May 15, 2017 12:55 PM UTC

DaVita, Kent Thiry Absolutely Destroyed in New Report

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• by: Colorado Pols

When we last mentioned DaVita CEO Kent Thiry in this space, it was to talk about his arm-twisting efforts to convince the state legislature to implement new rules on Unaffiliated participation in partisan primaries — in a particular manner that best fit his questionable perception of how Proposition 108 should work in real life.

Thiry is a recently-affiliated Republican who has long been rumored to be a candidate for governor in 2018 — which is basically the reason that he spent millions of his own money to push Prop. 108 in 2016 (under the theory that mobilizing more Unaffiliated voters could help Thiry make it through a crowded GOP Primary). As Deputy Secretary of State Suzanne Staiert told the Denver Post on May 1:

“I think the difference between what he wants and what we want is that we’re interested in elections and he’s just interested in getting elected.”

You can read more about what the legislature ultimately decided in regard to Prop. 108 in this story by John Tomasic of the Colorado Statesman. We’re not going to get into detail on that story at the moment, because there’s a lot of buzz about Thiry and DaVita today because of a scathing report about the kidney dialysis industry — and Thiry specifically — that aired Sunday on Last Week Tonight With John Oliver:

The entire segment is more than 20 minutes long, but it is absolutely worth the watch. Here’s Slate with a quick summary:

Oliver focused on DaVita and its CEO (and The Man in the Iron Mask enthusiast) Kent Thiry. DaVita facilities tend to be understaffed, have been accused of scamming the government by wasting medicine, and openly treat their patients like they’re on an assembly line so that the company can keep a tight schedule, even at the expense of proper hygiene. Thiry has even directly compared running his facilities to managing Taco Bells—and in case you can’t immediately see the problem with treating health care like a fast-food chain, Last Week Tonight has a commercial to show exactly why that’s wrong.

The Last Week Tonight segment brings up the fact that DaVita has spent more than a billion dollars in recent years to settle various lawsuits that have alleged lax patient care and other gernally unethical actions. Some of these allegations have been covered before by local and national media outlets, but Last Week Tonight does an excellent job of summarizing the main points in a relatively-succinct manner.

As for Thiry himself, the DaVita head comes off as something like a villain from a James Bond movie. Thiry’s, ahem, eccentric personality has been previously documented, but the Three Musketeers-loving businessman who runs his operation in a somewhat cultish manner could well be the star of his own feature.

If Thiry indeed runs for governor, this is only going to get more complicated for him…and his company.