Nonprofit hospitals … are supposed to serve the public good in exchange for being exempt from federal, state and local taxes — exemptions that added up to $28 billion in 2020.
[Yet] detailed media reports show them hounding poor patients for money, cutting nurse staffing too aggressively and giving preferential treatment to the rich over the poor….
Nonprofit executives have embarked on an acquisition spree, assembling huge systems of hospitals and physician practices to raise prices and increase profits. Ample evidence indicates that the growth of these giant systems makes health care less affordable for patients, families and businesses….
In return for their tax exemptions, these institutions are supposed to invest the money that would have gone to taxes into their communities by lowering health care costs, providing community health services and free care to those unable to afford it and conducting research….
[Instead], they have prioritized protecting their finances, focusing on scale and market power…. This has meant less charity care for patients who cannot afford expensive surgeries or emergency room visits and higher prices for those who can.
Amol S. Navathe in the New York Times