Quote:
Originally Posted by tw
Nonsense. Hospitals have gone bankrupt and closed.
Hospitals have even conducted massive firings of surgeons due to insufficient funds.
At least one of those doctors I know (a heart surgeon) was applying for jobs just like everyone else.
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Medicine is not a charity. It is a business.
A service just like any other business whose purpose is the advancement of mankind.
Even non-profits must balance the books.
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"Nonsense" is nonsense. Hospitals and medicine are businesses,
but have special supports and advantages that other forms of business do not have.
Medicine, and especially hospitals, survive in part, on the charity of the public.
As such, they have advantages because certain things (obligations) are expected of them.
What other free-market, service-business gets tax-free properties,
donations from the public, support by religious organizations, volunteers,
governmental reimbursement at rates that vary by location,
grants to employees for working in relatively isolated communities,
county- or volunteer-provided supplemental assistance such as ambulance services, etc.
And in some communities are allowed monopolistic business practices.
Likewise, there is state-support Schools of Medicine and Nursing to train hospital employees
that cause the tax payers far more than what the tuition and student loans.
TW, As you said in another post, "I never said...."
I too never said anything like "no hospital has gone bankrupt".
Of course some have, and physicians and hospital staff have been fired.
I too can give a specific examples of a hospital that fired it's entire
janitorial staff so aides and voluteers would do that work,
and in the same month increased the CEO's salary by $100,000.
I agree with you that Medicine is not a charity, but it can not be a free-market business either.
Of course, they have to balance their books.
But if when a hospital is in the red at the end of the fiscal year,
they can have a campaign asking for public donations to balance their books.
And, they can go to state and federal agencies asking for "emergency funds"
How many truly free-market businesses can compete on such unequal playing fields ?
As said before, hospitals have a special place in society, and as such,
have some special (non-emotional) expectations and obligations to serve the public.
ETA: I forgot to mention "training hospitals"
Some hospitals get special compensations from governments
by providing "training" to medical personnel.
As such, they are often (very often) getting high-trained employees
for below-market salaries.