Non-profit hospitals

21. April 2007 William Davis (1)
Hospitals hide behind a veil of non-profit.

Ostensibly operating for the public good, most hospitals enjoy all the business advantages of non-profit status. This means that any profits that flow to the bottom line at the end of the year are not subject to tax. Hospitals point out that profit margins are modest, often ranging from 2-6%.

What they don’t tell you is that, regardless of non-profit status, lots of money can be paid out along the way. A hospital CEO who pays himself $4 million dollars a year can work for this non-profit organization. He can also direct the hospital in business expansion: pharmacies, extended-care facilities, medicine and medical supply distributorships. Your friendly hospital CEO, as well as his many administrators, can hold positions in hospital subsidiaries, complete with salaries and perks.

Yes, most hospitals are officially non-profit. But that’s a designation for tax purposes. It does not mean that hospitals are non-lucrative.

I believe that it’s time for hospitals to drop the façade of “Saint” in their names or other religious names—Methodist, Baptist, Jewish, All Saints’. More accurate would be something like “ABC Medical Enterprises, Inc.” That way, the public would be quicker to recognize that they are dealing with a business run by people eager to make more money.
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Comments (1) -

  • Gary Greenfield

    10/13/2007 9:03:00 AM |

    Wow, excellent insight and I wholeheartedly agree. I am of the opinion that post-modern man having abandoned an appreciation and concern  for the health of the soul has idolized the human body to such an excess that he is willing to pay any price to save his body while neglecting his own soul. The passions of those in the health care community are taking advantage of the passions of the misdirected patient. Both the physician and the patient have abandoned God and the anchor that historically kept medical care tied to a love for God and man failed long ago.  Now rather than being harbored in the peaceful waters of virtue and self sacrifice, we are shipwrecked on the rocks of greed and self love.

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