Welcome to "Last Week Tonight !"
I'm John Oliver ! Thank you so much for joining us.
And normally, this is where we'd do a quick recap of the week.
But, as you may have noticed, we've been off air
for the last five months due to the writers' strike,
which I'm very happy to say is over, and even happier to say was successful.
Instead of recapping the last week, we're gonna start by recapping
everything that's happened in the last five months,
which has been a lot.
And we'll begin in the U.S. Senate with this.
I got a new strap-on harness today.
I can't wait to put it on you.
It will fit my favorite dildo perfectly.
You're going to look so hot.
I can't wait to have your cock in my mouth.
I'm going to give you the blowjob of your life,
then I want you inside of me.
I know you may be wondering
"What're they going to talk about when they come back ?
What is so important that it has to be the first thing they bring up ?"
It's this. Since the moment the phrase "strap-on harness"
careened out of Senator Foghorn Leghorn's mouth, it was always this.
And sure, he stumbles on "strap-on",
but he glides beautifully through "favorite dildo",
doesn't falter for a second on "cock in my mouth",
then sticks the landing on "blowjob of your life"
while punctuating it with a perfect look down his glasses.
It's a truly sublime 25 seconds,
and if we didn't have so much to catch up on tonight,
I would play it on repeat for the rest of this show.
But a lot more has happened in the world of politics.
The Supreme Court effectively banned affirmative action.
Trump was indicted multiple times, one of which gave us this mug shot,
in which he looks like he's struggling to find Waldo on a crowded ski slope.
And Lauren Boebert was kicked out of a musical for inappropriate behavior.
While I would love to joke about that,
I don't want to get bogged down in it.
She was kicked out of the show, that is probably punishment enough.
So, instead, we're going to move on to Italy,
where economic problems have put real pressure
on Prime Minister Georgia Meloni's upcoming budget,
although, you know what ?
Briefly, the inappropriate behavior that Boebert engaged in
apparently involved her "being loud",
and refusing to stop vaping around a pregnant woman.
Also, there was some fondling and light over-the-pants hand stuff,
which was caught on video.
But again, I don't want to get into that too much,
because in Italy, markets are dubious that Meloni will be able to...
It was "Beetlejuice", by the way.
That was the musical Lauren Boebert was watching.
It was a touring production of "Beetlejuice" the musical.
I just need you to know that.
I'm not saying it'd be appropriate to engage in high school freshman-era
hand stuff during a production of any musical,
but I just wanted to be absolutely clear
that this wasn't one of the more explicitly sexual ones
like "Spring Awakening" or "Rocky Horror" or "Cats".
This was "Beetlejuice", a show that's quite loudly about death.
If you're going to get your nipples tweaked and your pipe squeaked,
you save that shit for "Fiddler", like a goddamn adult.
But again, it's an old story, it's been resolved...
And it fundamentally doesn't matter. What matters is, in Italy,
economic growth rates are causing some significant...
Sorry, there is just one more thing about Lauren Boebert.
Reports say that after receiving a warning at intermission,
the final complaint that led to her being kicked out
came five minutes into act two.
If you don't know the show,
that puts us comfortably into "That Beautiful Sound",
a song where Beetlejuice and Lydia gleefully torture a series of visitors,
including a girl scout, a pizza delivery person,
and one of their neighbors.
It's a song about how they like the sound of tortured screams.
Is it the least sexy thing a person can sit through ?
No. That would be this. But it is up there !
Anyway, as she was being escorted out of the theater, she apparently said
"Do you know who I am ?" and "I will be contacting the mayor".
Which are two just catastrophically bad decisions.
If you've been caught for sexual activity
during "Beetlejuice" the musical,
you would hope no one knew who you were
and you definitely wouldn't want to get on the phone with the mayor,
to tell him what had happened.
And the thing is, sadly, this incident has now derailed me so much,
I don't even have time to talk about Italy's economic struggles anymore,
so, much like Lauren Boebert and the musical "Beetlejuice",
you'll never get to know how it all turns out.
