HBO's John Oliver faces lawsuit from health insurance executive over Medicaid monologue
A health insurance executive filed a defamation lawsuit against HBO's John Oliver on Friday, claiming the liberal comic falsely told viewers he believed "it's OK if people have s--t on them for days" when discussing the healthcare needs of a young man who relies on diapers and in-home bathing services to maintain proper hygiene.
Former AmeriHealth Caritas medical director Dr. Brian Morley believes an April 2024 segment on "Last Week Tonight with John Oliver" about Americans losing Medicaid health care coverage destroyed his reputation and personal well-being. Oliver spent the entire episode sounding the alarm about "Medicaid unwinding" with a lengthy monologue that suggested Managed Care Organizations such as AmeriHealth Caritas have worked to take away healthcare.
When examining the situation of a young patient who lost access to in-home bathing and diaper changing, Oliver played an edited audio excerpt from a 2017 testimony in which Morley said about a "similar patient", "People have bowel movements every day where they don't completely clean themselves, and we don't fuss over [them] too much. People are allowed to be dirty. I would allow him to be dirty for a couple of days."
Oliver then said, "F--k that doctor with a rust canoe, I hope he gets tetanus of the balls," and told the HBO audience the testimony was authentic.
"When I first heard that, I thought that had to have been taken out of context. There is no way a doctor, a licensed physician, would testify in a hearing that he thinks it's OK if people have s--t on them for days. So, we got the full hearing, and I'm not going to play it, I'm just going to tell you, he said it, he meant it, and it made me want to punch a hole in the wall," Oliver told viewers.
In a lawsuit filed Friday in New York's Southern District that also named Partially Important Productions as a defendant, Morley alleged that Oliver "falsely" told viewers he "testified in a Medicaid hearing that 'he thinks it's okay if people have s--t on them for days,'" and "illegally denied Medicaid services to—a young man who has severe mental impairment, was harnessed in a wheelchair, wears diapers, and required in-home bathing and diaper changing because he could do neither himself."
Morley's lawyer wrote in the filing that Oliver's "false accusations were designed to spark outrage, and they did."
"Oliver's feigned outrage at Dr. Morley was fabricated for ratings and profits at the expense of Dr. Morley's reputation and personal well-being," the lawsuit said.
"Defendants expressly asserted that they were not taking Dr. Morley's testimony out of context, knowing they had intentionally manipulated the context and their broadcast to convey a defamatory meaning that they knew was untrue," the suit continued, noting that if Oliver truly wanted the full hearing he would have known he was not speaking about an immobile or bedridden person, and that "Morley's testimony stood for the opposite of the defamatory meanings they ascribed to it."
"Morley did not equate wiping poorly with leaving anyone sitting in their own feces for days—whether disabled, incontinent, wearing diapers or not. He testified to the opposite. He testified that people who, for instance, are immobile, laying in their own bowel movements, cannot toilet transfer, or cannot bathe themselves—in other words, people like the individual Defendants depicted—require significant in-home care, including 'to have someone wiping them and getting the feces off' to ensure 'medical safety,'" the lawsuit stated.
The lawsuit alleges that Oliver also knew the patient Morley was actually talking about "was not confined to a wheelchair, was not incontinent, did not wear diapers, independently toilet transferred, was independently mobile, could change his or her own clothes, bathed him or herself, and did not require in-home diaper changing or assistance to bathe generally," but failed to disclose that to the HBO audience.
Oliver also failed to disclose that Morley approved six in-home visits per week to the actual patient, according to the lawsuit, which claims "Last Week Tonight" took the testimony out of context.
Morley believes Oliver's accusations are false and were made negligently with actual malice. He has demanded that HBO retract the "false and defamatory" statements and is seeking "reputational, emotional, and mental damages in an amount exceeding $75,000 and to be determined at trial."
Morley is also seeking punitive damages.
