To continue our series shining the spotlight on bad actors in our broken health care system, today we want to talk about the hospital industry.

In 2020, a National Nurses United report found that hospitals in the U.S. on average charge patients more than four times the cost of care, with charges outpacing costs over the past 20 years: between 1999 and 2018, the charge-to-cost ratio doubled, which means hospitals are fleecing patients.¹

Part of the problem is for-profit hospitals. Our report found that of the 100 hospitals with the highest charges relative to their costs, for-profit corporations own or operate 95 of them. And all of the top 100 hospitals are owned by hospital systems, as opposed to being independently operated community hospitals.²

Today, for-profit corporations often buy up hospitals in a given area, creating a monopoly that allows them to jack up the prices once they’ve eliminated their competition. According to the University of Pennsylvania, hospital consolidations have swept the country over the last three decades, which has only increased costs for patients while worsening access and care quality.³

But not-for-profit hospitals can still be part of the problem too. Our Preying on Patients report found that from 2009 to 2018, Maryland’s not-for-profit hospital system filed 145,746 medical debt lawsuits seeking $268,711,620 from low-income patients — at least 3,278 of those lawsuits ended with the patients filing for bankruptcy. This medical debt comprised 4.7 percent of net income, while executive compensation made up 46.6 percent, with hospital executives making millions of dollars. To make matters worse, these same hospitals provided less and less charity care over the years to patients, despite being heavily subsidized.⁴

It doesn’t have to be this way, and a single-payer system like Medicare for All would start to address some of these issues in the hospital industry. Hospitals would never have to charge patients directly for care of any kind -- all medically necessary services would be covered by Medicare, with no more out of pocket costs for patients. Additionally, hospitals serving vulnerable communities in rural and underserved areas would benefit from reliable and equitable funding, which will improve health care in these communities and prevent hospital closures.⁵

Together, we must keep up our collective fight for health care justice for all by building the political will to pass Medicare for All.

In solidarity,

Nurses’ Campaign to Win Medicare for All

Sources:
1 - Fleecing Patients: Hospitals Charge Patients More Than Four Times the Cost of Care
2 - Ibid
3 - Hospital Consolidation Continues to Boost Costs, Narrow Access, and Impact Care Quality
4 - Preying on Patients: Maryland's Not-for-Profit Hospitals and Medical Debt Lawsuits
5 - Medicare for All Act Fact Sheet