Many thanks to the Daily Tar Heel‘s Brendan Cooley for some great publicity today for yours truly and the Pope Center. Cooley quoted me criticizing the rapid expansion of UNC Health Care, the state government-owned hospital chain. (I’ve written about the subject here and here. Also, the rapid expansion of state-run health care via university systems is a national phenomenon, as the Manhattan Institute’s Charlotte Allen has pointed out.) He gave pro-UNC Health Care advocates the somewhat misleading last word, so I’ll take this opportunity to set the record straight.
For one, Cooley implies that I inferred from UNC Health Care’s operating margin ($102 million) and cash reserves ($722 million) that they have gobs and gobs of money. $102 million is nothing to sneeze at, to be sure, but I was thinking of more than just those two figures. UNC Health Care also gave $106 million to the medical school this year and $20 million to UNC-Chapel Hill. Plus, because the system is not audited as a whole, we have no idea how much money they’re plowing into new facilities, another part of the “tons and tons of money,” as he quotes me saying. The main reason so little money is flowing from Rex Health Care (UNCHCS’s Raleigh operations) to the rest of the system, for example, is that they’re spending like mad on new facilities and clinical partnerships.
Therefore, though we can’t know the exact number, we can be sure that millions and millions of dollars (far more than the $18 million from state taxpayers) are being spent on things other than running the hospitals they have.
Two, Cooley quotes UNC Health Care spokeslady Jennifer James saying the hospital chain provides $300 million in charity care. This is true but misleading. In the context of the $18 million state subsidy, James makes it sound like UNC Health Care is unusual in the amount they spend on charity care, but that isn’t the case. Just about every other hospital or hospital system in the state spends a similar portion of their income on charity care, and some spend a lot more. Other hospitals just don’t get special reimbursements for it from state tax dollars.
But of course, there’s only so much once can include in an article. Thanks again to the enterprising young journalist Mr. Cooley.
