One of those outstanding balances was for Doris Beister PH.D, R.N. and President and CEO of the hospital.

Her balance?

$2,020,441.

You might wonder how many years it takes to save up that kind of money.

Apparently not very long when you know you are retiring.

According to their 990 for 2005, the hospital contributed $546,888 to her SERP.

That was after a contribution of $488,464 in 2004, which means that just over half of her total SERP came in contributions from just 2 years.

By the way, the new President and CEO who started in January of 2007, received a $100,000 "signing bonus" in December of 2006.

It makes the holidays so much nicer.

According to their 990 Federal Tax Forms, in 2004, he received $1,138,951 in total compensation.

In 2005, he received $1,351,554 in total compensation.

In 2006, he received $1,593,652 in total compensation.

And according to their just posted 990 for yearend 6/30/07 James received $1,677,787 in total compensation.

A review.

After having their tax-exemption revoked five years ago, they paid the taxes they owed into an escrow account.

The appealed that decision, losing first at the staff level at the Illinois Department of Revenue, then losing again as the Director of the Department agreed that they weren't acting properly.

A quick, bogus and political ruling by an inept Circuit Court Judge went in favor of Provena, at which time the hospital arguing that the ruling, (even though it was being appealed) was a final ruling, and got a local judge (based on that Circuit Court opinion) to order the county to repay the monies collected.

After losing on a toughly worded unanimous ruling by the 3 person Appellate Court, the county asked for the money back.

Lawyers for Provena now argue that the Appellate Court ruling is not a final ruling and are refusing to give the money back to the County.

Baased on that Appellate Court ruling, that same local judge has now ruled twice that Provena has to pay up.

Provena still refuses.

The County may now have to sue to force Provena to pay.

As I said at the top, the lawyers for Provena, a Catholic health care system are like spoiled little children, who believe it's their money and won't let go no matter what the law says.

They also can't believe that anyone would question a religious organization.

Wasn't that the same attitude and mentality that the church showed during the sexual abuse scandals?

Here's how their report began.

"Cook County Assessor James Houlihan has decided that an order of Catholic nuns and Loyola University do not have tax exempt status on a controversial posh, high-rise building on the Gold Coast.

"The 53-story Clare at Water Tower 55 E. Pearson St, named for a saint who founded an order of nuns known as the Poor Clares, will be getting a tax bill of nearly $670,000 a year based on Houlihan's $4.7 million assessment, unless they successfully appeal the assessment.

"Many of the 253 units have already been sold for up to $1.5 million each with a promise of property tax-free living."

To read the entire report, including the part about yours truly, Click Here

In spite of the fact that the Benedictine Health System was a Catholic system Essentia doesn't really push the Catholic mission statement any more.

Instead on their website under "belief statements" they write, "Essentia Health believes in the synergy of sponsorship among faith based and secular organizations".

For yearend 6/30/07, not-for-profit Essentia Health reported making a profit of $65,769,000, which was up from the $52,777,000 in profits they reported for the year before.

The CEO of Essentia Health is Peter Person M.D.

According to their 990 Federal Tax Forms his secular total compensation is going up quite nicely.

2005, $1,082,576.

2006, $1,361,725.

2007, $1,451,972.

Earlier this year Catholic Health World reported that the Benedictine Health System had decided to close a nursing home due to "low reimbursement, an aging facility and rising costs".

As of last night, The Clare at Water Tower in Chicago has made no offer to accept those residents.

Profit over mission.

That is what the Catholic Church has become.

I used to say that that was what the lay people who run the orders have done, but like the old Watergate question, what did the leaders of the Church know and when did they know it?

They've known it for years, my private audience with Cardinal George on this exact subject was over 3 years ago.

And while church leaders try and argue that exorbitant hospital profits are used to carry on the mission, in the case of The Clare retirement home, Cardinal George wouldn't even offer a defense.

Marketed to millionaires, The Clare bragged that because they were a tax-exempt organization, retirees would not have to pay any real estate taxes.

Well no more.

Today the Cook County Assessor informed The Franciscan Sisters of Chicago that the project has been determined to be a taxable interest.