Instead, we need to catch up on what happened in New Jersey,
whose Democratic senator Bob Menendez
was indicted on corruption charges for accepting bribes
to aid local businessmen and benefit the Egyptian government.
While he has denied those charges, some of the details look pretty bad.
The indictment alleges Menendez and his wife received
nearly a half million dollars in cash and $150,000 worth of gold bars.
Prosecutors also say
that the day after the two returned from a trip to Egypt,
Menendez searched online, quote "How much is one kilo of gold worth ?"
Yeah. Not great, Bob !
That is pretty incriminating.
No one casually Googles "How much is one kilo of gold worth ?"
because they are bored.
They Google "Do butterflies feel pain when they fwap their wings ?"
"How little love can a person live on ?" and "What exactly is a Travis Kelce ?"
"How much is one kilo of gold worth ?" is an incriminating Google search.
It's right up there with "Can you snort Adderall ?"
and "How to get bloodstains out of your wife."
And it's not just Menendez who's been in legal jeopardy.
Pillow baron Mike Lindell continues to face lawsuits
stemming from the false claims he promoted about voting machines,
and a few weeks ago, a deposition from one of those cases came out,
featuring this spectacular moment,
as he discussed what sort of customer service calls his company gets.
Okay. And I'm not asking about the lumpy pillow calls.
No, they're not lumpy pillows, that's not what they call on, okay ?
When you say "lumpy pillows", now you're an asshole, you got that ?
You're an asshole, is what you are.
No, he's an asshole. He's an ambulance-chasing asshole.
That's what you are. Lumpy pillows, kiss my ass.
My favorite thing about Mike Lindell
is that he's the rare example of how recovering from a crack addiction
can actively make you worse.
Although, for the record, Mike, if they are not lumpy pillows,
how do you explain this Amazon listing for your product,
featuring a very real exchange in which one customer asks
"Should it be this lumpy and flat ? I just got it",
and another replies "Mine was-slash-is lumpy ?"
Or this review titled "It is a bag o' lumps".
Or this one titled "Lumpy", with the body text, "Lumpy".
We also missed a bunch of international news,
like the coronation of King Charles, the world's oldest boy,
during which he said "I come not to be served, but to serve."
Although he clearly didn't mean that in the sense of serving looks,
given that this is his official coronation portrait,
in which he seems to be aiming for "successful pimp"
but ends up looking like someone wearing
a set of tacky drapes over a Lakers jersey.
Also, Turkey had an election, which Erdogan narrowly won.
For about a day and a half,
it seemed like there genuinely might be a coup in Russia,
which ended with its leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin,
accepting a weird deal brokered by the Belarussian president,
and then dying in the most predictable plane crash of all time.
And on top of all of that,
China was shaken to its absolute core by this controversy.
It's bizarre video of a species known as a sun bear
that's leading everyone to ask,
"Is that really a bear, or just a guy in a bear suit ?"
The creature, named Angela, stands upright just like a human,
and are those wrinkles ?
It sure gives the impression that it's a dude in an ill-fitting bear costume.
And just look at the way she waves.
Chinese zoo authorities are settling the mystery,
declaring "Angela is definitely not a human".
Everyone ! Leave Angela alone !
Stop talking about her awkward wave and wrinkly bottom.
And I'll tell you why I'm so personally invested in this.
Some of us never get to see our exact body type on screen,
and finally I get why representation matters.
And speaking of representations of me specifically,
back in June, after Reddit announced a new policy
to charge third-party apps for accessing its data,
many of its members engaged in a striking protest.
Some of the biggest forums on Reddit
are being flooded with photos of comedian John Oliver.
This is all taking place over a protest
to changes on how the website is being run.
Two of the most popular so-called subreddits
have decided to post nothing but photos of Oliver.
It's true. For weeks, images of me were used as a form of protest
on some of the most popular subreddits.
And to their credit, they used some pretty good ones,
like this one of me as a Muppet, this one of me as a blobfish,
this one of me appearing in a piece of toast,
and my personal favorite, this one labeled "John Oliver Wick",
which is a good way of showing you exactly what it would look like
if Professor Snape ever committed armed robbery.
