Lecture blasts for-profit health care industry

With more than 300 hospitals nationwide, Columbia/HCA Healthcare Corp. has taken the industry by storm, devouring many nonprofit hospitals -- and prompting widespread concerns about the company's effects on the medical field. Such concerns were the subject of a lecture yesterday, entitled "Looking Anew at For-Profit Health Care," at the Colonial Penn Center by Linda Miller, president of the Volunteer Trustees of Not For Profit Hospitals, a national organization. "More of these hospital purchases looked like theft more than anything else," she told a crowd of about 20 professionals in the health care and insurance fields. Miller explained that Columbia, as well as other national health care conglomerates, get involved with a nonprofit hospital, scare its board of directors into selling and use backhanded methods, such as perceived profit sharing, in pursuing their goals. Since the overtaken hospitals are non-profit and rely on funding from taxpayers, Miller explained that the money lost as a result of takeovers is "your tax dollars at work." Criticizing the greed associated with such ventures, Miller added, "We are mistaking profiteering for the free market and the 'American way'." Columbia's ventures, noted Miller, are "the largest redeployment of charitable profits in our nation's history," while many other nonprofit hospitals remain "easy pickins" for the industry giant. She added, however, that Philadelphia's health care system has thus far been immune to the Columbia "virus" that is sweeping the industry. The Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, as well as the Temple and Thomas Jefferson University hospitals, for example, have remained out of Columbia's vortex. Noting that Columbia, which is under investigation for possible Medicare overcharges, has recently opened an office in Philadelphia and may be looking to take over a hospital in the area, the crowd of Philadelphians discussed the possible effects of such a move -- including whether local hospitals could be taken over. Robert Field, director of Physician Recruitment and Network Development at HUP, commented on the possibility of a takeover of the University's hospital. Citing incompatible missions, he quickly said HUP officials would oppose such an effort. "Penn has a broader charitable mission and a goal of education" that does not fit into the plans of Columbia, he said. "Columbia is a threat, though," he added. "We have to be conscious of their presence at any health care facility."