Massachusetts Non-Profit Hospitals Net Assets Up 28% Under Obama and the Affordable Care Act

From a review of the Electronic Municipal Market Access (EMMA), I found 11 Non-Profit Hospital Organizations headquartered in the State of Massachusetts with Net Assets at the most recent date reported of more than $400 mil each.  Below here are the Net Assets of these 11 at both the most recent reported date and also at the beginning of the Obama Administration:

						2008	2008	Obama
				Most		or	or	ACA
			Most	Recent		2009	2009	and
			Recent	Balance		FYE	Balance	US Fed
			Balance	Sheet		Balance	Sheet	Bump
	City	State	Sheet	Net		Sheet	Net	%
Hospital Organization	HQs	HQs	Date	Assets		Date	Assets	Change
				mil $s			mil $s
Partners Healthcare System	Boston	MA	Jun 13	5,859		Sep 09	4,975	18%
Children's Medical Center Boston	Boston	MA	Jun 13	3,277		Sep 09	2,516	30%
CareGroup Healthcare System	Boston	MA	Jun 13	1,453		Sep 09	978	49%
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute	Boston	MA	Jun 13	1,130		Sep 09	836	35%
Boston Medical Center	Boston	MA	Jun 13	1,031		Sep 09	1,026	0%
UMass Memorial HealthCare	Worchester	MA	Jun 13	675		Sep 09	545	24%
SouthCoast Health System	New Medford	MA	Jun 13	648		Sep 09	485	34%
Lahey Clinic Medical Center	Burlington	MA	Jun 13	593		Sep 09	357	66%
Baystate Medical Center	Springfield	MA	Jun 13	555		Sep 09	361	54%
Cape Cod Healthcare	Hyannis	MA	Jun 13	465		Sep 09	288	61%
Covenant Health Systems	Lexington	MA	Mar 13	406		Dec 08	242	68%
Total all 11				16,092			12,609	28%

As you can see from the above chart, the Total Net Assets of these 11 Massachusetts Non-Profit Hospital Organizations increased by 28% for an average 3.80 years during the Obama Administration.

So a 28% growth in Net Assets is bad news.....right?  Well, actually I think it's good news.  It shows that these Massachusetts Non-Profit Hospital Organizations aren't being excessively greedy in what they charge hospital patients.  And it also shows that these Massachusetts Non-Profit Hospitals are being very efficient and effective in their health care delivery.  This is precisely how you bend down the Total US Health Care Cost Curve.

To illustrate the above points, the huge and very prestigious Partners HealthCare System generated Total Bottom Line Profit of $1.323 bil over the most recent 3.75 years, which was only 4.0% of Total Revenues over the same time span.

Just think how much total US health care costs would be removed if all Non-Profit Hospital Organizations generated Bottom Line Profits which were only 4.0% of Total Revenues!

But it wasn't just Partners HealthCare System.  CareGroup Healthcare System generated Total Bottom Line Profits of $426 mil in the most recent 3.75 years, which was a reasonable 4.8% of its Total Revenues.  And Dana-Farber Cancer Institute generated Total Bottom Line Profits of $78 mil in the most recent 3.75 years, which was a very reasonable 2.2% of its Total Revenues.

And lastly, I do find it interesting that Children's Medical Center Boston generated Total Bottom Line Profit of $680 mil over the most recent 3.75 years, which was 13.3% of its Total Revenues, precisely half of  Children's HealthCare Atlanta's comparable 26.6%.  But then I think both of these Profit Margin Percentages are much too high for a Non-Profit Hospital Organization.