It was a pretty inspiring act of malicious compliance,
but just watch as trying to explain it
seemed to break the brains of that local news team.
Are they for John Oliver ? Or against him ?
I think this is just part of their protest.
We're going to put up something that's boring,
that nobody's going to care about.
Is that right ?
This says moderators of a certain subreddit
say that they're only allowing users to post pictures of John Oliver,
quote "looking sexy".
Any picture of the comedian was allowed because John Oliver is always sexy.
So, you're saying boring, according to the Reddit users,
they're doing it 'cause he's "sexy".
I don't know ! This is according to this article.
Okay, putting my feelings aside, which they certainly did there,
why does it seem like everyone on that show is completely unprepared ?
This guy is confused by the story entirely,
and she's Googling it live on air.
It looks like they're hosting an improv show
where the audience gave them the words "Reddit", "sexy", "John Oliver",
and they had to build a scene around that.
You know what other major pop-culture news we missed ?
Barbenheimer ! It was one of the biggest movie events of the summer,
alongside "Sound of Freedom",
the feel-good child sex trafficking hit that we'd all been waiting for.
Although I would argue,
if you're looking for the single best movie of the summer,
it has got to be "Cop Slide".
It almost hurts to watch.
A police officer is taking a break, heading down a popular slide.
It's like he's shot out of a cannon.
He hits the ground hard.
Yeah, he does hit the ground hard.
And it's absolutely incredible.
From the sound of him thundering down the slide,
to all his cop toys flying all over the place.
It is cinema at its finest.
It's not the first, and it won't be the last time that I say this,
but I wish cops turned on their body cams more.
Because I'd love to have seen that from inside the slide, as well.
"Cop Slide" took the internet by storm,
inspiring memes and remixes, my favorite of which was this.
The pain still grows.
It's no stranger to you and me.
I can feel it coming in the air tonight.
Come on ! Eat your heart out "Miami Vice",
that is now the all-time greatest use of that song.
The video went so viral,
"Boston Cop Slide" is now listed on Google Maps.
Because it's in Boston, it's of course down the street from a Dunkin',
and across the plaza from another Dunkin',
which is next to another Dunkin',
which is across the street from another fucking Dunkin'.
There are four Dunkins within a one-block radius of Cop Slide.
And if you expand it a few blocks, there are 13 of them.
Boston, you truly are a self-parody.
The point is, we missed so many stories.
I haven't even brought up the Titan submersible !
Yeah, we missed that, too ! That was a weird few days, wasn't it ?
Also, there was a batshit raid on a newspaper in Kansas,
wildfires in Maui, and a spectacular brawl at a dock in Montgomery
where some drunken white assholes
got their asses and a folding chair handed to them.
We missed so much it would take a whole new version
of Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire" to cover it.
Which reminds of something else we missed,
Fallout Boy released a new version of "We Didn't Start the Fire"
that absolutely nobody asked for, covering the last 34 years.
And if you're wondering, "Hold on, 2001 was in the last 34 years,
they didn't bring up that thing, did they ?"
The answer is, yes, they very much did.
Mars Rover, "Avatar", self-driving electric cars,
S-S-R-Is, Prince and the Queen die,
World Trade, second plane, what else do I have to say ?
What else do you have to say ? Nothing, Fallout Boy !
No one's making you do this !
Honestly, I don't know who should be more pissed off about that verse,
Prince, James Cameron, or the first plane.
And for what it's worth "We Didn't Start the Fire"
is the last song anyone should cover from Billy Joel's discography.
Even in its original form, it is the musical equivalent of a child
telling you everything he learned about at school that day.
Slow down but also, I don't care.
And before any Billy Joel fans start getting angry with me,
the man himself thinks the song is terrible.
Here he is shit-talking it in front of his own audience !
It's the same thing verse after verse.
Just the words change.
One of the worst melodies I ever wrote.
Exactly.
