888 - Bustin’ Out feat. Moe Tkacik (11/25/24)
Journalist Moe Tkacik joins us to look at a number of issues she’s reported on recently. Starting with the alarming prevalence of sexual assault allegations among Trump’s new cabinet picks, we follow the trail of backlash to accountability among the ultra-rich to College campuses and of course, Israel. We then turn to Moe’s reporting on the growing tumor of private equity in the American healthcare industry, and how these financial barons are gutting our already threadbare hospital system.
Find Moe on Twitter: https://x.com/moetkacik
And here writing at the American Prospect: https://prospect.org/topics/maureen-tkacik/
Comments (128)
Why are they having preening libs like Moe on… she refers to “the resistance” 10 times in this.. who the fuck is the resistance?? She is a proud fellow at the American Economic Loberties Project lol.. seriously she literally referred to “the palestinian question”…. please don’t invite the crypto nazi back again
Is the American Economic Liberties Project more sinister than it looks? Their website is all about stopping corporate consolidation and control over the economy. I know the name suggests a right-wing think tank but they just seem like progressive liberals
The Catholic zionists are emboldened by a Catholic zionist in the white house
I don’t think this model is just limited to private equity, I think it’s the actual hospital system model; if such a distinction makes any difference. Tenet Healthcare is a corporation that “runs” hospital systems including the one I work for currently. I’m not a finance person but a close family member was an accountant for a large company and was interested in looking into the complaints I had about a merger/acquisition at one point and learned to become more lean prior to the merger, the doctor office and hospital real estate was sold to a spinoff or subsidiary of the other company to which the offices and clinics now owe rents. The hospital system is a nonprofit (ie a means to pad executives salaries) but tge rents and some of the administrative services are contracted to a subsidiary of tenet. Idk. It’s all legalese and tax evasion/finance bs and I do t have the time or interest nor knowledge to figure it all out precisely but it leaves you with a very bad taste in your mouth especially as the hospital executives get bonuses when the actual workforce is continually told to do with less. And it’s still of “just in time” supply chain management as if we didn’t have a global pandemic to inform us of the error of those kind of logistics.
I worked at a Steward Hospital in Boston - St. Elizabeth’s. Most fucked up place I’ve ever worked. My department was so understaffed that when I covered on weekends each day I would have 30-40 patients to see each day (the normal caseload for a dietitian is like 12 per day). By January of ‘22 the majority of our ICU nurses had quit so it was all travel nurses on the floor and they had no interest in following procedures for enteral and parenteral nutrition (tube feeds) which require some pretty precise steps or you could kill someone. The hospital cafe just stopped serving food for my last few months there, so I’d work 12 to 15 hour days and have to get all my food from the rapidly depleting vending machines. There were a lot of patients who had been there for literal years and there was never a plan to move them to long term care. COVID infections that most likely started from staff took almost all of them out. It definitely felt like people died at a higher rate there than any of the other hospitals I was working at.
My dad got his leg amputated there some time around 2019-2020 a few months before he died. Real bad vibes when we passed a flock of nuns at the entrance
Tucker has been on to the evils of private equity for awhile. Pretty impressive if Steve Bannon and Tucker fucking Carlson think you’re scum
Tucker is just an opportunist who will say whatever he thinks might be useful to his political project and personal career, but I think Bannon genuinely just lets the liquor flow through him and guide him to any and every possible position.
Anyone wanting to learn about Bibi and Sarah Netanyahu along with their disputing crimes to get and stay in power. They should read spyfail by James bamford
Felix's sister saying shit he'd say lol
I write about corporate bankruptcy all day at my job and I think Moe’s work is amazing. Her piece from earlier this year covers some of the worst cases and a huge judge corruption scandal in Texas: https://prospect.org/justice/2024-01-31-moral-bankruptcy/
Kind of want to crush a few thimble-sized beers wit Felix's gam gam
I know several people who grew up in foster care who had all of their teeth removed and replaced with implants because of "cavities" when they were in middle school. There's so much horrifying shit
Jesus fucking christ. Some Dickensian nightmare type ah shit. Poverty is punished with such psychotically brutal ways many of us will never even know.
Bring Moe back for another episode in the future.
Yes. More Moe please
Long time listener first time commenter. Y’all should have Marijam Did on the pod. She’s an excellent left-wing video game journalist and researcher.
You don't have to be a bleeding heart humanitarian to be against the genocide in Gaza. It's better for our own survival to force our government care about human life. How much more precious do you think our lives are than Palestinians' to the ruling class? Over a million Americans died from COVID and it seems like everyone in media and the government only regret not letting it rip through more people from the start
I do wish it killed more of my enemies.
Okay, the children’s dental scam is real! Parents, please always get a second opinion if a dentist is telling you your toddler has cavities!
It does aesthetically feel like 2003. It’s gloomy, White Stripes, Old Navy and I’m spending a lot of time in bed .
Not for nothing, Felix has mentioned his nanas deep love of y tu mama tambien many times b4. A favorite callback of mine
It's actually a pretty good movie imo. Yes it is also sensual. Also Bound I think it's called? Hot but also I remember I kept watching it thinking it was pretty entertaining.
