FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:  

June 24, 2019

REPORT: Healthcare Charities Raking in Cash & Stockpiling Money

OpentheBooks.com Oversight Report – Top 82 U.S. Non-Profit Hospitals, Quantifying Government Payments & Financial Assets, studied the largest charitable healthcare providers where roughly 1 out of 7 U.S. healthcare dollars was spent last year. 

Senator Tom Coburn, "The problem in health care is not that markets have failed. The problem is they have never been tried. This report shows that hospitals and so-called health care ‘charities’ benefit handsomely from the status quo. The lack of price transparency in our health care system is driving up costs and reducing access and quality. Giving patients an honest look at health care economics is one of the best ways to drive reform."

Why are the salaries so high at these healthcare charities? Furthermore, net assets at these charities increased by 23.6% or $38.9 billion last year.

Salaries ran as high as $21.6 million. In fact, six CEO's made between $10 million and $21.6 million; seven CEO's made between $5 million and $9.99 million; 25 CEO's made between $2.5 million and $4.99 million; another 36 CEO's made over $1 million; and only 8 executives took a paycheck under $1 million.

Adam Andrzejewski, "America’s patients shouldn’t have to go on a scavenger hunt to discover prices for services. The lavish salaries for health care CEOs and rich endowments for charities may be one reason why the numbers are so elusive for patients. In every other area of the economy shoppers can see what things cost. It’s long past time to apply basic standards of transparency and price discovery to health care."

For more than 50 years, American presidents have been sounding the alarm about America’s healthcare system and rising costs. Hard data backs up this concern. In 1970, healthcare amounted to 7% of GDP and today is near 20%. 

BY THE NUMBERS:

• $203.1 billion – the total of combined net assets of these 82 non-profit providers;
• 23.6% – the percentage of growth in combine assets from $164.2 billion to $203.1 billion; 
• $20,000 – the annual healthcare costs for the average American family; 
• $21.6 million – Banner Health CEO earnings last year;
• $26.4 million – Combined lobbying costs spent by the 82 hospital organizations spent last year.