I didn't think I'd ever say this sentence out loud and mean it,
but listen to Billy Joel, Fallout Boy, he's got a very good point !
I'd have loved to have covered these stories when they happened.
I wish so much I could have told you these jokes at the time.
But I couldn't, because our writers, the people who wrote those jokes,
were forced to strike for a fair contract for the last five months.
And it was an immensely difficult time not just for them,
but everyone else working on this show, and many others,
who could no longer do their jobs.
And to be clear, this strike happened for good reasons,
our industry has seen its workers severely squeezed in recent years.
You've probably seen stories about writers and actors,
whose work you may even recognize,
routinely not making enough to qualify for health insurance,
or afford basic needs.
The Writers' Guild went on strike, and thankfully won,
but it took a lot of sacrifices from a lot of people to achieve that.
And while I'm happy that they eventually got a fair deal
and immensely proud of what our union accomplished,
I'm also furious that it took the studios 148 days
to achieve a deal that they could've offered on day fucking one.
But hopefully, this may encourage others,
from auto workers to Starbucks baristas to healthcare providers,
whether they are in unions or would like to be,
to find power in each other.
And within our particular industry,
I really hope the actors' union and IATSE, which represents crews,
will be able to take what the writers achieved
and leverage it to win fair contracts for themselves, too.
Because it takes many people, working really hard,
to make film and TV, all of whom deserve a piece of the pie.
And for the actors, in particular,
they cannot come back to work soon enough.
Especially because we've now all seen what happens
when non-professionals are trusted with the written word.
I can't wait to have your cock in my mouth.
I'm going to give you the blowjob of your life,
then I want you inside of me.
Exactly. And now, this !
And Now:
Local News Is Very Excited About What Week It Is.
The National Park Service has announced the return of Fat Bear Week.
Yeah, that's a real thing.
It is back, everybody. The contest for the fattest bear is here.
It is actually a contest for chubby chunkers
hoping to advance to the main Fat Bear Week.
Which one's the fattest bear out there ?
- Chubby. - Who's been eating the most fishies ?
- Fat Bear Week. - Okay.
- Look at that guy ! - Look at those big chunky bears.
Those are some big chunky bears. Look at 'em.
They ate 20 boxes of donut holes and six packages of donuts.
They're getting ready for Fat Bear Week.
I wonder how the Bears feel about being called fat.
I have a history of picking the bear that usually wins.
We've got a tradition here. We like to pick.
Pick one out.
Police in Michigan
helped save an eight-year old boy after he was electrocuted.
Moving on. Our main story tonight concerns healthcare.
The thing that "E.R." was originally about,
before, in later seasons, it really became more about scenes like this.
Obviously, a lot going on there.
Not least of which, if you're not familiar with the "E.R."-niverse,
this guy was already living with one arm,
because he'd lost the other, and this is true,
in a different helicopter accident.
And you know what they say:
hit me with a helicopter once, shame on you.
Hit me with a helicopter twice,
you must be in some late-stage post-Clooney "E.R." seasons.
Specifically, tonight's story
is about the healthcare currently offered in jails and prisons.
That's right, after five long months,
we're welcoming you back with a story about prisoner healthcare,
because deep down, this is who we are.
And I know that, for some,
the very concept of incarcerated people getting medical care
is somehow offensive, as you can tell from the fact that, for years,
the subject's been framed on TV like this.
Spokane County taxpayers are paying the bill
for alleged killers, rapists, and child molesters
to see doctors, dentists, and specialists.
Have you ever seen a meth user's teeth ?
It's called meth mouth, and it is awful !
KOAT anchor Todd Kurtz shows you how all of that decay
is costing you money as jails and prisons are forced to fix those teeth.
There is a place where we are all guaranteed healthcare by law,
it's called jail.
And criminals know their way around the system
and look for chances to get treatment on the taxpayer's dime.
It is just wild to point out
that the only place Americans are guaranteed healthcare is jail
and somehow make it seem like the problem is prisoners
and not our deeply broken system.
"Yeah, apparently the only place you can get free dental is jail,
are you thinking what I'm thinking ?
