4 ms·

Again why do we need hospitals to make money? Aren't national expenses like healthcare a good place to use taxes for?

luckylion 4y ago
Because we don't want them to be bureaucracies that grow and grow without providing increasingly good service. If you can solve the problem of state agencies becoming insanely inefficient (mostly due to lack of incentive to be efficient, I suppose), you'll make everyone happy.
jonas21 4y ago
We don't need them to. 62% of hospitals in the US are non-profit, and an additional 20% are run by the government. Only 18% are for-profit. In some states, like New York and Minnesota, there are no for-profit hospitals.
- verall 4y ago
  Tons of people getting rich as fuck at those non-profit hospitals though.
  - twblalock 4y ago
    Yes, if you want good people you have to pay market rates. Some people in the medical profession may be willing to work for less money for a charitable cause, but not enough to run entire hospital systems.
- burkaman 4y ago
  Non-profit doesn't mean you don't make a profit, and doesn't mean you behave more ethically than for-profit hospitals. Example: https://www.propublica.org/article/methodist-le-bonheur-healthcare-sues-poor-medical-debt https://www.propublica.org/article/methodist-le-bonheur-heal...
dghughes 4y ago
I'm not in the US and it is staggering to see how much one hospital take in just one single hospital. Tisch Hospital New York NY Net patient revenue 2022 $6,273,707,636
- lief79 4y ago
  Without the number of patients, this number is fairly meaningless. The hospitals can be and often are huge.
  - dghughes 4y ago
    The funding for my entire Canadian province for all healthcare; two main hospitals, two small hospitals, a dozen clinics, a few nursing homes for one year is $850 million. So that single US hospital takes in over 7X more than we get per year to run it all.
dbtc 4y ago
The real money is in insurance. From what I can tell, this is the cancer in our system, and the hospitals take more than their share of the blame. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UnitedHealth_Group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UnitedHealth_Group

Because we don't want them to be bureaucracies that grow and grow without providing increasingly good service. If you can solve the problem of state agencies becoming insanely inefficient (mostly due to lack of incentive to be efficient, I suppose), you'll make everyone happy.

jonas21 4y ago

We don't need them to. 62% of hospitals in the US are non-profit, and an additional 20% are run by the government. Only 18% are for-profit. In some states, like New York and Minnesota, there are no for-profit hospitals.

verall 4y ago
Tons of people getting rich as fuck at those non-profit hospitals though.
- twblalock 4y ago
  Yes, if you want good people you have to pay market rates. Some people in the medical profession may be willing to work for less money for a charitable cause, but not enough to run entire hospital systems.
burkaman 4y ago
Non-profit doesn't mean you don't make a profit, and doesn't mean you behave more ethically than for-profit hospitals. Example: https://www.propublica.org/article/methodist-le-bonheur-healthcare-sues-poor-medical-debt https://www.propublica.org/article/methodist-le-bonheur-heal...

dghughes 4y ago

I'm not in the US and it is staggering to see how much one hospital take in just one single hospital. Tisch Hospital New York NY Net patient revenue 2022 $6,273,707,636

lief79 4y ago
Without the number of patients, this number is fairly meaningless. The hospitals can be and often are huge.
- dghughes 4y ago
  The funding for my entire Canadian province for all healthcare; two main hospitals, two small hospitals, a dozen clinics, a few nursing homes for one year is $850 million. So that single US hospital takes in over 7X more than we get per year to run it all.

dbtc 4y ago

The real money is in insurance. From what I can tell, this is the cancer in our system, and the hospitals take more than their share of the blame. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UnitedHealth_Group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UnitedHealth_Group