President Lincoln's thoughts on Justice and the Duty of Government

[David Lockmiller]

Thrasymachus proclaimed that "justice is nothing more than the interest of the stronger."

New York Times Headline: "They Were Entitled to Free Care. Hospitals Hounded Them to Pay."
By Jessica Silver-Greenberg and Katie Thomas
Sept. 24, 2022

In 2018, senior executives at one of the country’s largest nonprofit hospital chains, Providence, were frustrated. They were spending hundreds of millions of dollars providing free health care to patients. It was eating into their bottom line.

The executives, led by Providence’s chief financial officer at the time, devised a solution: a program called Rev-Up.

Rev-Up provided Providence’s employees with a detailed playbook for wringing money out of patients — even those who were supposed to receive free care because of their low incomes, a New York Times investigation found.

In training materials obtained by The Times, members of the hospital staff were instructed how to approach patients and pressure them to pay.

“Ask every patient, every time,” the materials said. Instead of using “weak” phrases — like “Would you mind paying?” — employees were told to ask how patients wanted to pay. Soliciting money “is part of your role. It’s not an option.”

If patients did not pay, Providence sent debt collectors to pursue them.

More than half the nation’s roughly 5,000 hospitals are nonprofits like Providence. They enjoy lucrative tax exemptions; Providence avoids more than $1 billion a year in taxes. In exchange, the Internal Revenue Service requires them to provide services, such as free care for the poor, that benefit the communities in which they operate. [Emphasis added.]

But in recent decades, many of the hospitals have become virtually indistinguishable from for-profit companies, adopting an unrelenting focus on the bottom line and straying from their traditional charitable missions.

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(09-26-2022 10:14 AM)Gene C Wrote:  Say, that reminds me of a song by Lefty Frizzell - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfsFmtcqnQM

Gene, I think it would be really funny if Providence’s chief financial officer at the time had asked former U. S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens for an attorney referral and Justice Stevens suggested calling attorney Early Lefty Frizzell.

I especially liked attorney Frizzell's sales pitch admonition which he sang with these words at the 2:03 mark [sing along, please]: "But if you run short of money, I'll run short of time. With you no more money, Honey, I've no more time."