Exactly, fuck that guy and his teeth !"
Putting aside that not everyone who's incarcerated is even guilty,
it's worth pointing out that according to a recent study,
100% of prisoners are actually people,
I mean like, human beings people,
like the kind that you are.
They have hopes and souls and farts and brains.
And if that isn't enough, you should know the Constitution requires
that we provide adequate healthcare to anyone behind bars.
In 1976, the Supreme Court ruled that denying medical treatment to prisoners
"constitutes cruel and unusual punishment"
in violation of the Eighth Amendment.
Yet despite all of that, the quality of care prisoners receive is abysmal.
Investigations in state after state have found it to be woefully deficient.
A lawsuit against Arizona a while back made some horrifying allegations.
It alleges that prisoners are at, quote,
"substantial risk of pain, amputation, disfigurement, and death."
It cites examples of prisoners being told to pray to be cured
or drink energy shakes to treat cancer symptoms.
Okay, that is both terrible advice and also, not even close to being true.
If energy drinks could treat cancer symptoms, you'd have heard about it.
Red Bull would mention it in all of their ads,
instead of their current marketing copy, which is,
"Red Bull: There's nothing we can do about the taste,
but let's be honest, you're 22 and hungover
and just need something to get you through your shift at Red Lobster
and you're still a few years away from having cocaine money,
so just shut up and put this poison in you."
The consequences of poor care are only going to get more dire,
given our rapidly aging prison population.
From 1999 to 2015, the number of people 55 or older in prison
increased by 264%.
And why are we confining so many elderly people in prisons,
when we should clearly be putting them where they belong,
on "The Golden Bachelor", taking full advantage of menopause
and fucking raw.
I presume that's what happening on that show.
So, given all of this, tonight,
let's take a look at prison healthcare, who provides it,
why it's so bad, and how we can improve it going forward.
And let's start with the fact that, at one point,
states themselves provided medical care for their jails and prisons.
Some still do, in fact, and in most places,
it's generally been pretty bad.
That "treat cancer with prayer and energy drinks" story
is from when Arizona ran its own prison healthcare.
But increasingly,
states have started contracting care out to private companies.
As of 2018, more than half of all U.S. states
hire private companies to provide at least some of their prison healthcare.
And when it comes to our largest jails, that number is more than 60%,
all of which explains why this is now a roughly $4 billion industry.
And the sell companies make is that they can tailor care
to the particular needs of the incarcerated
a population that can have high rates of substance abuse
and mental illness, both of which do pose special challenges.
Just listen to this promo for Advanced Correctional Healthcare,
which serves facilities in 21 states, as it makes a very big promise.
The purpose of Advanced Correctional Healthcare
is to solve problems for our patients and clients
and make their lives easier.
Our data indicates your detainees will be healthier in your jail
than they are when they go to their own doctors.
That definitely doesn't immediately seem like bullshit, does it,
from the fact that she's citing "our data"
to the fact that, when you're Googling for "best doctors near me",
the top result is very rarely "Have you tried your local jail ?"
And unsurprisingly,
the rosy picture that promo paints doesn't remotely live up to reality.
Take this story from a Wisconsin jail that used that company's services.
Six months ago, 39-year-old Dante Wilson
was in a Wisconsin jail for a child support violation.
He complained of chest pains.
The jail nurse concluded he had heartburn and gave him two Tums.
Less than an hour later, Wilson asked for help, again.
"Relax", was the nurse's advice.
Soon after, Wilson died of a heart attack.
The nurse told a detective weeks later.
Shit happens.
The nurse was fired.
Good ! She should've been !
Because that is the single worst thing you can possibly say
in response to someone dying of a heart attack because you screwed up.
And while I'm sure that she was upset at losing her job,
if I may share a quote that it seems
there is simply no bad time for, shit fucking happens.
And at this point, you will not be surprised to learn
that in internal trainings, Advanced Correctional Healthcare
seemed to spend an unnerving amount of time
teaching its employees what constitutes the legal bare minimum of care.
