One reason US Hospital bills are so high is that many of the larger Hospitals Systems set their pricing for hospital procedures so that they make a lot of money.
Thus, US Hospitals are playing a key role in ultimately determining whether health insurance premiums are fairly priced on the health insurance exchanges.
However, only one Georgia Non-Profit Hospital Organization is being greedy in the most recent fiscal year.....the rest are not.
From a review of audited financial statements in the Electronic Municipal Market Access (EMMA), I found 23 Georgia Non-Profit Hospital Organizations with Total Operating Revenues above $10 mil in the most recent year. Excluding the extremely profitable Children's Health Care Atlanta, that leaves 22.
These 22 Georgia Non-Profit Hospital Organizations generated Total Operating Income of $218 mil in the most recent fiscal year, which was an exceptionally modest 1.7% of Total Operating Revenues of $13.005 bil.
Of the 22 Georgia Non-Profit Hospital Organizations, 15 of them had Operating Income Margins as a Percentage of Total Operating Revenues below 5.0% each, with a Total Operating Margin of a paltry 0.4% for these 15.
And 20 of them had Operating Income Margins of less than 7.0%.
With so many of these Georgia Hospitals generating Operating Income Margins below 5.0% and even some others not much above 5.0%, a key beneficiary of this will be Georgia citizens buying health insurance on the Federal insurance exchange. These Georgia Hospitals, for the most part, will not be baking in excessive Hospital profits demands in their negotiations with health insurance companies on pricing for hospital procedures which ultimately determines what insurance premiums are set by health insurance companies on the Federal insurance exchange.
So far, Georgia has decided to not expand Medicaid. If Georgia changed its mind and decided to fully Expand Medicaid, then the consequences of this action would be to further drive down insurance premium prices for Georgia residents in the Federal health insurance exchange. This Georgia Medicaid Expansion would increase Georgia Hospital profits dramatically and thus permit Georgia Hospitals to be even more reasonable in their negotiations with health insurance companies on pricing for hospital procedures which ultimately drives what health insurance premiums are set at by health insurers for Georgia residents on the Federal Health Insurance Exchange.
So just how much would Georgia Hospital Profits increase due to the ACA and the Expansion of Medicaid?
Well, these 22 Georgia Hospital Organization's audited financial statements show it will be huge.
For these 22 Georgia Hospital Organizations, Total Operating Income was $218 mil in the most recent year. Driving down these Operating Profits were Provisions for Bad Debts of a huge $1.664 bil and Uncompensated Charity Care Costs Incurred of another $651 mil. Thus Total Operating Income exclusive of these two Earnings Charges was $2.533 bil, which was more than 11 times the reported Total Operating Income of $218 mil.
Granted not all of these two huge Earnings Charges will be eliminated with ACA and Medicaid Expansion, but a substantial portion of them will.
Below here are the Audited Operating Income or Loss, Total Operating Revenues and Operating Income (Loss) Margin Percentage in the most recent year for each of these 22 Georgia Non-Profit Hospital Organizations:
| Operating | ||||
| Operating | Total | Income | ||
| City | Income | Operating | (Loss) | |
| HQs | (Loss) | Revenues | Margin | |
| mils $s | mils $s | % | ||
| Georgia Hospital Organizations | ||||
| Southern Regional Health | Riverdale | (14) | 202 | -6.9% |
| Hosp Authority Wilkes County | Washington | (1) | 15 | -6.7% |
| Dekalb Regional Health | Decatur | (27) | 415 | -6.5% |
| Hosp Authority Fulton-DeKalb County (Grady Memorial Hosp) | Atlanta | (30) | 705 | -4.3% |
| Columbus Regional Healthcare | Columbus | (17) | 424 | -4.0% |
| University Health Richmond County | Augusta | (6) | 457 | -1.3% |
| Phoebe Putney Health System | Albany | (6) | 669 | -0.9% |
| Athens Regional Health | Athens | (1) | 421 | -0.2% |
| Memorial Health | Savannah | 0 | 534 | 0.0% |
| Piedmont HealthCare | Atlanta | 1 | 1,597 | 0.1% |
| Floyd Healthcare | Rome | 2 | 328 | 0.6% |
| Emory Healthcare | Atlanta | 50 | 2,479 | 2.0% |
| Central Georgia Health System | Macon | 15 | 725 | 2.1% |
| Wellstar Health System | Marietta | 67 | 1,547 | 4.3% |
| Archbold Medical Center | Thomasville | 15 | 319 | 4.7% |
| Gwinnett Hospital System | Duluth | 31 | 587 | 5.3% |
| Hospital Authority Valdosta&Lowndes Counties | Valdosta | 19 | 316 | 6.0% |
| Crisp Regional Health | Cordele | 4 | 66 | 6.1% |
| Bacon County Health | Alma | 2 | 32 | 6.3% |
| Northeast Georgia Health System | Gainesville | 44 | 634 | 6.9% |
| Hosp Authority Tift County | Tifton | 22 | 268 | 8.2% |
| Hamilton Health Care System | Duluth | 48 | 265 | 18.1% |
| Total all 22 | 218 | 13,005 | 1.7% |
