“Not for profit” hospitals file a tax form called a “990.”  Very few of them file these on time as they are required to do.  I believe these hospitals purposefully remain years behind to avoid any scrutiny of their current financial condition.  This allows them to claim “critical losses” and “impending bankruptcy” and other such lies, lies that are primarily responsible for bringing us Obamacare.  Remember all these “critical access” hospitals were going broke from seeing all of the uninsured folks in their emergency rooms.  Right.  Very few big hospital emergency rooms don’t have a building crane in front of them signaling their expansion of this portal to bankruptcy for so many patients.  St. Anthony Hospital here in Oklahoma City has “lost” so much money from their emergency room that they are building satellite emergency rooms so they can lose even more!   

Mercy Health System has done one better than the rest.  They haven’t filed “990’s” because they claim to be a catholic church, a division of the Vatican!  They have, however, recently filed a “990,” albeit “voluntarily.”  Check out this info-packed article from the big St. Louis paper about this scam.

The author stops shy of outing their participation in the uncompensated care scam, although he does hint at their overestimating their “charitable care” with inflated pricing for those they know can’t pay.  

Lot’s of talk from these Mercy folks about all they do for the community.  After you read this article, one that outs their millionaire CEO’s and lavish corporate retreats on the company jet with their spouses, you’ll be more inclined to see it my way:  it’s what they do to the community.  

G. Keith Smith, M.D.