HBO and parent company Warner Bros. Discovery did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
San Francisco Chronicle
an hour ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Letters: He overdosed after being turned away by S.F. drug treatment center. Mother seeks answers
Jonathan Martin, my son, overdosed after he was turned away from HealthRight360's detox facility on Aug. 27, 2024. Jonathan was desperately ill and seeking help. He died alone early the next morning. Jonathan's death was the subject of a Chronicle story ('He overdosed waiting for help. Why did S.F.'s largest drug treatment center provider turn him away?' San Francisco, Feb. 27). When the story was published, I sent a letter to Mayor Daniel Lurie, District Attorney Brooke Jenkins, the chiefs of the Department of Public Health and relevant agencies, HealthRight360 CEO Vitka Eisen and every member of the Board of Supervisors, hoping to find out why my son was turned away. I wanted to understand what prevented him from receiving the services he so urgently needed. I have still not received a single response, explanation or even a note of condolence from any of these officials. If the people who oversee drug treatment in the city will not answer a grieving mother, who will give my family answers? Citizens of San Francisco: You voted these people into office. Is this how you want your loved one to be treated while trying to seek help? The silence from those in power is deafening. Our family demands answers. Carolyn Stueve-Martin, Tulsa, Okla. Don't hide Pride I empathize with her desire for concealment, misdirection or camouflage during a time of danger. My wife is trans, and this is a scary time for us. But I am afraid that Judd is missing the purpose of Pride entirely. Pride is not about shame. It's not about showing off our most socially acceptable community members in the hopes that bigots will leave the rest alone. It is the bigots who should be ashamed. A Pride celebration that is ashamed of its trans and genderqueer members — who are, as Judd wrote, just people trying to live their lives openly and freely — is no Pride at all. Amanda Seyfer, Oakland Big Brother rising Technology has always been a double-edged sword. Fire can provide warmth and light, but it can also be used to burn down an enemy village. IBM's punch cards helped make Social Security possible, but also enabled Hitler's destruction of European Jewry. Today, a shadowy Bay Area company called Palantir is coalescing federal government information on Americans into a database that would allow it to target anyone who dissents from its autocratic policies or has characteristics that it does not favor. We need our representatives (or the courts) to block this monstrous machine before it rolls over us and makes this country a new Reich just like the old Reich.
San Francisco Chronicle
an hour ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
New Alzheimer's blood tests make diagnosis easier — but they're not right for everyone
The number of Americans with Alzheimer's disease, the most common cause of dementia in the U.S., is projected to rise significantly in the coming decades. The devastating disease has no cure, but the past several years have brought promising developments in new drug therapies and blood tests that help doctors treat and diagnose the disease. Here's what to know about the blood tests that diagnose Alzheimer's, one of which got full FDA approval in May. How they work Several commercially available blood tests have become available the past few years, most recently from biotech company Fujirebio Diagnostics, which got full approval from the FDA last month. Each test measures slightly different things, but overall they look for abnormal levels of certain proteins — amyloid and tau — in the blood. The accumulation of amyloid and tau proteins in the brain, often called plaques, are hallmark signs of Alzheimer's. If someone has tau plaques in the brain, for instance, some of that will leak out of the brain into the blood, resulting in a blood test result showing higher than normal levels of tau. In patients with symptoms of cognitive impairment, the tests predict an Alzheimer's diagnosis with about 90% accuracy. Why they're important The blood tests are a notable development because they are less expensive and less invasive than other types of testing that doctors have long used to diagnose patients with Alzheimer's. One is a PET scan, which involves injecting a patient with a radioactive tracer that binds to amyloid or tau in the brain so the presence of the proteins can be seen in a scan. It can cost several thousand dollars, compared to several hundred dollars for a blood test. The other is a spinal tap, which is painful or uncomfortable for many people. This method measures different forms of amyloid and tau in the spinal fluid. 'Up until these blood tests came out, a physician was stuck doing a PET scan or spinal tap, so not great options,' said Dr. Frank Longo, a professor of neurology at Stanford Medicine. 'The big breakthrough is finding something to measure in the blood that's about 90% accurate of what's going on in the brain, about as accurate as spinal fluid or a PET scan.' Doctors use the blood test as part of a broader medical evaluation that also includes a patient history, neurological exam and other testing. The blood test can help rule out Alzheimer's as the cause of a patient's cognitive impairment and potentially avoid unnecessary further testing. If someone's blood test comes back normal, for example, they may not have to undergo the PET scan or spinal tap, and their doctor can look into other potential causes of the cognitive impairment. 'That's the biggest practical thing it's doing now,' Longo said. It's important to distinguish Alzheimer's from other types of dementia because there are Alzheimer's treatments that have come out the last few years that help slow the progression of Alzheimer's. But patients must be in relatively early stages of the disease, with mild impairment or mild dementia, to be eligible. Some of the therapies have significant side effects, so patients would not want to start them unless they knew it was Alzheimer's, and not something else, causing the dementia. They're not for everyone The tests are approved only for people who already have symptoms of cognitive impairment and are of a certain age — 55 and over or 60 and over, depending on the test. They are not approved for healthy adults with normal cognition who want to diagnose or rule out Alzheimer's, or who are simply curious if they are at risk for developing Alzheimer's. They must be ordered by a doctor. They're becoming more common, but may not be covered by insurance Some of the blood tests have been available for a year or two, Longo said, but they were under an earlier and more limited type of FDA approval, not the full approval that the agency granted last month to the Fujirebio test. So they are poised to become more common. 