Entrance fees to The Clare ranged between $530,000 and $1.2 MILLION.

You and I both know that they will appeal and say that this is a slap in the face of the Sisters, and that the court case will take months if not longer to play out

With Pat Rooney's support I did a video and ran ads attacking The Clare.

The original investigative report on this project that was triggered by those ads I did is worth revisiting.

Pat this one's for you.

To see that ABC news report Click Here.

To see my original youtube Christmas video Click Here

The 1 1/2 hour presentation target is listed as, "CEO's, CFO's, In-House and Outside Counsel".

The brochure has this to say.

"Not-for-profit hospitals in Illinois have benefitted from a charitable exemption from property taxes for over one hundred years. The Illinois Department of Revenue's removal of two hospitals property tax exemption and the recent appellate court decision approving the return of one f the hospitals to the tax rolls is surprising to many of us in the hospital industry. Many are unsure if they should submit applications to the Department until the Illinois Supreme Court has an opportunity to weigh in.

"Join us for an informative teleconference and roundtable discussion of the and how hospitals can best position themselves for property and sales tax revue by the Illinois Department of Revenue."

Current tax exemption environment, don't you love it.

These millionaires won't like hearing about The Clare decision.

I'm having a very good day-so I'll stop here.

Think I'll call my hero Stan Jenkins, the former Assessor of Champaign County who arguably is the single person most responsible for forcing the IHA to have this teleconference, and have a teleconference beer together.

2006, $134,473.

2007, $177,324.

Not-for-profit Clinton Memorial Hospital is located in St. Johns Michigan and has only 25 beds.

Obviously not a large hospital bed wise, or in terms of net patient revenue.

According to the American Hospital Directory (AHD), for year end 12/31/07, net patient revenue totaled less than $35 million.

So what were those numbers for 2005, 2006 and 2007 I listed at the top of this posting?

According to AHD, based on their total profits, that's how much profit they made each year per bed!.

They must be very nice beds.

He's apparently so proud of what appears over his name that the editorial can be found on the website of his not-for-profit hospital.

Here's some of what he wrote.

"Another disturbing trend we are seeing at CMH is people with insurance who do not pay deductibles or co-insurance which can add up to millions of dollars a year. We know individual circumstances are different and we do not refuse treatment to anyone based on an ability to pay. We are not advocating that anyone put off medical care because of current financial circumstances. But we actually have repeat patients, with the ability to pay and/or significant outstanding balances with us, who refuse to talk dollars and cents with us because they think healthcare should be free."

Gee, maybe the people in question believe what the Democrats have been saying.

He went on to say that "Unfortunately, this is not England or Massachusetts where universal health care has proven to be far from perfect. What are the chances the next time you buy or lease a vehicle that you are going to drive off the lot before the dealer has your cash in hand or the money from your bank loan? Not going to happen. How about if you tell your cable provider or telephone company that you may or may not pay them in the future for services being utilized now or in the past? Your service would be cut off immediately".

He goes on to talk about how much his hospital provides in community benefit.

"According to the latest complete figures available from the Ohio Hospital Association, CMH's community benefit totaled more than $20 million in 2006."

Why quote the Ohio Hospital Association, can't he provide his own numbers?

And why in a guest editorial that was written in August of 2008, does he use figures from 2006, figures by the way that include according to his guest editorial, "Medicare losses ($5.8 million)", (thought hospitals promised to quit including that figure), "and the value of employees' volunteer community benefit activity ($2.9 million), that has been a discredited inclusion time and time again, "Bad debt accounts for $3.6 million of that community benefit", again I thought hospitals promised not to include bad debt in counting community benefit.

Maybe Sister Carol "half my brain is a clinking cash register" Keehan should remind hospitals of what they promised regarding reporting community benefits or admit she was just trying to get Senator Grassley to stop his investigations.

Important note.

Andy's hospital is a county run hospital.

While he may make good points, any losses are covered by tax increases by local taxpayers.

Big difference--and something that should have been disclosed to readers.

