to reimburse the state of Louisiana for any money that goes towards saving the hospital. MPTS hired lobbyists.

[Michael Echols]

They're doing everything in their power to kill this bill. I think from a narrative standpoint, they're going to come and say they have no relationship with these operators. But if you go back and look at, you know, these transactions between them where they're doing these loans back to steward and I mean, this is not a normal business practice.

[Al Letson]

Stewart is gone now, but MPT isn't. It's still the landlord. And a new health care company is now running Glenwood. Hannah and Ashley wanted to know who this new company is and whether it's connected to MPT. Here's Hannah.

[Hannah Leventova]

When Stewart Healthcare went bankrupt in 2024, people in West Monroe, Louisiana, were really worried about what was going to happen to their hospital.

[Ed Aldag]

The word bankruptcy is kind of scary. When you hear hospitals and bankruptcy, you're probably not going to go there for care.

[Hannah Leventova]

This is Rick Guillot. Rick's a local banker, and he was on Glenwood's advisory board for years.

[Ed Aldag]

But then the more we thought about it and understood the process, now a judge will be involved. Now steward's going to be told that they have to pay their bills. We did feel a little sense of comfort.

[Hannah Leventova]

Rick and members of a local health care governing board wanted Glenwood to be taken over by a good company. And they thought, why don't we help drum up some candidates? So they hired a consultant. And the consultant came back with good news. Many local Louisiana healthcare companies were interested in Glenwood, but they soon learned the hospital would need some expensive repairs. So they got in touch with MPT to negotiate. And that's when Rick says the conversations turned.

[Ed Aldag]

The recurring theme was, we can't afford to lease. That's not feasible. No one can afford that lease, not just us.

[Hannah Leventova]

According to Rick and others we spoke to, MPT wouldn't lower the lease. And one by one, Rick says all those local hospital systems walked away from Glenwood. Soon after, Rick and others were relieved to learn that a company had been chosen to keep running Glenwood, to keep it open. It was called Healthcare Systems of America, HSA for short. The news went around town and reached Michael. He had never heard of HSA before. So he called, left a message, and then emailed. And around 8pm on a Friday, executives from HSA called him back.

[Michael Echols]

I asked them about what they thought about the property, you know, because they were about to take over. And they said, well, we've never been to the property. And I just. That is so bizarre that if you're about to take over operations of a hospital and your executive and your leadership team have never set foot in the building. You don't know whether the building's caved in or if it's operating efficiently. I mean, you don't know anything. So, again, just a bunch of red flags.

[Hannah Leventova]

When it started, some employees told us this was just Steward 2.0.

[Charlie]

This just was like a, hey, guys, we got sold today. There was no okay, well, where's the new this? Where's the new that?

[Hannah Leventova]

This is Charlie. Again, they still work at Glenwood, and again, this is not their real name or voice.

[Charlie]

And it just There was nothing. Everything was still operating under the way Steward did it.

[Hannah Leventova]

A week after we visited the hospital, Charlie called Ashley to tell her supplies were starting to run short. Things like procedure trays, even toilet paper.

[Charlie]

And we're having to stop offering services that are pretty important services in the hospital.

[Hannah Leventova]

Like what?

[Charlie]

Authoracentesis, which is draining fluid off the lungs, which happens in hospital a lot.

[Hannah Leventova]

To Charlie, it felt like a pattern.

[Charlie]

To me, this whole thing has been a big scam, for lack of better words.

[Hannah Leventova]

It's just.

[Charlie]

It walks like a duck, talks like a duck. It's still a duck.

[Hannah Leventova]

Here is what we know about HSA. Just last year, American Health Care Systems, HSA's umbrella company, took over a hospital in Texas owned by MPT after another one of MPT's tenants went bankrupt. And the Wall Street Journal has reported that HSA has been accused of not paying suppliers or doctors at some of its hospitals. HSA never responded to our questions for this story, but the company told the Journal that HSA takes over hospitals that are struggling. So some unpaid bills are from before they came in. HSA also pointed out that it hasn't cut services or done mass layoffs. And then there are the connections to Steward. Remember that guy who refused to testify at the hearing when Glenwood was collapsing?

[Michael Echols]

Let the record show the South Regional president of Stewart has refused to testify.

[Hannah Leventova]

Well, he's now a regional president at hsa. It's hard to know what to make of these connections. Michael thinks MPT handpicked HSA because it would agree to pay high rents. Is that true? Is HSA Steward 2.0? Or is it just a company struggling in Steward's shadow? That's why we went down to the hearing in Louisiana, and there's a real chance to get some answers, because Sitting in the third row at this hearing is MPT's CEO, Ed Aldag. Michael won't get to ask Ed any questions. He's only allowed to make a brief statement. And Michael tells the room, this bill is targeted at landlords like Medical Properties Trust.

[Michael Echols]

Folks, all I want is a little bit of accountability for the person that owns the asset. I have a shell of a hospital that is sitting there that was a vibrant hospital with great, vibrant employees. People call me crying that they've had to take jobs in other places because they cannot continue to serve the standard of care that they think is fair in that facility.