'A year ago, most of my colleagues and I were not ordering these,' Longo said. 'I'd say less than 5% or 10% of the time we were ordering these. Now people are starting to order them in symptomatic patients. It's not rare now. They're starting to be recognized more.' Some primary care doctors are starting to order the tests as well, said Dr. Armen Moughamian, medical director of Sutter Health's Ray Dolby Brain Center at CPMC in San Francisco. The center treats patients with memory disorders. 'It's definitely a minority, but I've been seeing it done,' he said. As with many new medical tests, insurers may not cover them yet, but that usually evolves over time. Full FDA approval may help make the case for the tests to be covered, Longo said. 'There is some uncertainty and lack of clarity about whether insurance and Medicare pay,' Moughamian said. 'That creates some hesitancy for providers to order it.' They may one day be used to screen and diagnose healthy people earlier In people with Alzheimer's, amyloid plaques begin to form in the brain as many as 20 years before they show symptoms. Right now, newer therapies for Alzheimer's — like lecanemab and donanemab, which slow the progression of the disease — are approved only for people with symptoms. Those symptoms are mild cognitive impairment or mild dementia, the early stages of symptomatic Alzheimer's. This means people who have not yet developed symptoms, but who have amyloid plaques in the brain, cannot get these treatments. So if a blood test could be used in pre-symptomatic people, it could mean better screening and earlier diagnosis to larger groups of people. 'What we want to push for is earlier diagnosis because new therapies are available when we catch people in earlier stages,' Moughamian said. Moughamian is leading two clinical trials that examine whether drugs that remove amyloid in the brain, donanemab and another drug remternetug, can work in people who have amyloid plaques but have not yet developed symptoms. They are using an Alzheimer's blood test to see whether patients are eligible for the trial.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
GOP's health care plan: We're all going to die, so whatever
If death and taxes are the only certainties, Joni Ernst is here to cut one and fast-track the other. 'We all are going to die," she said. You might think that's a line from a nihilistic French play. Or something a teenage goth said in Hot Topic. Or an epiphany from your stoner college roommate after he watched Interstellar at 3 a.m. But that was actually the Iowa Senator's God-honest response to concerns that slashing Medicaid to achieve President Trump's 'Big Beautiful Bill' would lead to more preventable deaths. The full exchange at a May 30 town hall included one audience member shouting at the stage, 'People will die!' And Ernst responding, 'People are not — well, we all are going to die, so for heaven's sake.' That's not a health care policy — that's a horoscope for the terminally screwed. As you can imagine, the internet didn't love it, because losing your health should not trigger the equivalent of a shrug emoji from someone elected to serve the public good. But rather than walking it back, Ernst leaned in, filming a mock apology in a graveyard because nothing says, 'I care about your future,' like filming next to people who don't have one. Opinion: Nurses are drowning while Braun ignores Indiana's health care crisis Ernst's comments aren't just philosophical musings. She's justifying policy choices that cause real harm. If passed, this bill would, according to the Congressional Budget Office, remove health coverage for up to 7.6 million Americans. That's not just 'we all die someday' territory. That's 'some people will die soon and needlessly.' What makes this even more galling is that the people pushing these cuts have access to high-quality, taxpayer-subsidized healthcare. Congress gets the AAA, platinum, concierge-level government plan. Meanwhile, millions of Americans are told to try their luck with essential oils or YouTube acupuncture tutorials. Honestly, it felt more like performance art than policy: 'Sorry about your grandma getting kicked out of her assisted living facility. Please enjoy this scenic view of her future! LOL!' We're not asking you to defeat death, senator. Death is both inevitable and bipartisan. But there is a broad chasm between dying peacefully at 85 and dying in your 40's because your Medicaid plan disappeared and your GoFundMe didn't meet its goal. Fundamentally, governing is about priorities. A budget is a moral document. When a lawmaker tells you 'we're all going to die' in response to a policy choice, they're telling you 'I've made peace with your suffering as collateral damage.' And if a U.S. Senator can stand in a cemetery and joke about it, you have to wonder — who do our federal legislators think those graves are for? Opinion: Indiana DCS cut foster care in half — and now claims children are safer This isn't just about one comment or one bill. It's about a mindset that treats healthcare as a luxury rather than a right. If death is inevitable, then access to healthcare you can afford is what helps determine how long you have, how comfortably you live, and whether you get to watch your kids grow up. Healthcare isn't about escaping death. It's about dignity and quality of life while we are here. Ernst got one thing right: death will come for us all. But leadership, real leadership, is about helping people live as long and as well as they can before that day comes. You want to make jokes, Senator? Fine. But if your punchline is 'You're all going to die anyway,' don't be surprised when your constituents realize the joke's on them. Kristin Brey is the "My Take" columnist for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Joni Ernst films graveyard video after telling sick people "we all die" | Opinion
