America has a system of revenue generation that it calls healthcare. Many of it’s “healthcare” corporations work more diligently to improve revenue and income than on improving patient access, affordability and outcomes. That’s American private healthcare even if the company involved is supposedly “non-profit.” This article documents some of the actions of a large non-profit church run hospital system. In reality it is a cash cow that launders hospital income into huge privately held investments.
As noted in the article “But The Times this year has documented how large chains of nonprofit hospitals have moved away from their charitable missions.”
“Some have skimped on free care for the poor, illegally saddling tens of thousands of patients with debts. Others have plowed resources into affluent suburbs while siphoning money from poorer areas.’
And: “Today, Ascension operates in 19 states, mostly in the South and the Midwest. It serves about six million patients.”
“By many measures, Ascension is rich.”
“In addition to its billions in cash, it runs an investment company that manages more than $41 billion. Last year it paid its chief executive, Joseph Impicciche, $13 million.”
“Because of its nonprofit status, Ascension avoids more than $1 billion a year in federal, state and local taxes, according to the Lown Institute, a health care think tank.”
Medicynical Note: In large areas of the country, because of the tax advantage from their non-profit and church related status, hospitals like Ascensions’ have become the only provider of health care, dominating both inpatient and outpatient services. Besides scrimping on staffing and services to maximize return they also enforce health care religious proscriptions on their non-practicing patients and staff.
In the end America has a revenue generating rather than a health generating system of care. It’s interest is more in income than outcomes. Sad but true.
Medicynic 