Another sign the conventional health care paradigm is actually working for some people, but often not the patients who probably need it: American hospitals posted a six-year high in profit margins in 2004 (5.2 percent), according to data from the American Hospital Association (AHA). What's more, 2005 numbers could be just as good...Reasons for the continuing growth in profits at hospitals:
Median overall profit margins were more than 4 percent, the best since Congress passed legislation to balance the federal budget in 1997, according to one expert.
Hospitals getting a better handle on their expenses -- probably by recycling surgical instruments -- and negotiating more fiercely with insurers.
Health systems making better investments that may have fueled a $100 billion construction boom, the largest the hospital industry has seen in a half-century.
Not all hospitals prospered, however. Twenty-five percent of them remain in the red, according to the AHA. Still, that's an improvement from some 33 percent in recent years.
Just remember, no matter how palatial hospitals become, they still employ workers who ignore deadly mistakes, accounting for countless and needless deaths in this country every year.
USA Today January 5, 2006
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