[tyree731]

So CEO compensation there is excessive for sure. That said, charity care is probably better measured vs a hospital’s net income absent any such care. My understanding is these hospitals are squeezed on both sides of the healthcare system by insurance and health equipment and drug providers, so they don’t have a lot of net income to spare for charity care.

[ffgjgf1]

How do you calculate net income when they can just increase costs (CEO pay amongst infinite other things) to decrease it?

[bombcar]

You could somehow come up with a "standard accepted income" for given professions (these are totally from the arse, of course, but the idea holds) like CEO, 1 million, surgeon, 500k, general practitioner, 250k, nurse 60k, whatever. How you come to those numbers is left to the reader. You'd also generate 'baseline' for other expenses.

Then you compare given hospitals to those numbers and where they exceed them, that is counted as "income" - if they're paying the CEO 2m vs the 1m expected, that's 1m of income.

[LanceH]

I imagine there is an enormous amount of charity care (in dollar terms at least) from people going to the ER and never paying.