Thread regarding Ascension Health layoffs

"Between the lines: Ascension is essentially a hedge fund that also happens to run hospitals and other care facilities."

https://www.axios.com/2021/05/28/ascension-hospitals-profit-pandemic-investments

"The Catholic hospital system Ascension is running a Wall Street-style private equity fund"

https://www.statnews.com/2021/11/16/ascension-running-wall-street-style-private-equity-fund/

At least the for-profit hospitals pay taxes.

But when it comes to not-for-profits, every time you get a property tax bill, you're subsidizing the police, fire, and other public services that are provided free-of-charge to so-called "charities" that pursue poor patients with an army of ruthless bill collectors.

So much for "helping" the "poor and vulnerable."

When the general public finally gets wise to this, then the political winds might start blowing in the right direction. Then, maybe our timid elected officials will realize it is in the best interest of the public to enact new laws to protect future generations from getting soaked at the tax assessor's office by this type of ruse.

It's bad enough when cost of living shoots through the roof, but it's even worse when you add up the unaddressed waste that exists in the taxpayer-subsidized Ascension system. I observed incredible examples of mismanaged facilities resources.

Ascension seems to be a large Wall Street hedge fund that happens to run hospitals as a side hustle while building their shadowy for-profit business enterprises that are almost invisible to the general public.

In 2014, journalist Jim Doyle of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch wrote a stunning expose about Ascension. Unfortunately, the story is now behind a paywall:

https://www.stltoday.com/business/local/how-a-st-louis-based-health-care-system-became-one-of-the-nations-biggest/article_c07ada87-ab74-5175-a0b0-5219dd7b95f1.html

Doyle's reporting contended that Ascension, at that time, operated more than a hundred for-profit businesses that apparently benefited financially, and secretly, from advantageous ties to the "not-for-profit" resource-starved, under-staffed hospital entity -- often unwittingly subsidized by the general public.

Meanwhile, the "poor and vulnerable" continue to be pursued by Ascension's "hounds of the baskervilles."

It is strange how the ceo of these not for profits hospitals make. Catholic hospital system suppose to help the community's but do they? Looks like the upper management just line there pockets and cr-p on there employs! Ascension, CommonSpirit Health. All Ascension wants to do is to send job's over sea. Hope they keep loosing money and go out of business They deserve it.

https://www.definitivehc.com/blog/top-10-largest-health-systems

Ascension boasts on their form 990:

• "Nation's largest Catholic and nonprofit health system, serving the poor and vulnerable." (Ascension asserted this claim under Part 1 Summary)

Not true, according to Definitive Healthcare!

The Catholic hospital system CommonSpirit Health, according to Definitive Healthcare, now operates more hospitals than Ascension... 164 vs 129.

CommonSpirit Health, according to Definitive Healthcare, also takes in $30,448,269,635 in net patient revenue compared to $23,494,762,707 for Ascension.

More eye-opening info here:

https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/display_990/311662309/download990pdf_07_2022_prefixes_27-39%2F311662309_202106_990_2022071820229716

"It is good to be the Sultan!" -- especially if you're an Ascension IT executive:

https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/651257719/202241369349313374/full

Interesting background information:

"The new filings come after more than two years of limited or irregular data releases by the IRS, as the agency struggled with staffing shortages and, in January 2022, moved to a new system for releasing the forms."

https://www.propublica.org/article/nonprofit-explorer-adds-a-million-new-form-990s

I checked on the payouts to executives at the Ascension hospital where I formerly worked and, frankly, it boggles my mind so many utterly incompetent individuals could make out like bandits in the so-called "charity" business while I performed exhausting labor on their behalf with shockingly minor "token" pay increases over a period of years.

I've decided to simply stop giving to these so-called "charities" each time I'm asked at the grocery store checkout and I'm now extremely picky about the charities to which I'll give.