OPINION:
About 15 years after the Affordable Care Act was enacted, our elected officials are debating whether to extend certain subsidies to help Americans buy ACA health care plans. That’s important, but reform of the underlying health care system is even more necessary.
A byzantine network of waste, fraud and abuse, health care in America has become outrageously expensive while enriching the very few. Hospitals get away with drive-by billing simply because they are big and usually have monopolies, and when people get hurt or sick, they don’t have much opportunity to shop around.
Insurers are usually the payment mechanism, so when people get mad about costs, insurers get the blame. If hospitals weren’t run by greedy sociopaths, we wouldn’t need insurance. It’s not just for-profit hospitals that are the problem. It’s also those hiding behind a usually bogus “nonprofit” status. Thanks to 990 income tax exemption forms, we can easily see some of the ridiculousness at their nonprofit brethren.
Executives of many nonprofit systems now fly first class or use private jets. Texas’ Christus Health, Missouri’s Mercyhealth, New York’s Montefiore, Louisiana’s Ochsner system and New Hampshire’s SSM Health Care Corp. are getting in on the game.
Nonprofit status also opens financial avenues and frees up cash for all sorts of other high jinks. Recently, nonprofit hospital systems have taken to investing in pizza parlors, hotels and even ventures in Antarctica.
Someone has to pay the price for all this, and that “someone” is you and me, whether it’s through our insurance premiums and co-pays, direct payments to health care providers for those without insurance, less take-home pay from our insurance-sponsoring employers or taxpayer subsidies.
Immoral profiteers in the system have been happy to exploit the federal government ever since it got overinvolved in helping finance the nation’s health care. To achieve affordability, hospitals need to knock it off.
JARED WHITLEY
Washington
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