Replying to a message of JIM WELLER to BOB ACKLEY:

 BA>> Generally, they are operated by a 'hospital authority'
 BA>> at the county level.  That authority has the power to tax
 BA>> and that tax appears as a line item on the property tax
 BA>> statements in that authority's service area.

 JW> Ah, I'm beginning to understand how your system works a bit
 JW> better. I had the impression most of your hospitals were
 JW> privately owned, for-profit institutions that billed
 JW> people.

Most hospitals - the vast majority in fact - are privately owned.  A
tiny minority of those privately owned hospitals are investor owned
(i.e. "for profit") and the vast majority are owned by religious
institutions (most of which are Catholic).  Some hospitals are owned
by a local hospital authority, but most government owned hospitals
are run by state colleges or universities as an adjunct to their respective
medical schools.  The federal government owns the VA hospitals, the
hospitals run by the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the military's health
system - but all of those are open only to a selected population.

 BA>> I note that there doesn't seem to be much in the way of
 BA>> medical research or development of new methods and
 BA>> procedures in any of those 'industrialized countries' that
 BA>> have 'universal' health care.

 JW> Not by hospitals, but by universities and governments.

 BA>> What's going to happen in the US is that the congress will
 BA>> pass its health care reform abomination, and the executive
 BA>> will sign it.  Within ten years there will be no privately
 BA>> run hospitals in this country, and there will be a
 BA>> significant shortage of physicians and other medical
 BA>> personnel.  Medical research will grind to a near
 BA>> standstill, as will development of pharmaceuticals.

 JW> I do hope you are being overly pessimistic.

I doubt it.

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