Nonprofit hospitals to benefit from Obamacare
It was late in the year of 2009 that the Democrats in Congress and only the Democrats voted to pass Obamacare into law. Then Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi made the famous statement that “we have to pass the bill so you can find out what is in it away from the fog.”
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops opposed the passage of Obamacare, fearing that it would allow the federal government to dictate to religious organizations what they could and could not do even if it went against their beliefs. That was something our founding father, Thomas Jefferson, believed went too far.
The Conference’s worst fears were confirmed earlier this year when the Secretary of Health and Human Services ruled that not only Catholic universities, and according to many Catholic officials, hundreds of other Catholic institutions, including but not limited to Catholic elementary schools, Catholic hospitals, Catholic social service organizations like Catholic Charities, would be forced to offer abortion services to their employees, which is clearly against the teachings of their church.
Faced with an electoral backlash from not only the Conference of Catholic Bishops but committed lay persons of the church, which included many women in key battle ground states, President Obama offered what the bishops felt was a politically driven compromise that did not in the church’s eye respect the separation of church and state.
What was surprising to watchers of the politics of the Catholic Church was the fact that the Catholic Health Care Association, headed by Sister Carol Keehan, in both cases broke with the bishops and first endorsed the passage of Obamacare and then endorsed the so-called compromise on the abortion issue.
We are learning that there will be hundreds of tax hikes in Obamacare to pay for this monstrosity starting in 2014, and thousands of new IRS agents will be hired to enforce this law — but here’s one profitable group that won’t be taxed or faced with audits from the IRS: “So called not-for-profit hospitals that masquerade that they are doing the work of our Lord.”
The Internet is a powerful tool. Find out for yourself. The Catholic Health Association is nothing more than a trade association that does what it has to do to protect (aka lobby Congress and the president) the egregious and very profitable providing of health care while avoiding paying any taxes.
Look up the financial reports for some of these hospitals. For fiscal year 2009, which ended before Obamacare was passed, not-for-profit Catholic Health Care Initiatives reported losing $503 million. In the two years since Obamacare passed, they reported a profit in FY2010 of just over three-quarters of a billion dollars. For FY2011, profits increased to more than $1.2 billion.
Check the Internet and you will see that another member of the Catholic Health Association, not-for-profit Ascension Health, reported “excess over expenditures” for fiscal year 2011 of $1.5 billion in profits.
How can you attack a not-for-profit Catholic Hospital that is doing the Lord’s work you ask? These profits are after uncompensated care — losses on Medicare and Medicaid, investments in new buildings, charity care, paying the rising cost of prescription drugs, you name it.
Because this trade organization endorsed Obamacare and the compromise, they don’t face any IRS investigations into their not-for-profit status or their price gouging of the uninsured. Yet they continue to give six-figure raises in compensation every year to their top executives. They are not criticized for that by the Obama administration.
What does all this mean to us? The not-for-profit hospitals will not be paying any taxes to fund Obamacare. Instead, we will, which means we will be helping them to make billions more in profit. Insiders profit at our expense.
Joe Novak lives in Polebridge.