My father recommended it, and since he had served as a pharmacists mate 2nd class in WWII, my wife and I took his recommendation on its face.

At one time, Michael Reese was considered one of the finest hospitals in Chicago, but my dad was living in the past.

It was not a very good hospital at the time.

It was eventually sold to a for profit company, who couldn't make a go of it.

They shut their doors recently.

Don't know if they were pressured to do so because Chicago Mayor Richard Daley coveted the location for his dream of landing the 2016 Olympics, or they just couldn't make it with all the Medicaid patients they had to handle.

Here's part of what I wrote in March of this year.

The hospital assessment program in Illinois generates big money for Medicaid payments to hospitals.

And as with any program that raises money and distributes money, some win, some lose.

Currently big wealthy hospitals with a lot of volume are disproportionally rewarded under this system even though the percentage of Medicaid patients may be very small.

I reported in January that one hospital executive (yes some talk to me) said "having a psychiatric unit in your hospital is like having a gold mine under this system".

Poorer small inner city and rural hospitals where Medicaid patients percentage wise make up a much larger proportion of total patients are screwed under the current system.

According to figures provided to me, in 2006 this assessment program provided a payout of $17,338,250 to not-for-profit Northwestern Memorial Hospital.

According to their financial records for that year Northwestern Memorial made a profit of $181,703,000 and was sitting on cash and investments of $1,697,348,000.

You tell me whether they either needed or deserved that $17 million.

So today's question is, could inner city for profit Michael Reese which had an incredibly large Medicaid population have stayed open if they got that $17 million instead of incredibly wealthy not-for-profit Northwestern Memorial.

The answer would be yes, unless of course Chicago's Mayor wanted the property no matter what.

Incredibly profitable not-for-profit healthcare systems like Catholic Health Initiatives and not-for-profit Ascension close inner city hospitals arguing that they are not financially viable, while true inner city hospitals, hospitals who don't have the resources to seek out wealthy white patients go under.

So where are we at when it comes to serving America's poor who live in the inner city?

So how do we define charity care in terms of earning a tax-exemption?

A hospital like Michael Reese could have remained opened if my plan, now the plan of the Illinois Attorney General was law, which would (according to my definition) place a luxury tax on those very profitable not-for-profit hospitals like Northwestern Memorial and Barack Obama's hospital, not-for-profit The University of Chicago Hospitals, using that money to keep real iner city hospitals open.

RIP Michael Reese

Here's part of what the WSJ wrote.

"Fueled by large, untaxed investment gains, Carilion's profits have risen over the past five years, reaching $107 million last year. Over the same period, the total annual compensation of its chief executive, Dr. Murphy, nearly tripled to $2.07 million. His predecessor, Thomas Robertson, received a lump-sum pension from Carilion of $7.4 million in 2003, on top of more than $2 million in previous pension payouts."

This hospitals feet is being held to the fire by a large and growing community activist group.

And now, that fire just got hotter.

Yesterday in an article titled "Fed agency looks into Carilion purchase" the Roanoke Times reported in part that "The Federal Trade Commission has inquired into Carilion Clinic's recent acquisition of a Roanoke independent imaging center.

"Dr. Ed Murphy, chief executive officer of Carilion, confirmed to The Roanoke Times on Monday afternoon that soon after Carilion purchased the Center for Advanced Imaging on Aug. 28, the FTC asked for more information regarding the transaction. Carilion is cooperating, Murphy said.

"Last week, the FTC also talked to the former chief executive of the center and to a representative of a citizens group that is critical of Carilion's business practices.

"Among the FTC's responsibilities, it is charged with preventing and eliminating anti-competitive behavior in the marketplace."

I've said before that The Wall Street is having an impact, and that the community group that was organized to stop the abusive practices of not-for-profit Carilion is having an impact, as evidenced by this investigation.

To read the entire Roanoke Times article Click Here

That's a markup of 1,960%.

They charged $384,010,365 for drugs that cost them only $32,957,226 to provide.

That's a markup of 1,166%.

Overall, AHD reported that for yearend 6/30/07 this hospital marked up their actual costs by 758%.

