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It comes from the CHARITY CARE!!!!!!!! Another one who doesn't know what it is. Your bill, which gets PAID by CHARITY CARE INCLUDES all of that other stuff. DUH!
Again, that's not what Bob is talking about. He is talking about a hospital that provides care and then doesn't get paid people the people were uninsured and did not pay cash. The poor having Medicaid ia providing a revenue source for the hospital.
Do you even know what charity care is? I don't think so. Charity care isn't the hospital waiving your costs and eating them, it is money that has been DONATED to them from various charities to pay for people's bills who can't afford it. That money doesn't go into the hospital's earnings. That's how I arrived at that conclusion.
Ehm - you're kinda wrong, here.
Charity care is defined as care delivered at lower or no cost to the patient in return for the hospital/facility being granted tax exempt status under Federal law.
Or, in the words of the CBO, my bolding:
Quote:
“Uncompensated care” refers to the sum of charity care (services for which a hospital does
not expect payment) and bad debt (services for which a hospital expects but does not collect payment).
Again, that's not what Bob is talking about. He is talking about a hospital that provides care and then doesn't get paid people the people were uninsured and did not pay cash. The poor having Medicaid ia providing a revenue source for the hospital.
He mentioned charity care specifically. Read it again.
Charity care is defined as care delivered at lower or no cost to the patient in return for the hospital/facility being granted tax exempt status under Federal law.
Would you like me to add some exclamation points and all-caps for emphasis?
Each state is different I suppose. My state doesn't do it like that. The hospitals don't get tax credits, they get paid for the bill from individual charities and state funded charities. It might be a lower reimbursement than the actual bill, but so is the ACA, medicaid and medicare. So the point stands, it doesn't eat into their bottom line. They aren't eating these bills in their entirety they get money from charities or tax credits. They ARE getting something back on the same payment lines of medicaid and medicare. So in effect, adding more medicare patients is like adding more charity care patients. The end result is the same.
It's similar to "uninsured motorist" -- which clearly is a term that should never be allowed in the English language. If you can afford the automobile insurance, don't drive. Ride a bike, ride a bus, or hit the bricks on your own two feet. It's really that simple.
But the article that the OP referenced was something slightly different. The hospital chain in question -- LifePoint Hospitals -- was discussing how the new Medicaid patients have reduced the number of uninsured ER visits that LifePoint experienced. The drop was from 21.4% to 16.6%, which while statistically meaningful, is unlikely to impact LH's bottom line.
LifePoint Hospitals will likely finish FY2014 with $4 billion in revenue. LifePoint saw a greater benefit from Medicaid expansion compared with other hospital companies because it treats a large rural population. Financially, it's good news for LifePoint.
But you're right, the price of healthcare certainly isn't going down as a result of this.
That's not what Bob is talking about. He is talking about the hospitals eating the cost after treating the uninsured because they can't pay.
That is called "screwing the shareholders" who actually own the hospital. These people should get triage and put in a cab and sent on their way.
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Do they call special fairies out of thin air to provide the labor, medicine, and resources?
