Coronavirus in the United States - news and thoughts

If you set the arm, the patient isn't generally hospitalized. Try again. Also, these funds are not allocated on a set fee per patient. Since you find this to be an important metric, I would have thought you would know that.

 

Where did i say that?

 

They just do that to throw off the suspicious. Same as how the democrats didn't give themselves the Senate when they rigged the election.

 

I am baffled as to why people want to keep engaging and arguing with willful ignorance. I have come to the realization that some % of our population just does not want to understand. They will eat up conspiracies, lies, mis-truths and deception like they are chocolate candies and no amount of discussion will dissuade them from their fantasies.

That is why this country is broken. And, the saddest/funniest part is that the people running around throwing out insults and calling people names, claiming conspiracies and sewing discord are actually the ones who are being manipulated for the political gains and financial gains of others.

 

US Coronavirus: Hospitalizations hit another record, as official warns of the 'most difficult time' in US public health history - CNN

 

They are gaming the system. If you don't understand what that means than I'm sorry I can't help you. But I do like the attempt to rationalize it. Good try.

 

The CARES Act is incentivizing Hospitals to "game" the system to make extra money to offset their costs. But keep your head in the Sahara.

 

Good effort to minimalize the fact Hospitals are making extra money off of labeling someone with Covid. Doesn't change the facts.

 

Oh ok. Thank you for clearing up this mystery. I guess there must be some sort of secret hospital coalition that unites on the decisions so that they are all timed correctly.

 

I don't live in Africa. Also I don't like sand. It's coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere. Not like here. Here everything is soft and smooth.

 

Hospitals are not profiting from COVID-19 patients. The most profitable things at a hospital are elective surgeries and non-emergency surgeries that can be scheduled far in advance. Things that have either slowed down or stopped for a given period of time due to COVID.

Running a COVID ward is expensive. It requires individual rooms for every patient, with each room being 100% negative pressure, so no air is mixed in with air outside the COVID ward. All doctors and nurses who enter the area must be equipped with full PPE at all times, and PPE cannot be reused. Many hospitals have also called in for reinforcements from outside the area, and are willing to pay thousands a week for qualified nurses and other medical professionals.

Not to mention, the no visitor policy in the entire hospital effects other revenue streams. There is nobody to buy flowers or balloons at the hospital gift shop, and significantly less people eating at the hospital cafeteria. These aren't major revenue streams, but they don't operate at a loss either under normal circumstances.

This article from Market Watch from back in June estimated the total losses for Hospitals to be around $200 billion. Things were starting to get back closer to "normal" for hospital operations, but the recent surge in cases brings us back to where we were when this article was published. Meaning losses in billions again.

If you think hospitals are gaming the system for profit from COVID, you are the one with your head in the sand. It just isn't true.

 

How do you know they "make" extra money if you don't know their costs? Profit=Revenue-Cost. You are arguing Profit=Revenue.

 

The mental gymnastics you like to do is funny. "Making" money means earning money. So hospitals are "making" extra money. Good effort.

 

You also need to factor in lost revenue due to things like highly profitable elective surgery being cancelled. There is also lost revenue from again, no sales at hospital gift shops and highly reduced sales at the cafeteria because there are no visitors allowed in the hospital.

So unless you know more than Market Watch, your assumptions that COVID is a profit generator is false. There is no gaming of any system, and if the hospitals were trying, you would expect to see hospital stays and deaths remain high even after cases drop. But what we see is direct correlation between cases, followed by hospitalizations, followed unfortunately by deaths. As cases go down, so do in a few weeks do hospital stay and then number of deaths.

Again, COVID is not profitable for hospitals. Cost of treating COVID patients is high, and the loss of revenue from lack of elective patients and delaying non-emergency surgeries far offset any extra money hospitals receive for treating COVID patients.

 

LOL. Yeah, hospitals chose not to do elective surgeries. No one told them to do that. That was their choice. If they are losing money then that's on them. They made billions over the years. I don't feel bad for hospitals. There's a reason why hospitals are popping up all over the place here in Florida. If they weren't very profitable then that wouldn't be happening. Keep thinking hospitals aren't taking advantage of the "free" money from the taxpayers.

 

Yeah, businesses are regularly known as revenue- not profit-maximizers.

 

Keep trying to change the subject off healthcare facilities taking in $98 billion in taxpayer funds. Good effort.

 

And how much did it cost them to bring in that revenue? I know, that would be inconvenient to know, so you will avoid it.

 

As a bystander, I am amazed that some of you knowledgeable and well-intentioned guys continue to engage with folks who fail to exhibited a scintilla of intellectual humility or honesty. Now back to lurking...