Think that's bad, think again.

Here's what not-for-profit Abington reported on their just released financial statement for yearend 6/30/08.

"Total operating revenue of $648,475,000 for the 12 months exceeded last year by $58,203,000 (10%) mainly due to higher patient volumes and rate increases received from third parties."

You can scroll down if you missed it.

That prompted Ioanna to send me another recent article from the Hampton Roads Pilot newspaper.

It talked about how the system has extended its smoking ban to cover each of their hospitals entire campus.

It used to be okay to light up outside the doors, which resulted in many employees taking their breaks and smoking, resulting in a cloud of cigarette smoke hanging around each entrance.

That's no longer allowed on Sentara property, and that's a good thing.

Here's the line from the story that led to the question in the headline, which is how much do you want to bet that this shows up as counting as a community benefit?

"Patients will be informed of the policy upon admission and visitors who need tobacco will be offered a free piece of nicotine gum while they are here."

I know gum can't cost that much, but in order to justify huge tax-exemptions, we've seen not-for-profit hospitals count their volunteers as a community benefit, (one hospital claimed $17.57 per person per hour for their services in 2005).

Donations to symphony orchestras, youth soccer leagues, meals on wheels, (which the hospital in question reported making a profit on), salaries' of employees, construction costs, contributions to organizations thousands of miles away are counted as a community benefit, putting a price tag on giving away drugs that hospitals received for free from pharmaceutical companies have been counted as a community benefit, so why not gum?

I'm betting they count it.

Feel free to chew on this information before placing a bet.

Well, the year end 6/30/08 financial statements for not-for-profit Temple University Health System of Philadelphia became available yesterday and in the second paragraph of the "Management Summary" they were brutally honest once more about their goal, which I wrote about earlier this year.

Here's what it said.

"A critical component of the Health System is to both increase volume, targeting more acute and better paying patients..."

Looks like the not-for-profit The University of Chicago Hospitals are trend setters.

On their 990 Federal Tax Form, Temple states what their "primary exempt purpose" is.

Charitable is mentioned, targeting better paying patients is not.

In early 2008, one of the member hospitals of this not-for-profit health care system, Jeanes Hospital announced that they were closing their labor and delivery unit.

Why?

"Bottom line, they lose too much money providing this service."

If the mission has changed, so should the tax-exempt status.

By the way, this system bucked the trend of investments tanking, as their investment income increased from $20 million in their FY07, to $30 million in FY08.

Overall, thanks to a liquidation of their Seniors Partner Medicare line, which brought them approximately $41,000,000 which was reflected in "Non Operating Gains and Losses", profits for year end 6/30/08 came in at $69,821,000, more than double the year before.

Profits in FY07, $34,702,000.

Ought to be enough money there to reopen that labor and delivery unit, but they won't because poor people use it and charitable care is no longer their target.

They, like the not-for-profit The University of Chicago Hospitals system are after wealthy white patients.

According to their financial statements, in 2006, they reported making a profit of $265,932,000.

In 2007, profits were lower, coming in at $193,158,000.

The difference, less investment income.

But in 2007 the hospital reported that while investment income was down, that operating income, the money made from patients was actually up by $8 million in 2007, when compared to 2006.

Well their investment income has really tanked in the first six months of calendar year 2008.

In the category of non operating gains/losses they actually report a loss of <$247,447,000>, which is a big swing from the $48,465,000in non operating profit that they recorded in the first six months of 2007.

One thing has helped, while they can't control the economy, they can control charges.

When comparing the first six of this year, 2008, to the first six months of last year, 2007, operating income (the money made off patients) is actually up by $28,365,000, ($111,039,000 versus $82,674,000).

It's comforting to know that not-for-profit hospitals can always squeeze more profits from patients.

And politicians never blame hospitals for increases in the cost of health care.

According to their financial statements, in 2006, this not-for-profit hospital reported making a profit of $519,446,000.

In 2007, profits slipped coming in at $486,440,000.

Six months into the year 2007, their profits stood at $240,193,000, of which operating income (profits from patients) contributed $104,796,000.