Holy shit... private equity is so incredibly evil
Yes. I make $15k less this year than in 2022 for doing the exact same job because a private equity firm bought my company.
A friend of mine at high school gave me a video cassette of a movie she thought I’d like. One day 16 year old me and my mum were looking for something to watch as we sat around the house, I said “Oh my friend said this Y Tu Mamá También is pretty good” and so my mum and I sat down to watch it together - it was a surprise! But after almost turning it off five minutes in we both ended up liking it
as someone who was good at sports a lot of it did end up being how good you were at being molested
additionally as someone who has went to the black family arts center to get extra credit for my israeli palestine politics class i will always just want to kill myself regardless of circumstances
New Liz Franczak just dropped
Classico style.
kevin spacey for supreme court
Hot mike meanderfap intro returns! hawgs gettin greased up before our throats done git slit..
Y tu abuela tambien
Misser Sooperman no here
Great ep, please have Moe back on semi-regularly. She’s got the Chapo Mindset
The chapo grindset, otherwise known as a liberal arts degree at vassar
Splishbie voice
Omg Chapo talking about ACOs on a pod - my health policy arch is complete
listening to the postal service’s “against all odds” as we venture into this thanksgiving, my take: find more love and openness this holiday, regardless of the gloom and/or sadness lay in its wake. just because they occurred doesn’t mean they will in the future, assuming those willing can help. optimism is better than the alternative. I wish you all the happiest of holidays!
Christopher Steele? Now there was a deep cut
More Grandma tales!
I enjoy Felix’s grandma voice
Moe is a great guest, very informed and funny. Have her on again sometime!
Felix’s mr me too joke didn’t get enough love im fucking crying
OMG she’s from Phily? 🩷 go birds!!!🦅
What’s the Depp-Heard case have to do with the eagles or the nba..?
Toxic psychos tend to be overrepresented among sports fans and particularly Philly fans
God what a depressing episode. Shits gonna suck so hard for a while here fam
Yeup. Fucking sucks. Why can't these yahoos shoot up something other than a school or concert for once. A high end DC steakhouse for example. Not the servers though.
I had a similar observation as Felix on the Depp/Heard thing. I remember telling my wife that it seemed like American culture was just using it as a way to accept the concept of "wife as property" again. This was after hearing the women who worked at my barbershop just fawning over Depp and how mistreated he was.
I don't ever post on here, but had to come on for this. Holy Shit. Just listened to Moe talking about Steward HC. I represent the unionized nurses at 4 Steward hospitals in Florida in the bankruptcy case taking place in Houston. The size and scope of this bankruptcy is truly astounding. We know all about de la Torre, but I had no idea about the Malta fiasco and depth of corruption involved in the initial financing of this health care scheme. Thanks so much for having her on. Great guest.
What did Bondi say about Assange?
No it was Gaetz. He supports Assange, or claims to.
My dad is a Mormon Zionist I feel her pain
My mom is a gentile atheist zionist, it's crazy out there 🫂
I love that hedgefund dick holes can employ sovereign citizen shit and say a subpoena violates their constitutional rights during an investigation. If you have money everything you do is not only permitted but respected. Victory brings absolution. Left needs to remember that should the day ever come. Never apologize or back down from total victory in the unlikely event that day arrives. Traitors will try to plead on behalf of a mercy you would never receive, it keeps happening.
Felix begins speaking at 8 seconds !
Embarrassing how pumped I got hearing Felix make a Mr. Me Too reference, also reminds me of how nervous I am about the new Clipse record
We love a liberated grandma, she's so free!
Guest was too partial to Gaetz. She totally missed that a big reason why Gaetz had to withdraw is that Republican senators despise him because he kept showing his colleagues videos of him having sex with girls.
You’re doing the thing libs do about Trump: because he’s personally loathsome, they cast him as politically worse than his peers. He isn’t, and in Gaetz’s case he’s slightly less loathsome. Only slightly, but it’s a material difference.
Houston is also where the chief bankruptcy judge had a secret relationship with a local practitioner that all the big firms knew about and hired her firm as local counsel for even more favorable than normal treatment
https://prospect.org/justice/2024-01-31-moral-bankruptcy/
If joe fired the shot into me toos gut, then trump delivered the coup de grate
Great guest, bring her back. Her work is amazing and awful.
Funnily enough I briefly worked for the Matt Gaets dad hospice
There's no 1.5x speed on browser?!
Man this 11 year old thing is insane. These people are truly monsters.
When it comes to Linda McMahon the bigger issue for her is The Ring Boy Scandal, where she was actively involved in sweeping things under the rug.
Hope she comes on the show more often! Great episode
Canadian here; while my country is indeed a piece of shit, this absolutely horrifying episode was reminder that it’s probably 20% less so than America.
The difference between Canadian and American neoliberalism is why we’d never do MAiD down in the States. Why just kill the poor and disabled when there’s still profit to be squeezed from their suffering?
“People who are like he’s really good on anti trust.” Let me guess, Matt Stoller.