[Hannah Leventova]

The senator who's running the hearing expresses concerns right away. He fears the bill is an overreach. And then Ed comes up. He Opens a manila folder and begins.

[Ed Aldag]

Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to come speak today and to address some of the inaccuracies that I've heard from Representative Echols and others.

[Hannah Leventova]

At first, Ed is just repeating things he said before, that MPT helps hospitals access money that's just sitting there unused in their real estate. And he defends his company.

[Ed Aldag]

We don't run hospitals. We don't manage patient care. We're not allowed to by law. What we do is to provide the infrastructure, the buildings, the financing, the long term stability that makes care possible.

[Hannah Leventova]

Ed reminds lawmakers that MPT recently put up $26 million to help Glenwood.

[Ed Aldag]

When Stewart ran into financial difficulties and ultimately filed bankruptcy in 2024. MPT didn't pull back from Glenwood. We stepped in.

[Hannah Leventova]

Ed denies any connection to the new company running Glenwood. He uses the company's umbrella name, American Healthcare Systems, saying that MPT did not pick them to run Glenwood.

[Ed Aldag]

Ultimately, the court selected American Health Systems through a competitive bid process, not mpt.

[Hannah Leventova]

Can you. Can you repeat that one more time just for.

[Ed Aldag]

To make sure everybody understood that we were precluded from the entire replacement of tenant process. During the first nine months of the Steward bankruptcy process, there was a competitive bid process. Ahs another entity, maybe more, could put in a bid. The courts, the bankruptcy court chose who the operator was going to be.

[Hannah Leventova]

But Ed left some things out. First, because MPT lent money to Stuart during the bankruptcy to help keep some hospitals running, MPT was given the right to directly negotiate a new lease with any bidder. And second, there were three bids for Glenwood, and MPT chose to negotiate with hsa. So while the bankruptcy judge did sign off on the deal, there would have been no deal without mpt. The questions during this hearing cover a lot of ground. State Senator Katrina Jackson Andrews asks about the bankruptcies of Steward and of another large MPT tenant, Prospect Medical. And her question gets to the heart of the issue. So do you accept any responsibility for.

[H]

The collapse of operators like Stewart, Prospect.

[Hannah Leventova]

And Glenwood's prior lease, especially when MPT.

[Al Letson]

Handpicked or endorsed many of them during the leaseback transactions?

[Ed Aldag]

No. No, we certainly don't have any responsibility for the operations that failed at Steward or the operations that failed at Prospect.

[Hannah Leventova]

After an hour of testimony, the committee votes 4 to 1. The bill fails. It's not even close. For months, MPT hasn't responded to our questions. So as everyone leaves the room, we try to finally get Ed to talk to us. I have tried to reach out a couple of times and haven't had any success. Why have so many hospital systems MPT has worked with gone bankrupt? So far we've counted nine. And I'm wondering if you can sort of tell me why that pattern keeps happening or why you think it's happening.

[Ed Aldag]

Yeah, happy to answer that question when we have more time.

[Hannah Leventova]

Okay. Definitely. I'll reach back out to everyone. Ed is whisked out of the Capitol. Afterwards, we request an interview again. He never agrees to one. When we talk to Michael, he says he's not giving up.

[Michael Echols]

There's so many different ways we can attack this.

[Hannah Leventova]

He's already sent letters to the U.S. attorney General and the securities and Exchange Commission asking them to look into MPT.

[Michael Echols]

Because this is just. It's not fair.

[Hannah Leventova]

There's still a fear in West Monroe that Glenwood could close and that MPT would just let it sit empty. Like a hospital it owns in Florida or one in Texas or another in Massachusetts that have been closed for years. A landscape of ghost hospitals and a landlord that claims it's not responsible.

[Al Letson]

This story was reported by Hannah Levintova from Mother Jones and Ashley Kleek from Reveal. Ashley is also the lead producer for this week's show. Melissa Lewis contributed research and data reporting. Thanks to Khadijah Sharifay and Brian Fitzpatrick at occrp. Cynthia Rodriguez edited the show. Kate Howard executive to produce today's episode. Special thanks to Ian Gordon, editor at Mother Jones. Artist Cheriscus and Kim Frida were our fact checkers. Artists also acted as a researcher. Legal review by Victoria Baranetsky and James Chadwick. Our production manager is the great Zulema Cobb. Score and sound designed by the dynamic duo Jay Breezy, Mr. Jim Briggs and Fernando My Man Yo Arruda. That help from Claire C. Note Mullen and Julia Haney. Taki Telenides is our deputy executive producer and our executive producer is Bret Myers. Our theme music is by Camerado Lightning. Support for reveals provided by the Riva and David Logan foundation, the John D. And Catherine T. MacArthur foundation, the Jonathan Logan Family foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson foundation, the park foundation, the Schmidt Family foundation and the Hellman Foundation. Support for Reveal is also provided by you our listeners. We are a co production of the center for Investigative Reporting and prx. I'm Al Letson and remember there is always more to the story.

[Hannah Leventova]

From prx.