C. Todd Everett

[Heath Veuleman @HeathVeuleman]

I wonder if they’re out-migrating any of that RHTP money from any of the 16 states they’re located in back to their balance sheet in Missouri?!

Y’all wouldn’t believe what a boondoggle this RHTP $50BB stimulus is - total corruption.

It would have been so much easier, and less paperwork, for the government to wire money directly to Vanguard, Statestreet, and Blackrock.

[Heath Veuleman @HeathVeuleman]

I had the good fortune of studying with a Rabbi for almost 2½ years. @AdamYitzchak. Highly recommend.

Oddly enough, he helped me understand my own deep and abiding evangelical faith in an entirely new and profound way.

Whenever adversity arose, he challenged me to do something that seemed almost absurd.

Offer God gratitude and praise and thanksgiving.

“Thank you for this blessing!”

And I’m not talking about the vicissitudes of life. A deal falls apart or someone says something ugly or you have a bad day.

I mean real adversity.

Loss. Betrayal. Failure. Humiliation. The thing you begged God not to let happen, and it happened anyway.

“Thank you for this blessing!”

That is an extraordinarily difficult spiritual practice. Even to this day, very hard.

It is especially difficult for physicians, entrepreneurs, executives, and people accustomed to fixing things. Our instinct is to fight the problem, control the outcome, overcome the adversary.

But there is another kind of overcoming. “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

Sometimes people call this “transmutation.” Receiving something destructive without allowing it to determine what you become in response.

You don’t call evil good. You don’t deny the pain. You don’t pretend grief doesn’t hurt. You simply refuse to let adversity have the final word.

And eventually you begin to ask a very different question.

Not, “God, why is this happening to me?”

But, “God, what are You going to make from this?”

The adversity you’re facing today may not merely be something to survive. You may have been entrusted with it. It may be the spark for the light to enter.

“Thank you for this blessing!”

[Heath Veuleman @HeathVeuleman]

In 2024, we spent $5.3 Trillion on healthcare. 2025 is projected to be $5.7 Trillion. This year it’s projected to cross $6.0 Trillion dollars. Note here that our national debt just crossed the $40 Trillion dollars mark.

Healthcare is ~20% of our GDP.

The largest beneficiary of American health spending is a sector that sues its patients - with their own tax dollars - and calls the arrangement philanthropy.

The not-for-profit hospital cabal. Also known as “charity” hospitals.

Methodist Le Bonheur, a nonprofit, sued more than 8,000 patients in five years, including its own housekeepers, whom it paid so little that some qualified for the hospital's own financial assistance policy. Nobody told them.

Providence, a nonprofit, paid McKinsey to design a collections program that trained staff to extract payment from patients who qualified for free care under state law. Washington's attorney general eventually persuaded them to return $158 million.

Ballad Health, a nonprofit holding a state-sanctioned monopoly, filed thousands of lawsuits against its own patients.

Each of these institutions is exempt from taxation because it is, in the eyes of the law, a charity.

The dysfunction is not a scandal. It is the operating model.

A nonprofit cannot distribute profit, so surplus has three exits. Reserves, executive compensation, and expansion. Aggressive collections feed all three, and the exemption lets the proceeds compound untaxed.

The family being garnished already subsidized the hospital once - through their tax dollars. And tens of thousands of families are forced into bankruptcy each year due to these hospital bills.

@DutchRojas has written extensively about the not-for-profit pox upon our houses.

Today, 82% of physicians are employed. (mainly by not-for-profit health systems). They average about 50 hours per week, for an average salary of ~$373K.

Hospital CEOs average $1.1MM. The large system CEOs run $8-10MM, and the largest have cleared $30MM in a single year. Most of them work ~216 days a year.

Follow the money and you'll find the mission.

[Dutch Rojas @DutchRojas]

Billion-dollar non profit hospitals get tax exemptions.

Billion-dollar NFL teams get hospital sponsorships.

You get a payment plan.

Apparently, America’s struggling families have room in the budget to help two industries of billionaires find each other.

@CedarsSinai partners with the Rams. @SutterHealth partners with the 49ers.

How touching. The tax-exempt have found the tax-deductible marketing opportunity.

The @RamsNFL and @49ers compete under the same rules. Same field. Same penalties.

Try finding that arrangement in healthcare!

A physician pays taxes and competes for patients.

These hospitals receive tax advantages, collects higher Medicare payments for the same services, and build empires large enough to demand higher prices from insurers.

Then they put their names next to an NFL franchise.

@CMSGov @HHSGov hands one competitor a financial advantage and tells the other to work harder.

Americans call this a free market. An NFL referee would call it a fixed game. And you finance the arrangement.

Through health insurance premiums that absorb higher hospital prices.

Through property taxes that fund community services while exempt hospital property contributes no property tax.

The fire department still shows up. The roads still need paving. The county still needs money.

Fortunately, your house remains available for taxation.

Grandma has a bungalow. The hospital has a branding strategy. Guess which one gets the property-tax bill.

We’re told these partnerships support the community. So does the independent physician treating patients across town.

Apparently, serving the community only earns a tax advantage after you become large enough to sponsor professional football.

A free sports physical doesn’t settle that argument. Your physician can perform one without involving the Rams’ marketing department.

These hospital corporations compete for patients, revenue, acquisitions, and market share. They understand commercial ambition perfectly well.

Then someone asks about their tax privileges, and suddenly we’re all standing in front of a little collection tin.

Enough.

Pay the same rate for the same outpatient care an independent physician can safely deliver. Stop financing competitive advantages through the tax code. Make these corporations defend their prices and results.

They already know how to compete for stadium visibility. Let’s see them compete to lower your bill.

Enjoy the game. Enjoy the higher premiums, you paid for it.

[Heath Veuleman @HeathVeuleman]

Not-for-profit hospitals currently hold $2.2 to $2.5 trillion in total assets, of which roughly $750 billion to $900 billion is cash and investments.

Communities across America lose ~$8 to $14 billion per year in property taxes; and the federal government loses ~$12 to $18 billion per year in corporate income taxes.

Of course local communities and states miss out on tens of billions of dollars in sales taxes as well.

Kaiser - alone - is sitting on ~$73B in cash and investments.

Those private jets don’t fuel themselves and those stadium suites are very expensive!

[Heath Veuleman @HeathVeuleman]

If you live in Eastern Washington, North Idaho, or Western Montana, you should be able to have your baby in a hospital owned by the doctors in the room.

Low-risk delivery, one price. $8,000. Prenatal through discharge. Published. No surprise facility fee.

Need a C-section? The price is just as transparent.

Employers can lock the rate for five years and cut the health plan out of the middle.

A menu by local Idaho farms and restaurants. Administration under 3 percent of the budget and under 1.5 percent of the floor. The rest of the building is for mothers, babies, and physicians.

The intermediaries did not create outcomes. They created invoices. Time to put the physician and the patient back in the same room.

Welcome to the future of healthcare!

@HHSResponse @SecKennedy @DrOzCMS @HHSGov @CMSGov @physicianhosp