That rough draft Jennifer Garner wax figure
once conducted a video seminar for staff
titled "A jail is not a health spa".
And just watch her explain the importance
of avoiding "deliberate indifference",
basically, not blatantly neglecting to treat prisoners,
by using the weirdest possible example.
So, how do we define "deliberate indifference" now ?
You must know of and disregard
an excessive risk to inmate health or safety.
Something which would cause the unnecessary
and wanton or malicious infliction of pain.
A few years back, there was an NBA player
who was arrested for shooting a gun into the air five times
outside of a strip club.
That is criminal recklessness.
That is consciously disregarding a substantial risk of harm.
A stray bullet could have hit a stripper.
That is definitely an example.
It only makes sense if she explains every legal concept like that.
Abduction ? A stripper gets kidnapped.
Bankruptcy ? A stripper stops stripping.
Escrow ? A stripper buys a house but enlists a third party
to temporarily hold assets until the deal is finalized.
You should know, that woman was the company's senior counsel.
And I'm happy to announce that she is no longer in that role.
But that's only because she's the president of the whole company !
But the problem isn't just with this one company.
It's with the whole industry.
A review of 500 jails
found those relying on the five leading contractors
had higher death rates than facilities run by the government.
One of the key reasons companies so often deliver substandard care
is that they are incentivized to due to how they are paid.
It's basically a fixed dollar amount contract.
It's $16 and change per prisoner,
and the contract assumes 34,000 prisoners.
So it's basically, this is how much we're giving you.
And the more money you spend on providing healthcare,
the less profit you make.
Right. And that is a pretty obvious incentive to cut corners.
If you give your babysitter $100 and say,
"Whatever you don't spend on dinner you can keep,"
don't be surprised if you come home to a very happy babysitter
and a bunch of pissed-off kids eating Top Ramen.
And that profit motive has led to some pretty outrageous policies.
A recent court case against Wexford,
one of the country's largest prisoner healthcare providers,
revealed that for years it had had a de facto
"one good eye" policy,
as when a 69-year-old prisoner got cataracts in both eyes
and wanted them fixed,
the prison doctor told her that she'd have to make a choice,
"Which eye did she want fixed, the right one or the left one ?"
Which is clearly an impossible question.
It's like someone asking which Property Brother you'd like to kill.
The only acceptable response to either question is,
"Both, why are you making me choose ?"
But to show just how dangerous these companies can be,
let's look at one state, Arizona.
Back in 2009,
it announced a plan to switch from state care to private providers.
And the initial pitch was that this would be a cost-saving measure.
But as this woman explains,
something interesting happened fairly early on.
They put out a request for proposals, an RFP,
and nobody bid for it
because nobody could do it for less than what the state was spending
because the state wasn't spending very much as it is.
A couple years later, the legislature came back and said
"We're gonna amend that prior law.
Remember where we said it has to be less ? It's okay. It can cost more."
It can now, can it ?
So you demanded a competitive bid, and when no one responded,
you just rolled over and gave up absolutely everything.
It's a shrewd tactic from the famous book on negotiating
"This Is Where I'm Softest, and Other Business Ideas"
by a timid puppy.
But since then, it has been a nightmare,
as Arizona has cycled through contractors.
They started with Wexford, the "one good eye" people.
But as things didn't improve, less than a year later,
they switched to a company called Corizon.
But heinous stories started emerging
about the care that they were providing, too,
including one that we've actually shown you before on this show,
about a woman who gave birth behind bars,
and whose C-section wound hadn't fully healed.
And I'll let her mother pick up the story from there.
They decided she had been there long enough
that she could go back to her yard.
But it was still open a little bit.
And so they decided that the best thing to do for this
would be to pack it with kitchen sugar.
- Sugar ?! - Sugar.
And we're talking sugar that you get from...
'Cause they donate it, from McDonald's, from Burger King.
They're standing there
ripping open these little packs of sugar and filling that wound.
Packing it in with what's left...
- With sugar from a fast food. - Yes.
