Is There Any Way This Could Be Good?
Donations to hospitals set a new record in 2011, but the costs of soliciting those funds continued to rise as well, according to a new report by the Association of Healthcare Philanthropy (AHP). Altogether, hospitals raised $8.94 billion last year. That actually topped the previous record year of 2008 by 4 percentage points, when $8.58 billion was raised. Philanthropy was then affected by the onset of the Great Recession in the intervening years, hitting a bottom of $7.64 billion in 2009.
When people give to hospitals doesn’t this raise the cost of healthcare to the rest of us — even more than the $2.7 trillion we are already spending?
Source: FierceHealthFinance.
What is the donation record for 2012? It seems every election year there is major change..
They should focus on cutting costs instead of raising more money.
The cost of health care goes up because someone decides to given money to hospitals rather than, say, the local zoo?
Seriously?
The article says that hospitals are spending 34 cents to rais $1.00. By private sector standards, this is a heck of a profit margin.
I’m hoping someone will explain as I’m clearly missing something.
+1 Linda, I was curious how this drives the cost of healthcare up — the article didn’t reference it.
Im assuming hospitals pofit margins have increased then?
Non-profit hospitals pay no sales tax on supplies; no property tax on buildings, no income tax on earnings, and receive tax deductible donations and preferential bond rates when financing another new building. All non-profit hospitals have to do in return is provide 4% to 5% of net revenue in charity care (as least that’s the standard in Texas). Non-profit hospitals also have to plow earning back into expansion.
I don’t care where donors contribute their dollars. After all, it’s their money. The only real question is to what degree the tax expenditures (i.e. taxes saved by donating funds to a non-profit) provides a benefit to the public? If so what is that benefit?
I guess it should be added to the total amount spent on healthcare, but $9B doesn’t seem like a lot next to $2.7T.
Linda, I’m with you on this one.
If donating money to hospitals increases health care costs…perhaps people should quit making donations and see if this lowers these costs? It doesn’t make sense at all…but that seems to be the pattern nowadays anyways..