There’s a hidden side to non-profit hospitals that they don’t want their patients to see. It’s the seamy side populated by state and federal lobbyists that continually press local legislatures to rescind pricing guides for medical care on the local level, and that pay fat salaries to lobbyists in Washington DC to insure that inconvenient things like transparent billing and Medicare for All do not get anywhere near a hearing that could lead to their approval.
Why would not-for-profit hospitals, seen by most people as public benefactors, want to hold back legislation that is obviously consumer-friendly and could lead to major breakthroughs in the cost of diagnosing and treating a variety of illness and disease? The answer is complicated, but it’s been made clearer by recent journalistic reports on how Big Pharma is sweet talking the nonprofit hospitals into keeping drug prices high, and in return making sure that these same hospitals will get steep discounts on their products. It’s also been reported that doctors at nonprofit hospitals are not at all pleased with their salaries and perks, and are beginning to press for better incomes or else they’ll walk out of the nonprofits and start their own for-profit clinics. These kinds of circumstances are forcing nonprofit hospitals to act like for-profit hospitals, whether they like it or not.
