Getting More From Non-Profit Hospitals |
Hospitals are very important to a functioning America. The Trump Administration has pushed some common-sense reforms to get prices of drugs and care down, but there is a gaping hole in the system now that increases the cost to taxpayers while not providing care to the needy. Non-profit hospitals need to provide more care to those in need or they should lose their non-profit status.
There is concern by many that non-profit hospitals are gaming the taxpayer to make big profits. It makes no sense for an organization that purports to be a charitable organization to convert into a massive, for-profit enterprise. The big losers are patients and taxpayers.
Here is a great example of how a non-profit should run. Vanderbilt University was founded in 1873 with a $1 million gift from Cornelius Vanderbilt. That modest endowment was invested and, most importantly, used to educate students. It allowed Vandy to grow into a leading educational institution that serves not only Nashville, but the entire U.S.
Modern endowments aren’t as clearly focused. They exist not to provide education, but to grow (and grow and grow) so the university can brag about how large its endowment is. For example, Harvard was sitting on a $50.7 billion endowment in 2023. Yale........