Posted on 03/14/2017 11:52:10 AM PDT by Cedar
Would the concept St. Jude Hospital uses for their funding work for the entire country? They are funded 75% by private donations (see link).
There are around 6,000 hospitals (google search) in the U.S. Is it possible they could be funded through private donations (super rich people along with average Joes)?
I am not good with financial realities (except my own checkbook), so I'm throwing this idea out here to see if possible. FReepers are smart people.
There are some free clinics already in the U.S. which are functioning through donations. Maybe the entire healthcare system could exist through private donations at no cost to the patients (like St. Jude Hospital) and bring an end to Obamacare.
Surely Buffett, Gates, Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, Waltons, etc., along with average Americans could make this work...yes?
St. Jude Hospital link: https://www.stjude.org/about-st-jude/unique-operating-model.html
Something needs to be done. We had an excellent regional hospital in my county that was suddenly and inexplicably closed about 2 years ago. Now the nearest hospital is 40 minutes away. If you have a serious accident or other life threatening and sudden event, syonara sucker if you live around here.
*Some* hospitals could.
Frankly, I think the future should include an effort to follow the Mexican model; eg; produce, on the grounds of hospitals and in various suburban locations, small <2000 sq foot neighborhood clinics staffed by nurse practitioners and supervised by visiting docs. There are already some of these things showing up in shopping malls. I myself think that 5-year-on-the-job nurses (RNs) can do about 60% of what MDs can do. Anything that would get good numbers of low-income folks out of real emergency rooms would save giant money.
There is no one thing that solves all of healthcare delivery. That’s why trying to explain any new idea to an 11-second attention span meathead or someone with a brain the size of a walnut like Schmuckie or Maxine is exceptionally difficult.
No. The answer is that it would not be possible. Philanthropists have many different priorities and multiplying the number of charity hospitals exponentially would just beggar all of them.
Nope.
I figure some of those costs are totally unnecessary and could be greatly reduced or cut all together. If St. Jude can do it, others could also.
I’m just trying to think of a way for the government to get out of the healthcare system...except for possibly Medicare since people have already paid their own money into that system. But who knows, if the entire country could have private donations for hospitals and clinics, even Medicare would not be needed. Do away with it, also Medicaid, and Obamacare...what a concept!
St. Jude is so specialized, and attracts donation/charity funding, due to treating cancer in children. The Shriners’ hospital/s also attract donations from people who do not want children to suffer.
I don’t think people are inclined to send charitable donations to some place that is doing knee replacements and appendix removals. Just sayin’.
> Something needs to be done. We had an excellent regional hospital
One thing we need to do is accept that Bill Gates and Hillary and Obama will get better care than much of the population. It would be great if was possible for everyone to get top care, but the fact is that your old regional hospital can’t compete on quality of care with the one Obama uses.
But the Dems insist that everyone deserves the same care so they put hospitals out of business rather than letting them provide lower quality care. And the lower quality facility will usually be for unimportant things like stitches while they can diagnose someone who needs a more up-to-date facility and staff and send them to another hospital.
Letting a nurse run a clinic in a town with no doctor would be far better than requiring a 40 minute drive just to get an evaluation. But regulations put the town doctor out of business, and it’s not cost-effective for the emergency clinics to set up in the town with a doctor and all the regulations. The Dems pushing rules don’t understand because they’re always within a few minutes of an emergency clinic and usually a major, modern hospital. And the AMA doesn’t want to allow a nurse to do things without a doctor supervision even though the nurse is more than qualified/competent.
No helicopter service for you folks?
There are some free clinics in the U.S., funded solely by private donations. They treat all ages and do the boring stuff too like lab work, etc.
If everyone in America did not have to pay for medical insurance, they might have a little extra money to give to their favorite clinic or hospital.
Wouldn’t it be great if this could actually happen? I think it would. Well, I have to leave now for work, but I appreciate all the comments posted here.
In a word, no. All of those people you mention—and a lot of people you’ve never heard of, contribute millions every year.
I work at a not for profit hospital. The cost of treating the people who cannot pay takes up all of our money, insurance money, and money from the State of Mass. and we are still coming up short about $12 million this year.
And that means we need to cut staff, facilities, and support people. Our “profit margin” is 1/2 of 1%.
The best thing the average person can do is stop smoking, go on a diet, and go for a walk.
Somewhat off topic, by I wonder how much it costs to run a hospital, and how much hospitals get paid by insurers and out of pocket payment by patients.
I hear how we spend in the trillions yearly on healthcare, but then also hear how many hospitals are in financial trouble.
Something doesn’t quite add up. Everybody who works pays Medicare taxes, which then go to pay for hospital and outpatient care. All with health insurance pay premiums.
Is this a matter of redirecting and rechanneling money we already spend so that we get better results? Including making it possible for financially troubled hospitals to stay in business?
Yes it is possible. BUT—The CEO and senior officer pay must be reduced. I don’t believe that will ever happen. Most non-profit hospitals stay that way because they SPEND their profit in salary and new buildings/equipment. That’s where your money goes!!
Before the great depression (GD), there were charitable hospitals and benevolent societies up the wazoo. GD dried up middle class money and therefore much charitable giving so gov stepped in.
So yes, it could actually work that way, along w/a free market for paying customers.
Problem is, it’s not a free market as long as you have guaranteed buyers like the gov through medicare and medicaid.
That along w/other similar problems precludes the medical sector from being a free market.
As such, it costs more in charity dollars for specific service than it would otherwise, so to say.
So I think it’d help but will be limited effectiveness.
Socialism and capitalism don’t mix. When part of the sector is socialism it drags the rest down with it regardless, a la housing crisis 2008.
How about letting the MARKET decide how much hospitals charge? You need cancer care? Well, HospitalA charges $x and HospitalB charges $y. In another State, HospitalC charges $u and the overseas HospitalD charges $w. You also have option of NOT going to the hospital, which costs exactly $0. The CHOICE is yours, not the gubmint’s. PRO CHOICE. What a concept.
“The CEO and senior officer pay must be reduced.”
More rules and regulations. Not what is needed.
People might be more willing to pay the ridiculous levels of taxes we do if we followed my plan (I call it the Tenacious Tax Plan).
Stop all taxes on all businesses. Only tax wage earners, ALL Wage earners. No deductions, EVER for anything.
Every year, when a tax payer files for taxes, they go through a book provided by the government for free and they pick what percentage of their taxes go to what government funding. BAM! the federal budget is set for the next fiscal year. No money in the budget? Program is dead. Maybe 10% of taxes paid go to government discretionary fund.
NOW... The government must actually lobby the people for where the spending goes. Imagine commercials where the government has to sell itself to the citizens.
Health care became expensive when lawyers got involved in it.
Something needs to be done. We had an excellent regional hospital in my county that was suddenly and inexplicably closed about 2 years ago. Now the nearest hospital is 40 minutes away. If you have a serious accident or other life threatening and sudden event, syonara sucker if you live around here.
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Hospital beds, like the interstate highways were built to prepare for war and emergencies. Cold war and WWII mindsets. The highways were seen a being easily converted into landing strips if need be.
Hospitals up to the eighties had extra beds to cope with possible mass causalities.
Now that there is no interest in civil defense, the hospitals became victims of the beancounters called the Healthcare Finance Commissions, which has to approve every bed and every piece of equipment hospitals purchase.
The bigger hospital chains and organizations are wiping out little stand alones just like hospital practices and large medical practices have wiped out the independent practitioner.
There is no way the regionals can return unless the government is totally out of hospital care, except to provide charity hospitals for the indigent .
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