The American Spectator

Reader Mail

(Page 6 of 20)

br> Re: The Prowler's Grassley, Lott & Scruggs : /p>

With all due respect, The Prowler is way off base in its attack on Senator Grassley's attempt to rein in the greed and attitude of God-given right to confer privilege on favored entities and individuals that besets today's so-called non-profit hospitals. No organization or individual in the entire country prices its goods and services like hospitals do, i.e., the less you have, the more you pay. Airlines don't do it. Drug companies don't do it. Only hospitals do it.

The preferential treatment given patients with employer provided plans versus individuals who are self insured, is a natural result of the distortion induced by government interference (tax breaks for some, but not others; government payment for some, but not others) in what once had been voluntary transactions of individuals.

Another cause of the outrageous differences in actual amount a hospital accepts, as opposed to the hospitals' imaginary fees billed is the change of non-profit hospitals from their origins as institutions of charity (mostly religiously affiliated) into for-profit in fact monsters by the hospital lay administrators' insight that "just because you are 'non-profit' doesn't mean you can't make money" (and lots and lots of it).

The result has been that those who are uninsured or self insured pay the outrageously high imaginary fees, while those who have employer provided plans pay the substantially lower actual fees.

p>Since the hospitals that were once non-profit have been replaced in fact by a system that is entirely for-profit, Senator Grassley's inquiries make more sense than allowing hospitals to continue their fictitious game of pretending to be non-profit. Rather than attacking Senator Grassley with cheap-shot innuendos about Senatorial motives and internal politicking, you should be championing his investigation into the dinosaurs known as general hospitals. br> -- John Gridley /p>

Is it ethical for non profit hospital board members to rake in millions and millions of dollars from the same institutions that they control as board members? Here in Tupelo, Mississippi, that is exactly what is going on, and I, a life long Republican, applaud Senator Lott for his courage to expose what is happening here and all over the country.

The same board members who call themselves conservatives here in Tupelo at the North Mississippi Medical Center spend millions of dollars to stamp out health care competition. Their actions reek of hypocrisy. They are simply concerned about protecting their own fat self serving contracts.

p>Dick Scruggs may be a Democratic trial lawyer but he is doing the country a service with this litigation. It is a shame the Congress has been unwilling to provide proper oversight to non profit hospitals. But what could you expect from Dr Bill Frist, a major shareholder in a health care company? Speaking of conflicts of interest?

topics:
Taxes, Education, Trade, Health Care, Television, Economics, Religion, Islam, Environment, Hollywood, Movies, Law, Military, Iraq, Iran, NATO, Fascism, Immigration, Oil