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Hospitals are extraordinary profit centers for their owners - vast amounts of money go through them. If they can't clean their surgical instruments, the situati

Hospitals are extraordinary profit centers for their owners - vast amounts of money go through them. If they can't clean their surgical instruments, the situation is morally and, uh, literally, criminal. Whoever is ultimately responsible for such situations - managers, not underlings - should be in jail.

corndoge 7y ago
It is sarcasm
- crimsonalucard 7y ago
  Nah man, I think he picked up on it.
  - joe_the_user 7y ago
    I didn't, I was reading quickly but whatever. I'm on HN as a site where content rather than whether you get the jibe is important.
rayiner 7y ago
They are not: https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/hospital-operating-margins-dropped-39-over-3-years/532205/ https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/hospital-operating-margi... > A new Navigant study analyzed for-profit and nonprofit provider networks and found that the average operating margin declined by almost 39% over the same time span, from 4.15% in 2015 to 2.56% in 2017. Contrary to your assumption, hospitals are about as profitable as grocery stores. It would be useful to introspect about that a bit, because I imagine many people have similar misconceptions. What was your assumption that hospitals are “extraordinary profit centers” based on? Do you think peoples’ attitudes toward hospitals might change if they knew the real facts? Does the truth change your attitude about who should go to jail?
- Ididntdothis 7y ago
  Be careful with these numbers. As far as I know they operate more like a lot of non-profits around DC. Big money for insiders and leadership, but no profit at the end of the year.
  - rayiner 7y ago
    For-profit hospitals have shareholders who should ramp down on such waste, but they don’t appear to have appreciably higher profit margins.
    - Ididntdothis 7y ago
      The keyword is “should”. But they don’t. I know somebody who did research into the ownership structure of hospitals in an area and where the money goes and you can’t compare this to normal companies. It’s a highly corrupt insider system that makes a lot of money from local governments and patients.
      - joe_the_user 7y ago
        This. In situations where large sums of money are vanishing on a continuing basis, Hanlon's razor ("don't attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence") must reversed.

corndoge 7y ago

It is sarcasm

crimsonalucard 7y ago
Nah man, I think he picked up on it.
- joe_the_user 7y ago
  I didn't, I was reading quickly but whatever. I'm on HN as a site where content rather than whether you get the jibe is important.

rayiner 7y ago

They are not: https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/hospital-operating-margins-dropped-39-over-3-years/532205/ https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/hospital-operating-margi... > A new Navigant study analyzed for-profit and nonprofit provider networks and found that the average operating margin declined by almost 39% over the same time span, from 4.15% in 2015 to 2.56% in 2017. Contrary to your assumption, hospitals are about as profitable as grocery stores. It would be useful to introspect about that a bit, because I imagine many people have similar misconceptions. What was your assumption that hospitals are “extraordinary profit centers” based on? Do you think peoples’ attitudes toward hospitals might change if they knew the real facts? Does the truth change your attitude about who should go to jail?

Ididntdothis 7y ago
Be careful with these numbers. As far as I know they operate more like a lot of non-profits around DC. Big money for insiders and leadership, but no profit at the end of the year.
- rayiner 7y ago
  For-profit hospitals have shareholders who should ramp down on such waste, but they don’t appear to have appreciably higher profit margins.
  - Ididntdothis 7y ago
    The keyword is “should”. But they don’t. I know somebody who did research into the ownership structure of hospitals in an area and where the money goes and you can’t compare this to normal companies. It’s a highly corrupt insider system that makes a lot of money from local governments and patients.
    - joe_the_user 7y ago
      This. In situations where large sums of money are vanishing on a continuing basis, Hanlon's razor ("don't attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence") must reversed.