South Carolina Non-Profit Hospitals Net Assets Up 43% Under Obama and the Affordable Care Act

From a review of the Electronic Municipal Market Access (EMMA), I found 7 Non-Profit Hospital Organizations headquartered in the State of South Carolina with Net Assets (i.e. Financial Strength or Total Assets minus Total Liabilities) at the most recent date of more than $400 mil each.  Below here are the Net Assets of these 7 at both the most recent reported date and also at the Fiscal Year End (FYE) closest to the beginning of the Obama Administration:

						FYE	Balance	Net
				Most		Balance	Sheet	Assets
			Most	Recent		Sheet	Net	%
			Recent	Balance		Date	Assets	Change
			Balance	Sheet		Beginning	Beginning	During
	City	State	Sheet	Net		Obama	Obama	Obama
Hospital Organization	HQs	HQs	Date	Assets		Admin	Admin	Admin
				mil $s			mil $s
Greenville Hospital System	Greenville	SC	Dec 13	1,015		Sep 09	802	27%
McLeod Health	Florence	SC	Dec 13	971		Sep 09	533	82%
Palmetto Health	Columbia	SC	Dec 13	865		Sep 09	593	46%
Lexington County Health Services District	West Columbia	SC	Sep 13	621		Sep 09	454	37%
Spartanburg Regional Healthcare System	Spartanburg	SC	Dec 13	560		Sep 09	487	15%
Self Regional Healthcare	Greenwood	SC	Sep 13	480		Sep 09	305	57%
Anmed Health	Anderson	SC	Dec 13	465		Sep 09	300	55%
Total all 7				4,977			3,474	43%

As you can see from the above chart, the Total Net Assets (Financial Strength) of these 7 South Carolina Non-Profit Hospital Organizations increased by a robust 43% to $4.977 bil during their average 4.17 years of the Obama Administration.

In just the past 6 months, this Total Net Asset increase grew from 34% to 43%.

Very positively impacting this nice increase in the Net Assets (Financial Strength) of these 7 South Carolina Hospitals were actions taken by both the Obama Administration and the US Fed to strengthen the US Financial Foundation which was severely damaged from the financial meltdown in late 2008.

In addition, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has also played a key role in this increase in Net Assets (Financial Strength) of these 7 South Carolina Non-Profit Hospital Organizations.

A remarkable thing is that these robust increases in Net Assets (Financial Strength) of these Non-Profit Hospital Organizations occurred when these Non-Profit Hospitals were also playing very instrumental roles in the substantial annual percentage growth reduction of Total US Health Care Costs which occurred in each of the most recent three years under the ACA.

With such robust Net Asset percentage increases of these 7 South Carolina Hospitals, a key beneficiary of this will be South Carolina citizens electing to buy health insurance on the Health Insurance Exchange.  This very solid Net Asset growth gives these South Carolina Hospitals the financial flexibility to moderate their pricing for hospital procedures in their negotiations with health insurance companies which ultimately determines what insurance premium prices are set at by health insurance companies on the Health Insurance Exchange.

South Carolina......So Many Struggling Hospitals

South Carolina's Health website contains some key and cool interactive financial information for all of its 60 Hospitals.

Overall, the 60 South Carolina Hospitals had a respectable, Goldilocks Operating Income from Patient Services as a Percentage of Total Revenues of 3.9% for 2012, the most recent year presented.  But you have to stratify these Hospitals to find out what is really going on with South Carolina Hospitals.

First, let's look at the upper end South Carolina Urban Hospitals.

The Top 13..... what I'll call Urban Pure Gold Hospitals..... generated Total Patient Services Operating Income of 14.8% of Total Revenues.....that's about 50% higher than what the 30 Dow Industrials combined generated.  This is flat out crazy and tells you why US Health Care Costs have been so incredibly out of control.  And it only makes sense that leading this Pure Gold List at an incredibly greedy 26.8% is Hilton Head Hospital.  Here are the Top 13:

				Patient
		Patient		Services
		Services		Profit
		Profit	Total	(Loss)
South Carolina Hospital	City	(Loss)	Revenues	Margin
		$000s	$000s	%
Urban Pure Gold Hospitals
Hilton Head Hospital	Hilton Head Island	32,261	120,259	26.8%
Roper Bon Secours St Francis Hosp	Charleston	37,187	189,608	19.6%
St Francis Hospital	Greenville	97,103	503,972	19.3%
AnMed Health Medical Center	Anderson	107,164	570,362	18.8%
Patewood Memorial Hospital	Greenville	16,145	97,743	16.5%
Grand Strand Regional Med Ctr	Myrtle Beach	42,190	262,215	16.1%
East Cooper Medical Center	Mt Pleasant	17,102	129,057	13.3%
Aiken Regional Medical Centers	Aiken	20,727	181,224	11.4%
Roper Hospital	Charleston	41,736	375,619	11.1%
Trident Medical Center	Charleston	38,632	352,630	11.0%
McLeod Regional Medical Center	Florence	68,077	627,072	10.9%
Carolinas Pines Regional Med Ctr	Hartsville	9,086	85,757	10.6%
Piedmont Medical Center	Rock Hill	23,609	234,189	10.1%
Total all 13 Urban Pure Gold		551,019	3,729,707	14.8%

But you get a completely different story when you look at the bottom half of these 60 South Carolina Hospitals.  I'll call them the In-The-Red Abandoned South Carolina Hospitals.

