Posted on 09/24/2013 5:18:14 AM PDT by 11th_VA
Hospitals in Maryland are operating with record low margins, according to a new report by the state Health Services Cost Review Commission.
Operating profits at Maryland hospitals dropped 71 percent in fiscal 2013, which ended June 30. The 46 hospitals reported a total operating profit of $99.8 million, down from $344.2 million a year before. The total profit margin among the hospitals was 3.39 percent.
“I don’t think we’ve ever seen margins this low, ever,” said Steve Ports, deputy director of policy and operations for the HSCRC, which sets hospital rates.
SNIP
Alright, so hospitals aren’t making money like they used to. Should we be concerned? After all, a nearly $100 million profit isn’t too shabby.
Ports’ simple answer is yes.
“Hospitals need enough revenue to operate,” he said.
That includes improving facilities, updating equipment and paying the thousands of Maryland residents who work for them.
(Excerpt) Read more at bizjournals.com ...
Wait till Obamacare kicks in full time! You ain’t seen nothing yet.
I bet O malley and other Dems here consider this a victory.
Medicare and medicaid.
Let them all go out of business. Marylanders can medicate themselves with pot and gay love and WalMart-free zones.
Hospitals are a business like any other. If they can’t make a profit, then they cease to exist. Some people have gotten the idea that health care is a right and that they’re owed health care (maybe from the democrats and some republicans telling them that for decades). Ain’t so. Health care isn’t free. it costs for doctors, nurses, equipment, infrastructure, medicine, etc. Somebody has to pay for these things or there won’t be any.
Must have reduced the Medicare and Medicaid fraud.
Maybe the hospital ship Mercy can dock off the coast and give the poor indigents in MD some ObamaCare.
Wasn’t the ObamaBot governor, O’Malley, on TV last week confronting Texas governor Rick Perry, bragging how rich MD was compared to TX? Of course, that wealth is due to the federal bureaucrats attached to Big Goernment in D.C. instead of real workers in TX, who have to survive in the Obama Depression.
I’ve been working in hospitals in Maryland since 1979.
Hopefully your employer will go out of business as well.
I recently went to the hospital and it was filled with illegals in the emergency room ... no wonder they can’t make a profit ...
How very egalitarian of you.
Health care is too expensive, so the Clinton administration is putting Hillary in charge of making it cheaper.
(This is what I always do when I want to spend less money — hire a lawyer from Yale.)
If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it’s free. - P.J O;Rourke..
Congress(and their Staffs) and the Unions are running around like Keystone Cops trying to get exempted from Obama-Care..
WHY IS THAT?...
Keep this up and the bonds they feel to operate borrow money at these hospitals will dry up or cost them more than they can afford. Hospitals in the USA will go back to looking like those around in the 1930”s for the common folk.
Government setting prices, that always works.
Maryland is the only state with a rate setting commission for hospitals.
This form of rate setting is only permitted to continue as long as Marylands’
Medicare average charges are less than the rest of the country.
They continue to trail the national average by 5% at this time.
I am no fan of government regulation either, but the Maryland way of hospital rate regulation is by far, in my opinion, better than the rest of the states.
Not sure what you mean.
I think that almost all the people using the medical system now are using it at the taxpayers’ expense. Folks who have to pay for their own care can’t afford it.
Decrying profits by a corporation is usually a socialist attitude.
Most states would love to make 100 million in profits. The state has Johns Hopkins and University of Maryland which are great hospitals. Of course Anne Arundel Medical Center is pretty dang good too.
WalMart-free zones.
WTF? We have Walmart’s all over the place.
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