Through the first six months of 2008, not-for-profit The Cleveland Clinic reports making a profit of only (only in comparison to 2007) $41,452,000.

Operating income however stands at $136,189,000 which is an increase of $31,393,000 compared to the year before.

Like Texas Health Resources what they are losing in non operating losses, they are trying to make up from the patients.

The contract?

Not-for-profit Sentara Health in Virginia, also has its own health insurance company ,which is named Optima.

Bon Secours, a not-for-profit Catholic healthcare system also operates in Virginia, and one of their hospitals, DePaul, which is located in Hampton Roads was accepting patients with Optima health insurance.

The contract between Bon Secours and Optima was recently renegotiated, to the benefit of Bon Secours.

The new President and CEO of DePaul had this to say recently in an interview with the Hampton Roads Pilotabout that contract.

"It's very expensive to run a hospital with all the equipment - CT scanners can be up to $2 million once you get them up. So if we don't receive competitive pay from the insurers, that puts us at a deficit, too. Before the Optima contract was renegotiated, the rates were very tight. They were below Medicaid rates, which, in Virginia, Medicaid for every patient you treat you lose money on the treatment. So if Optima was below Medicaid, that tells you where we were with the payment structure. So it was very important for us to get reasonable reimbursement going forward." (Emphasis added.)

Can you believe a highly paid person agreed to a contract that reimbursed at a rate less than Medicaid?

I can't.

The new President and CEO of DePaul was transferred from another not-for-profit very profitable hospital in the Bon Secours system, probably to correct this stupid mistake, he's been on the job about a month.

Last reported profits for not-for-profit Sentara come from annual reports.

2004, $110,980,000.

2005, $136,500,000.

Their 2006 annual report didn't include that information.

Profits at not-for-profit Bon Secours.

Year end 8/31/06, $69,750,000.

2007, $142,210,000.

The story began, "A drive down Highway 40 might be all one needs to see BJC HealthCare's dominance in the local medical market, but the area's largest health care system provider laid out its financial position and plans for the future in a recent bond filing. In an interview, the hospital system's chief executive, Steve Lipstein, offered more detail." (Emphasis added.)

Got that? Lipstein, the President and CEO offered "more detail".

The story offers an example.

" BJC tries to spend about 9 percent of revenue on capital, Lipstein said. It spent less than 1 percent of revenue on charity care in 2004, the most recent year available. Lipstein said that figure has since increased..."

Gee since then in March of this year, his hospital settled a lawsuit concerning alleged price gouging of the uninsured.

Settelemnts are based on hard up to date numbers, numbers he seems painfully unaware of in spite of settling a lawsuit.

That settlement resulted in this not-for-profit system promising discounts of 25% to those without insurance, and admitted that some uninsured patients treated in the past may be eligible for refunds or discounts.

The Post Dispatch reported at the time that "Under the settlement, uninsured patients who were treated at a BJC hospital since Jan. 1, 1999, and paid some or all of the cost, may be eligible for a partial refund or reduction in their bill.

"Class members will be notified of their right to submit a claim for the refund. The discounts will also apply to uninsured patients receiving treatment until at least 2012.

But in this interview where Lipstein offers more detail, that last percentage of charity care he can recite is 4 years old.

That story about the settlement shows there true color.

It reported that the hospital holds out hope that the government will outlaw discounts in the future.

"The settlement allows BJC to end the discount policy before 2012 if an influx of uninsured patients starts seeking care from its hospitals. Fowler said that option would be reserved for a significant policy change such as a national health care program or a change to federal law prohibiting the discounts." (Emphasis added.)

A review.

Cash and investments as of yearend 2007 stood at $2,911,600,000.

Profits, according to their audited financial statements.

2005, $315.1 MILLION.

2006, after originally reporting a profit of $288.4 MILLION, they later revised it to (restated is the legal term) to an incredible $406.6 MILLION.

2007, $222.6 MILLION.

And let's not forget this fact.

According to the Wall Street Journal, this system counts the salaries of its employees as a community benefit.

Not-for-profits-you got to love them.

Not.