And Lee Fang
this broad should go on the adam friedland show
That’s a really rude thing to say, she seems cool
Great guest. Only scheme missed is the weird buying up of farm equipment. There is no America. It is a myth. Maybe it once existed, but most of us have never seen it.
Charleston, Sc here checking in I am currently 4 miles from a kool smiles 👍
Cold opens are back boys, you know this is gonna be prime grade slop
Why is Chapo only interviewing Simpsons characters now?
They’re supporting the new direction of the show. At season 37 Moe transitioned and sounds like a girl now.
As a Floridian, hearing Joel Greenberg come up on Chapo is crazy. I remember when he was just a local asshole who kept getting drunk and singing Wagon Wheel with Gaetz in bars
His time as the tax collector in Seminole County would make a great movie culminating with the Bitcoin rig burning down the government building.
The Boar's Head part of this made me remember a great joke from Matt. He said that John Smick looked like if you put Frosty the Snowman's hat on a Boar's Head case
Great episode to revisit
Best ep in a while
A Tony Snell reference a few shows back, and now Lamelo Ball? Has Felix been getting into the NBA?
I think Hasan is a sports dude and Felix has been hanging with him a lot recently.
Everybody meet, Mr. Me Too Also, very auspicious ep number
Very hospicious
People who hate Soros but voted for trump are the same guys who respond to the crimes of capitalists by going "that's not how capitalism is supposed to work"
are they conflating Hospice with retirement homes?
No
I know everything is bad but did you read Bernie’s cock tease statement? Some morons now think that old fart is going to start his own party 8 years too late
The only way I would get excited would be if he came out and said he’s starting his own party and Rashida Tlaib would be a nominee to lead it, the only squad member of congress/senate who isn’t fully ensconced in the genocidal loser stench of the Biden admin.
Matt Gates: "I have so many skeletons in the closet: whale skeletons, you name it!" *Pan over to RFK Jr., gnawing on a whale tailbone* RFK Jr.: "He's not lying!"
Everyone mad at Friday’s episode got their Felix Will and Journalist saying names then connecting those names to other names
Excuse me? There is a Cheeto in the white house and you’re making jokes?
I love liz franczak 2
Moe is fuckin’ brutal
i personally enjoy her botching pronunciation and defending Matt Gaetz?
I know what you thinkin' - yeah, me too
crazy eights babeyy let's go! to another 888 ones
Great guest, great ep, Blue MAGA btfoed
It's crazy. The last segment on hospice is 100% what I see at my maintenance job I've been working at for the past 9 months. It's the grossest shit I've ever seen on a job. I've worked commercial construction, food service, slang booze at a liquor store. Etc. But the level of shadiness and graft Is wild. Oh and the soon to be owner is definitely a trump style zionist.
Marge Simpson voice “unnecessary surgery land?”
More girls on the pod it activates Felix.
It is 2024. Felix is 38. Will is 47. Both are twice divorced. And this “girl” is a 44 year old woman. You’ve been listening to Chapo too long. It is not longer 2017 and you will not find any flirtatious or youthful exuberance here. All the fans and hosts are aging, dramatically, and we should simply take our heart medicine and settle into the long Trump winter, cackling along with our radio friends. EDIT: apologies. Our favourite Hillary-criticizing Gemini twitter star is 43: https://www.famousbirthdays.com/people/felix-biederman.html
As someone with old grandparents, I love Felix stories about his grandma. I would love to know if he ever tried to explain to her what he does:)
Based on what we know about her, she’d get it. She loves talking shit.
Funny you mention it Felix, hospice gives opiates to accelerate death
Felix’s Mr. Me Too joke did not get the love it deserved
made me laugh out loud
Hobo party sounds like a website your friend shows you in 8th grade
It's 2AM go to bed
ah!
Mo’ Moe! Ms. Tkacik’s smart, effortlessly riffs, and has an appropriately fucked up sense of humor. I’m only 20 minutes in and she’s killing it.
There’s a point where she remarks that she used to be a waiter — absolutely checks out.
Moe's been doing great stuff for years. If you can find it, go back and read her BAFFLER piece "The Omniscient Gentlemen of 'The Atlantic,'" which might be the earliest encapsulation of the Suicide Democrat ethos that's gotten its shit kicked in for a decade now.
I can't remember who said it or what piece it was in, but I'll never forget Moe reporting that someone at a conference called Deng Xiaoping "the Steve Jobs of China"
Speaking of the growing tumor of private equity, I have a growing tumor in my privates!! 😎 And honestly it’s really worrying. At first I thought it was a normal erection and I was like ‘cool!’ but it didn’t stop growing and it’s turning purple. At first it was itching but now it’s numb and cold. I’d go to the doctor but private equity ate my insurance. Has anyone ever done self-surgery for something like this? Do I just cut off the bad part then keep the rest like you would with an onion, or do I cut off the whole penis? Your answer to my question will have a permanent effect on my life, but I will do whatever you tell me to do. Thanks for the input in advance.
Just use a rubber band
The Simpsons bartender is a journalist now. Rad!
we love the content, don’t we folks?
You’re hearing it more and more
I'm busting Jerry
Third
Goon time !!!