I was shocked when I read this and to think that the medical 
center is the highest grossing hospital in the US, more than Los Angeles hospitals. They refer to the profits as “excess revenue”. They mayor of Pittsburgh has filed a lawsuit to take their non profit status away. Here’s a video below from CBS that tells more of the story.
The hospital spends only 2% on charity care. The city would like to have the money back. The CEO makes 6 million a year and 6 administrators making over a million a year. The economic conditions are not wonderful in the Pittsburgh area. There was 4 facilities closed in poor areas and new ones opened up in affluent areas. The CEO makes more money than any other CEO in the country and the hospital says the salaries are “market value”. That doesn’t compare well to raises given to housekeepers getting a 2 cent raise in a year.
In addition the hospital will not see Highmark patients the largest insurer in the area and those covered by Aetna and HealthAmerica find very few of their doctors on their plans, why? The hospital has their own insurance and some are complaining that to be seen there you almost have to be a member of the UPMC insurance plan. It sounds like the community is rallying around the Mayor’s lawsuit to remove the non profit tax breaks. BD
Pittsburgh’s biggest landowner pays not a dime in property taxes.
The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center is a self-described “$10 billion integrated global health enterprise,” with 20 hospitals and 400 clinics in western Pennsylvania. But its status as a “nonprofit charity” makes it tax-exempt.
UPMC is also the city’s largest employer. Its eight hospitals and dozens of outpatient clinics, labs, and offices employ 43,000 people in Pittsburgh.
“When I started, there were three housekeepers on each floor,” said Collins, who worked as a UPMC housekeeper for 25 years. “But they’ve cut it down to one. And for raises, I was getting two cents [an hour] a year.”
“People in Pittsburgh now see UPMC as putting its own profit before anyone else, and bullying anyone who gets in its way,” Bisno said.
Try living in the area
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