National Television Show Highlights Connecticut Republican for Blocking Hospice Study

Connecticut received some brief national attention last month when Emmy award-winning television host John Oliver lampooned a Republican state senator’s efforts to obstruct a study of prohibiting private equity firms from owning hospice facilities.

The state legislature got a mention late in a half-hour segment on hospice fraud during an Aug. 18 episode of Oliver’s HBO show “Last Week Tonight.”

After detailing examples of scams designed to wrongfully enroll patients to hospice programs for profit, the host referenced a 2023 bill by state Sen. Saud Anwar, D-South Windsor, who proposed to study banning private equity ownership of hospice care.

“So what can we do?” Oliver said of hospice-related fraud. “Some states are trying to fix things, though those plans can often run into opposition. In Connecticut, a bill that would have merely required a study about banning private equity ownership of hospices stalled out last year after opposition from Republicans like this man.”

The show then cut to CT-N footage of state Sen. Rob Sampson, R-Wolcott, speaking on the floor of the Connecticut Senate.

“The suggestion that somehow the profit motive is somehow adversely impacts the quality of a business is a very dangerous thing to do in America,” Sampson said in the clip. “If people didn’t invent things, if people didn’t come up with new cures, then they would not exist. And if you don’t have a reason to create those things then you won’t.”

In the video, Sampson paused as his eyes darted around the Senate chamber. Oliver’s live audience could be heard laughing.

“This is America,” Sampson continued, waving his finger. “This is a free-market country. This is a capitalist country, this is not a socialist country and it will not be if I can help it.”

The clip ended there as the television host shifted to discussion of another one of Sampson’s positions — his 2023 opposition to a bipartisan resolution absolving the victims of the 17th-century witch trials in colonial Connecticut.

“Right,” Oliver said. “He voted ‘no’ because he believes in the ideals of America, which is also why — and this is true — last year, he was the lone ‘no’ vote in the state Senate, on a resolution exonerating the victims of the 17th-century Connecticut witch trials, partly because — and I quote — he did want to ‘paint America as a bad place with a bad history.’”

Again, the show’s studio audience could be heard laughing.

“I don’t know what’s weirder,” Oliver continued, “the fact that he did that or the fact that Connecticut didn’t bother to exonerate victims of witch trials until last year.”

Connecticut’s 2023 resolution on the colonial witch trials closely followed its neighbor, Massachusetts, which exonerated the last victim of the Salem Witch Trials in 2022.

Sampson responded to the segment through a social media post directed at “Last Week Tonight’s” 2.9 million-follower X account, where the state senator invited Oliver to host him on his national television show for a “debate on the merits of capitalism.”

A video of Oliver’s segment on hospice fraud featuring Sampson had more than 2.1 million views on Youtube as of Friday.

Posted by Hugh McQuaid