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"As charitable non-profit institutions they pay no taxes, but nevertheless seldom offer medical services to the indigent, indeed often charging the medically uninsured higher prices and aggressively collecting unpaid bills."

I know there is some truth to this, but should it say "seldom offer medical services to the indigent, indeed often charging the medically uninsured higher prices"? How standard is this? This page should be reworded. --Kalmia 06:15, 17 July 2007 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I have some pretty negative feelings towards hospitals, but agree with Kalmia more effort should be made towards NPOV. In direct opposition to what I just said, here's a website listing billing abuses by hospital (www.HospitalVictims.Com) You can click on the link near the top to search by state and see how your local "Wellness Center" stacks up.

As far as uninsured people being billed more, that's EXTREMELY COMMON. Insurance laws state a procedure/prescription will cost the insurance company (and therefor your co-pay) the EXACT same whether it's done in Maine or Hawaii. Blue Cross plan says it costs you $25 to fill your anti-rejection meds, that's what it will be in all 50 states. Not so with the uninsured. Doctors, pharmacies, nurses, radiologists are not bound by any kind of "reasonable and customary" when it comes to billing the little guy. Plus, the average uninsured twit doesn't have anybody making the calls or mailing the letters begging for any kind of reduction. Why would the hospital feel like accepting $350 for a procedure that only cost them $75 - that's just bad business. Insurance companies are staffed by people who try to argue down the bills because (wait for it) it's THEIR money.

My rants have gotten noticeably longer in recent months, weird. Moral of the story: People's money is unimportant, they would just piss it away on food and housing and clothes for their children. Corporate money is extremely valuable and must be protected at all costs - even if it means stuffing uninsured patients off in taxis to homeless shelters while still in hospital gowns - this happened to my mother less than 90 minutes after a seizure, IV still in her arm.--Legomancer 02:27, 21 July 2007 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I'm not sure I understand the logic of that hospital victims website. Shouldn't it compare of the price of other hospitals' medical services to John Hopkins instead of the revenue to cost ratio?--Daveswagon 23:19, 8 August 2007 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Actually, the site doesn't even use revenue data -- it uses "charges" which do not reflect the price patients actually pay for health care.--Daveswagon 22:57, 9 August 2007 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Non-profit hospitals exist outside the United States, too, and we shouldn't assume that what happened in a particular time (recent) and place (the US) is generally true for all times and all places. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:38, 17 October 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The article mentioned that indigent patients sued unsuccessfully, but what were they suing over? -- Beland (talk) 21:35, 22 January 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]