Let me be clear: I'm not a doctor, although if you put me in a lab coat
I do think I could get away with it for two to six weeks.
I have an accent and I know how to say "subdural hematoma",
I'm basically halfway there already.
But if I had to pick the worst possible thing
for a person recovering from the trauma of childbirth,
it'd be injecting McDonald's sugar straight into your bloodstream.
And the state lawmaker who spearheaded the move
to take Arizona's prison healthcare private, John Kavanagh,
didn't display a great deal of empathy when confronted with that story.
That sounds ridiculous.
Prisoners have24/7 to think up allegations and write letters.
I'm not saying that some of them can't have a basis in fact,
but you got to take them with a grain of salt,
or in the case of the hospital, maybe a grain of sugar.
I get it, a joke ! Prison Gepetto here is having some fun with words !
I'm sure that prisoner's sides were splitting !
Less from laughter, though, and more from the open wounds
that, thanks to him, she'd had filled with fucking sugar.
And that is just one of many stories of Corizon providing abysmal care,
seemingly in order to cut costs.
Not only were they repeatedly accused of refusing to pay specialists,
causing hospitals to have to send emails like this one,
in which they literally beg for payment.
But when a Corizon doctor was dealing with a prisoner with multiple seizures,
and suggested sending him out for an exam,
she was told that that was not going to happen,
but that they'd "order a helmet for him to protect his head instead."
And while it is clearly not the most important thing here,
we tracked that doctor down to ask if they ever got that helmet for him,
and you'll never guess what the answer was.
Unless your guess is "no", in which case, you're fucking right.
And all of this led to horrific consequences,
like this man, who had just ten months left on his sentence for vehicle theft
when he complained of back pain.
Four months later, he finally got x-rays done,
which showed signs of cancer, but even then, Corizon dragged its feet.
They wouldn't do an MRI. They kept denying an MRI, denying an MRI.
In May, CT scans were ordered to see if Vocke had cancer,
but Corizon denied it.
Finally, at the end of July 2013, a CT scan was performed.
It confirmed Vocke had cancer.
Medical records show there was a lengthy delay in treating Vocke.
And it was kidney cancer that could have been 95% survivable.
And now they're saying that I can't survive it whatsoever.
Vocke was granted medical parole so he can die surrounded by family.
That is a tragedy. Just ten months left on his sentence,
showing clear signs of cancer, and nothing was done.
And again, he was in there for vehicle theft.
The punishment for that is clearly not death,
but under a system this cruel, it can turn out to be.
And this was all part of a consistent pattern,
the state's records showed that Corizon had delayed delivery of medical care
16,000 times in just one eight-month period.
It got so bad, Arizona was forced to pay fines
for the substandard care prisoners received,
even as, mystifyingly, it continued to pay
more than $2.5 million in performance bonuses to Corizon's executives.
But eventually enough was enough, and the state got rid of Corizon.
The company has since declared bankruptcy
but rebranded as YesCare, which is a bold name for a company.
It's like Applebee's calling itself Won't Make You Poop Weird !
To put it mildly, your name is a little misleading.
Anyway, Arizona replaced Corizon with a company called Centurion.
But the situation didn't improve, in fact, last June,
a judge ruled that for years, across multiple providers,
the state had shown "the most callous and inhumane indifference",
saying, "no legitimate humane system would operate in this manner."
Since that ruling,
the state's contracted out to yet another new provider,
this one called NaphCare, which itself is fighting accusations
of forcibly inducing pregnant prisoners into labor against their will.
And that is the thing here, in so many places, states end up just rotating
among a small handful of awful providers.
Prisons in Florida have gone from Wexford, to Corizon, to Centurion.
Alabama went from Corizon to Wexford, to YesCare,
which, you'll remember, is basically just Corizon rebranded.
States choose healthcare providers
like old married couples choose sexual positions:
by cycling through an extremely limited number of options,
none of which really get the job done in a satisfying way.
And the options can be so limited that, even when public officials
do try to do the right thing and demand action,
they can often find themselves stuck.
