Charts: Catholic Hospitals Don't Do Much for the Poor

[xchrom]

http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/12/catholic-hospitals-arent-doing-much-poor

***SNIP

The hospitals have long justified their tax status and restrictions on care by pointing to their religious mission of serving the poor and their delivery of charitable care. But the new ACLU/MergerWatch report suggests, and the chart below illustrates, Pope Francis might be on to something when he's said that the church needs to shift its priorities to focus less on abortion and more on the poor. MergerWatch data show that Catholic hospitals, where executives often earn multimillion-dollar salaries, aren't doing any better providing charity care than other religious non-profit hospitals that don't restrict care. They're barely any better than ordinary secular nonprofits.


The charitable care figures also don't give a complete picture of how well Catholic hospitals serve the poor and uninsured because it doesn't include patients who are covered by Medicaid, the government health care plan for the low-income and disabled. As it turns out, Catholic hospitals, which in 2011 had more than $200 billion in gross patient revenue, had the lowest percentage of revenue from Medicaid of any type of hospital. Even for-profit hospitals earned more revenue from Medicaid than Catholic hospitals.


All of these numbers suggest that as Catholic hospitals have merged and expanded into a multi-billion dollar enterprise, they've moved far beyond their religious mission and become like any other large corporation. Given those trends, and the hospitals' reliance on public funding, it's hard to see how they can continue to justify their mixing of Catholic doctrine with health care, especially when it disproportionately violates standards of care for women.

The ACLU/MergerWatch report calls on the US Department of Health and Human Services to crack down on Catholic hospitals and to insist that they follow federal law requiring all hospitals that receive Medicare and Medicaid funding to provide emergency treatment to any patient, even if that care requires an emergency abortion. Other advocacy groups have made similar requests in the past few years, but HHS thus far has refused to pick a fight with the Catholic Church, which has turned into one of the Obama administration's biggest foes thanks to the contraceptive mandate in the Affordable Care Act. The church has proven to be a powerful enemy—a wealthy special interest in a holy war—and even the new Pope seems unlikely to persuade it to give up this particular fight.

[idwiyo]

1. k&r "There is something beautiful in seeing the poor accept their lot,

to suffer it like Christ's Passion. The world gains much from their suffering,"
Mother Theresa

Do I need to say more?

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-03/uom-mta022813.php

Mother Teresa: Anything but a saint…
Researchers dispell the myth of altruism and generosity surrounding Mother Teresa

The sick must suffer like Christ on the cross

At the time of her death, Mother Teresa had opened 517 missions welcoming the poor and sick in more than 100 countries. The missions have been described as "homes for the dying" by doctors visiting several of these establishments in Calcutta. Two-thirds of the people coming to these missions hoped to a find a doctor to treat them, while the other third lay dying without receiving appropriate care. The doctors observed a significant lack of hygiene, even unfit conditions, as well as a shortage of actual care, inadequate food, and no painkillers. The problem is not a lack of money—the Foundation created by Mother Teresa has raised hundreds of millions of dollars—but rather a particular conception of suffering and death: "There is something beautiful in seeing the poor accept their lot, to suffer it like Christ's Passion. The world gains much from their suffering," was her reply to criticism, cites the journalist Christopher Hitchens. Nevertheless, when Mother Teresa required palliative care, she received it in a modern American hospital.

[Bluenorthwest]

2. So they misrepresent their charitable actions to polish their bigoted organization's

image. That's a very special brand of mendacity, exploitation and dishonest self indulgence, particularly in a faith which teaches that charitable works should not even be mentioned to the public but done in secret, gilding one's charity lily is the opposite of what was taught by the character Jesus.

[el_bryanto]

3. That is a good argument - but the title overstates the case

Catholic Hospitals do about as much or more in charity treatment than the other categories, except Public Hospital. Other questions one should probably ask are how many of these hospitals are there and where are they serving communities.

That said, these hospitals resistance to the contraceptive mandate is pretty deplorable.

Bryant

[rgbecker]

4. 611 hospitals, 12% of total in US.

http://www.catholicsforchoice.org/topics/healthcare/documents/2005factsaboutcatholichealthcare.pdf



How many Catholic
hospitals exist today?
According to the Catholic
Health Association (CHA),
the trade association
representing Catholic health
care institutions throughout
the US, there are 611
Catholic hospitals, representing
approximately 12%
of all hospitals nationwide.
More than a quarter of
Catholic hospitals are located
in rural areas, meaning that
there are often no other
viable health care options for
people living in those areas,
especially the poor, who may
not be able to afford to travel
to another institution. In

[idwiyo]

5. Good point - 25% in areas where there is no other choice for the poor,

unless they want to travel. Something they likely can't afford.

[progressoid]

6. 'Non profit' my ass.

[ucrdem]

7. Depends on how they're defining "charity care."

The MJ article doesn't say. In any case, health care is an expensive product, with a lot of salaries to be paid. Charitable foundations tend to go under in tough times. Speaking from personal experience. And MJ identifies MergerWatch as a "reproductive rights advocacy group" so I'm not expecting a lot of objectivity here.

[reformist2]

8. Horribly inaccurate headline, possibly due to anti-religious bias.

Maybe Catholic hospitals are doing no better than average, but all hospitals are helping the poor.

[dickthegrouch]

9. Spend any significant time with a Bishop

and you'll find they are as hard nosed as any business executive. Desperate for approval, desperate to protect their image, shrewd, manipulative and demagogic. In short: vile, entitled, people.

How the church has survived this long is a bit of a mystery to me. But survive it does using mafia-like tactics to protect itself.

How they get away with legislating their private-members club rules on the rest of us is a total mystery to me.

The only justification for their collective vileness is their projection of that vileness on everyone else. When the initial premise is that you've born into a state of "sin", nothing can possibly get any better. Even Human #5 had to have been born from incest according to the bible.

Money may be the root of all evil, "sin" is the root of all misery.