Of the 60 South Carolina Hospitals, an amazingly high 32 of them, or 53% of them, are In The Red.....each of them posting Operating Losses from Patient Services in 2012.  And 2 more just barely missed hitting the In-The-Red Abandoned Group.  Here are the 32 In-The-Red Abandoned South Carolina Hospitals:

				Patient
		Patient		Services
		Services		Profit
		Profit	Total	(Loss)
South Carolina Hospital	City	(Loss)	Revenues	Margin
		$000s	$000s	%
In-The-Red Abandoned Hospitals
North Greenville Hospital	Travelers Rest	(7,077)	18,157	-39.0%
Clarendon Memorial Hospital	Manning	(14,977)	46,526	-32.2%
Marlboro Park Hospital	Bennettsville	(8,424)	27,547	-30.6%
McLeod Loris Seacoast	Loris	(22,131)	99,623	-22.2%
Novant Health Gaffney Med Ctr	Gaffney	(8,177)	43,161	-18.9%
Carolinas Hosp System-Marion	Mullins	(10,159)	56,038	-18.1%
Edgefield County Hospital	Edgefield	(1,339)	11,965	-11.2%
Barnwell County Hospital	Barnwell	(1,320)	15,460	-8.5%
Williamsburg Regional Hospital	Kingstree	(1,427)	17,299	-8.2%
Georgetown Memorial Hospital	Georgetown	(7,011)	113,894	-6.2%
Hillcrest Memorial Hospital	Simpsonville	(2,801)	46,339	-6.0%
Greenville Memorial Hospital	Greenville	(40,134)	791,410	-5.1%
Cannon Memorial Hospital	Pickens	(1,941)	39,123	-5.0%
Colleton Medical Center	Walterboro	(3,182)	64,602	-4.9%
Lake City Community Hospital	Lake City	(1,283)	28,860	-4.4%
Greer Memorial Hospital	Greer	(2,984)	67,558	-4.4%
Abbeville Area Medical Center	Abbeville	(1,358)	31,335	-4.3%
Medical University Hospital	Charleston	(43,385)	1,039,404	-4.2%
Chesterfield General Hospital	Cheraw	(1,514)	36,356	-4.2%
Providence Hospital	Columbia	(10,745)	260,234	-4.1%
Beaufort Memorial Hospital	Beaufort	(6,016)	147,302	-4.1%
Kershaw County Medical Center	Camden	(4,132)	107,234	-3.9%
Laurens County Memorial Hospital	Clinton	(2,731)	80,895	-3.4%
Oconee Medical Medical Center	Seneca	(3,823)	124,727	-3.1%
Palmetto Health Richland	Columbia	(17,076)	706,934	-2.4%
Tuomey Regional Medical Center	Sumter	(4,015)	188,667	-2.1%
Springs Memorial Hospital	Lancaster	(2,692)	130,641	-2.1%
Hampton Regional Medical Center	Varnville	(358)	19,638	-1.8%
Roper St Francis Mount Pleasant	Mt Pleasant	(823)	45,628	-1.8%
Baptist Easley	Easley	(1,651)	99,787	-1.7%
McLeod Dillon	Dillon	(362)	37,820	-1.0%
The Regional Medical Center	Orangeburg	(1,590)	195,903	-0.8%
Total all 32 In-The-Red Abandoned		(236,638)	4,740,067	-5.0%

The excellent South Carolina website breaks down its Hospitals between its 41 Urban and 19 Rural.  The 41 Urban Hospitals generated a Total Operating Income from Patient Services Margin of 4.5% of Total Revenues.  The 19 Rural Hospitals had a comparable negative Margin of (6.1)%.....yeah, that's a swing of 10.6%.

When you have so many severely struggling South Carolina Hospitals, the responsible thing to do is to deal with them and not ignore them.  So far, the State of South Carolina has decided to ignore them.....a Katrina-like strategy.

By far the best and only economically good way to put a major dent in the Operating Losses of the so many South Carolina severely struggling Hospitals is for the State of South Carolina to fully expand Medicaid and do so as quickly as possible.  If South Carolina did this, with the resultant massive inflow of Patient Revenues from Medicaid expansion, the struggling South Carolina Hospitals would be able to substantially reduce their huge Operating Losses and an overwhelming majority of them should even be able to turn their substantial losses into profits.  And the South Carolina Hospitals with very modest Operating Income would have their profits bolstered very robustly.

If South Carolina were to fully expanded Medicaid, one of the key beneficiaries of the resultant very healthy profit improvement and thus also Total Net Assets improvement of all South Carolina Hospitals would be South Carolina citizens electing to buy health insurance on the Health Insurance Exchange.  This exceptional Net Asset growth from Medicaid expansion would give all South Carolina Hospitals the financial flexibility to moderate their pricing for hospital and other health care procedures in their negotiations with health insurance companies which ultimately determines what insurance premium prices are set at by health insurance companies on the Health Insurance Exchange.