PORTLAND, Maine — The amount Maine hospitals spend on free care has doubled in the past five years as many people have lost insurance during the poor economy and companies have shifted an increasing amount of health care costs onto employees.
The Maine Hospital Association says the state’s 36 nonprofit hospitals provided $190 million in charity care last year, up from $94 million in 2007.
Uncollected bills rose to $209 million, up 34 percent from 2007.
Maine’s hospitals are required by the state to provide medically necessary free care to patients with incomes at or below 150 percent of federal guidelines.
The Portland Press Herald reports that more scrutiny is being placed on free care as health care has become big business and top hospital executives in Maine fetch six-figure salaries.
Most of Maine’s population is old, poor or are working slave jobs without health insurance. So what does one expect when Mainers get sick. Who knows maybe LePage will start to shut down Maine Hospitals to save money so he can give his Millionaire donors more tax cuts.
It is as I’ve said so many times before. We will pay for healthcare one way or another. Charity healthcare, mostly for ER visits, is the least efficient and cost effective way to pay. We will save, all of us, if we implement a universal healthcare program for all in our country.
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6 figure salaries for executives and we all wonder why the cost of healthcare is rising ? I am sorry but at what point is being deliberately stupid considered a qualifying criteria for being on a hospital’s Board of Director’s when executive compensation is discussed ? Hospital’s and Health Center’s need every dollar they can get for patient care, not for ‘bill padding’ hospital expense’s. This kind of nonsense is one of THE MAJOR reasons why Public Option is going to come into effect by 2020 if not sooner, GOP or Democrat regardless. And please, don’t even start on tort reform and malpractice insurance rate’s. Both are so much moosepoop generated by the insurance companies simply to find a way to see how much premium they can get away with before their customer’s start screaming and the gov’t has to step in.
Why do we not simply demand that all hospitals give everything away for free. Doctors should be forced to work for free.
Of course if this was said about your job and your income was at stake woudl you say sure?
When procedures, like a standard appendectomy, range in cost from $ 1,700 to $ 150,000, and there’s no way to “shop around” because hospitals have no regulations that require them to disclose how much they will charge, comments like yours make it clear what the real problem is.
Simple rampant greed and exploitation is hardly a responsible political or social goal, so good luck with that mess. The rest of us aren’t so stupid.
It is not GREED. Your paying for a SKILLED EDUCATED person to preform a SERVICE. In this case a service that your life may depend on. Choice you have many. You are free to go to ANY doctor or hospital you choose you could fly to China if you wish. Telling a person who has worked for 10 plus years and spent a min of around 200 grand to learn how and what to do that they have to work for free is un American. Many choose to do so and that is the American way. Ever notice those countries who do the state run health care thing are always in need of doctors? What if I came to your place of business and told you that your service whatever it may be had been deemed by the gov a right and now you had to work for 60 to 80 percent less?
You have the goods you charge what you like.
Nobody’s telling you to not go ahead and pay 150 thousand dollars for a $1,700 procedure.
Go ahead and pay whatever you want to pay.
This isn’t about what it costs doctors to go to what is essentially a trade school, this is about you telling us it’s OK for hospitals to charge anything they want to charge, and that it’s OK for them to intentionally refuse to tell you in advance what they are going to charge so that the consumer has no way to choose a more competently run hospital to have their procedures done at.
We know a scam when we see it, question is, why don’t you ?
And why are you making this about what it costs a doctor to get a degree, when it’s really about the administrative side of the corporation/organization ?
Turn off talk radio and read a little.
Careful. You’re beginning to make sense. Here in The County they hang you for that, for a start.
I agree this is happening , but the hospitals are not providing “free care” to anyone. These unpaid bills are being passed onto those of us who pay health insurance.
It is the governments job to pay for these people by taxing the free loaders who run this country.
The cost of providing for the poor should not be passed onto honest business who must compete with the crooks who do not provide insurance for their employees.
Here is something that is so needed – help for those who work and still can not afford healthcare -www.rxcut.com/RXA00065. It works and I have been using this for 3 months now. The savings are usually 10-20$ off one prescription but it could be more for you. You can ask your pharmacist to keep this card on your file so that way you dont have to carry it. That’s what I did. Good luck!