Take what happened in Forsyth County, North Carolina.
It had a contract with a company called Correct Care Solutions
to provide care in its jail.
But after a series of calamities,
including two men dying in the space of just 24 days,
this county commissioner decided to vote
against renewing their contract, and did so like this.
I can't vote to support Correct Care for any contract.
I don't care about three million, three years, or whatever.
I wouldn't give Correct Care Solutions $3,000 for three days
if I had my way, so, I can't support it.
That's a pretty strong no from that man
and as justifiable as his reluctance to renew Correct Care's contract was,
as the county's deputy sheriff pointed out to him,
there was a bit of a problem.
The only thing I will say, sir, is, with regard to this,
Correct Care was the only vendor that bid.
It's true. There was no other option !
So, the whole vote was basically ceremonial.
It'd be just as effective to hold a vote on the question,
"Should it be summer now ?" Yes ? Yes ? Everyone votes yes ?
Bad news, everyone, it still isn't !
And when you put all of this together, it's hard to escape two conclusions:
that all the options currently on the table are bad.
And that the reason they are allowed to be so bad
is because of who this care is for.
I get that it can be difficult to care about issues affecting prisoners.
I also get that their healthcare may be especially difficult to rally around,
as so many on the outside don't have healthcare themselves.
I know all of this !
But the fact remains: prisoners are people.
100% of them are, in fact ! And there are some solutions here.
I would argue the bare minimum we should do
is to stop outsourcing prison healthcare to private companies.
As the director of the National Prison Project at the ACLU puts it
"Government-run prison healthcare is often appallingly deficient,
but at least when a government is providing the service,
there is some measure of oversight."
And it should say something about how bad things are
that what activists are pushing for is the "appallingly deficient" option.
Obviously, the problem is so much bigger than shitty contractors.
If the prisons are overwhelmed with too many patients to take care of,
maybe there should be fewer people in there.
If it's that the prison population is getting older
because of the incredibly long sentences we've imposed upon people,
maybe we should consider releasing them.
If it's that too many of them are dealing with addiction
and mental health problems, maybe we should be examining
whether prison is the best place to treat those conditions.
It is impossible to separate this issue from the much larger conversations
about universal healthcare and prison abolition.
Like so many stories that we cover,
this one ends at the perpetual elephants in the room:
the U.S. doesn't guarantee any of its citizens the dignity of good healthcare
and it puts too many of its people in cages where many will needlessly die.
And you can take that with all the grains of sugar in the world,
but it should still be absolutely impossible for you to swallow.
And now, this !
And Now:
Fall Is Here, And So Is Something Else.
A big milestone for one of the country's favorite fall drinks,
and help start a yearly trend.
The Starbucks pumpkin spice latte is now 20 years old.
It's back !
20 years is but an instant in the billion-year reign of the spice !
Speaking of delicious,
the love and appreciation for pumpkin spice is now at an all-time high.
As we drink and eat everything pumpkin spice,
the question is being raised: are Americans addicted ?
Yes ! We are addicted !
We are powerless worms sick with desire for whimsical fall flavors !
I had a pumpkin spice latte yesterday.
- No, you didn't. - I gave in. I had to.
You had to !
For we are mere puppets in thrall to a proprietary blend of spices
more powerful than any decrepit human will.
- I had a PSL phase... - Yeah ?
- But then I PSL-ed out. - Yeah.
Maybe, like, one a season. Not all the time.
Yes ! All the time !
Witness each interminable second grow tumescent
with the blood of the pumpkin and despair.
35%, according to Morning Consult, say they want pumpkin spice all year.
That's not true.
It is true, Craig ! The thirst for spice will not be denied !
Even by the host of the nation's second most popular morning show !
Despite the drink's massive success following its release,
the company did consider discontinuing the drink at one point
to keep things new, fresh, and not repetitive.
No ! The spice can never be stopped ! It shall echo into eternity !
Spice ! Spice ! Spice !
Spice !
That's our show, thanks so much for watching, it is so, so good to be back.
We'll see you next week, good night.