Physicians go through ten years of training and nurses are in high demand so it costs a lot to get personalized service like healthcare. Billing transparency would help a little bit and imposing higher safety standards and avoiding unnecessary procedures could help.

Obviously but that’s not the topic of the news article. Most change needs to happen at the federal level to simplify billing.

How does the FTC decided what is nonprofit and what isn’t? Wouldn’t it use IRS rules instead of the PA law at issue here?

What do you think it will accomplish? They will raise hospital bills to pay tax so it’s a back door tax on anyone who goes to the hospital

It’s a back door tax increase on residents that use the hospitals. Since all the non profit hospitals will be affected, they will all raise hospital bills to pay the tax.

They pay income tax on executive salaries.

> Unlike the FTC, the DOJ does have authority over nonprofits, said Makan Delrahim, assistant attorney general for the DOJ's antitrust division.

Also, what is stoping the state from regulating UPMC?

Could you share a source on that issue? I’m not finding much.

https://lowninstitute.org/why-antitrust-laws-arent-stopping-some-hospital-mergers/

This says the states can take antitrust action against hospitals

https://scholarship.law.vanderbilt.edu/vlr/vol52/iss2/7/

I think the nonprofit debate is a distraction from the monopolization issue. They should be forced to divest at least two hospitals in the county.

For profit companies run 10%-20% profit margins. Upmc pays 1% to executives. It’s not a even a close comparison. Striping their non profit status won’t make them pay executives any less. They will probably pay them more and our hospitals bills will go up. I don’t get the point of that.

They don’t generate profit for investors on Wall Street. They are greedy self serving entities, but siphoning money for investors would be a whole new level of exploitation

Interesting. I’ll have to read up on that. It makes sense in rural areas that can’t support multiple hospitals but I think upmc owns too many hospitals in Allegheny county.

It’s a publicity stunt to placate the people that voted out peduto because he refused to pick a fight with upmc and cmu. I do like the idea of going after parking garages though bc it will incentivize public transit

They ignored it because it’s a fools earned to rob Peter to pay Paul. Primary voters were upset at peduto over this and it cost him his job so Gainey is going to do this publicity stunt to placate the voters who would rather cut off their nose to spite their face and think turning our hospitals and universities into for profit enterprises is a net benefit

Upmc doesn’t make a profit. The real issue is their large marketshare. They should be broken up into smaller pieces

The c suite bonuses are an insignificant fraction of UPMC’s budget and they are taxed as income. Look at for profit hospitals and how much money they give to Wall Street investors. This is a distraction from the real issue of market concentration - UPMC is too big and should be broken up into smaller pieces to improve competition that would drive down health care costs for residents. I don’t think charging upmc property taxes will come out of executive bonuses. It is robbing Peter to pay Paul - it will lower residents property taxes but raise hospital bills. Pushing hospitals and universities to operate as for profit companies is a scary idea. I think the whole state needs to figure out a solution for hospitals and universities to contribute to city services without designating them as for profit.

I think the issue is UPMC should be broken up into smaller pieces like separating insurance and hospitals and spinning off a few hospitals so they don’t own half the hospitals in the county. The non profit status is a deflection from the real issue of market concentration.

I wonder if the amount of property tax the city could collect from the non profits is worth it if it means transforming health care and education to for profit enterprises. I’d rather not have my healthcare and tuition to go to Wall Street investors. Since most cities have a lot of universities and non profit hospitals, why does this seem to be such a problem for Pittsburgh specifically?

You’ve been attacking me for days because I said something positive about peduto. Most people have some pent up emotions about their boss. You might need therapy if hearing something positive about your former boss is so upsetting.

They are entitled to care about their community and voice their concerns. But it’s fair to be on the lookout for selfish nimby opposition to a project. The neighborhood people were being ignored and only got attention when people saw the opportunity to dunk on a large nonprofit and the mayor.

> Yes, Luke was in Seven Springs, but that's irrelevant.

You don’t leave town to have a birthday party with a wealthy developer at his ski condo while the city is facing the worst snow storm in decades.

> I have a few things I credit Peduto for...but he also earned my disrespect. He worked hard at it and he finally broke me. I am going to politely tell you that Googling up a few stories in 2023 isn't an adequate replacement for knowing what you're talking about.

You are so special and have earned the privilege to talk down to everyone that isn’t a government employee.

They only care about themselves. They are mad that PWSA won’t spend more money on them. $36 million is $500,000 per house in the run. They think PWSA has some sort of obligation to make up for the fact that their houses are in the worst possible location for flooding. Blocking the MOC was simply because they wanted every last cent to go toward them.

As I said before, the MOC project was mediocre. My point is the conspiracy around cmu being a power broker trying to screw over people is exaggerated. Cmu has put a lot of effort into storm water management on campus with green roofs rain gardens and underground cisterns. If you are looking for an evil non profit go look at upmc.

Peduto was never shy about proposing audacious projects and some were good and some were bad but at least he had is heart in it and I got no impression he was just doing it for special interest groups. But activists couldn’t stand that he wasn’t a flame thrower directed at every for profit and non profit business in the city.

Meanwhile, during snowmageddon, ravenstahl was hiding out in seven springs and spent days refusing to tell the public where he was bc he was staying in the condo of one of the largest real estate developers in the county. somebody in hazlewood died because an ambulance couldn’t get through the unplowed streets. I met ravenstahl once while he was at a penguins game in the box suite of the law firm representing burns and scalo. Ravenstahl never saw a corporate handout he couldn’t refuse like the $9000 sponsorship from upmc for a golf tournament.

I don’t know if gainey will be a better mayor but it’s not like peduto was unpopular. He lost to gainey 26,000 to 22,000 in a city of 300,000 people. Which is impressive that peduto managed to last as long as he did. He wasn’t afraid to take risks like when he pushed for removing parking from schenly plaza and added bike lanes and round abouts. These sort of changes drive reactionary people crazy even though they were the right way to go. He lasted 20 years in city politics so in my mind he deserves a pat on the back. Gainey is quickly finding out how hard and intense the criticism is when you are mayor versus just a state legislator.

https://www.post-gazette.com/local/city/2010/02/17/Ravenstahl-gets-testy-about-whereabouts/stories/201002170308

https://www.post-gazette.com/local/city/2007/08/20/Ravenstahl-to-appear-today-before-ethics-panel/stories/200708200201

The residents of the run have been insufferable and have shit on anything and everything as PWSA attempts to improve drainage in their neighborhood. It’s been clear for a while now that they expect special treatment and a bailout because they chose to live in a drainage ditch

> “It doesn’t do enough given the severity and the frequency of flooding,” he said, referencing PWSA’s presentation that showed projected reductions in 10-year floods. “[Flooding is] going to increase with climate change and out of control development.”

> The project’s manager Tony Igwe said there will be reductions at other levels, too, but that no city in the country has built infrastructure to withstand 75-year flood levels. He added that PWSA is constrained by what the agency’s ratepayers can afford.

> “Whatever we provide for Four Mile Run we have to provide for the rest of the system,” he said, adding that part of their approach in planning is to create infrastructure that can adjust to future realities. “But we have to pick something that people can actually afford.”

https://www.wesa.fm/development-transportation/2021-03-30/pwsa-hopes-to-quickly-reduce-flooding-with-the-start-of-its-four-mile-run-stormwater-project

Bill asked us to do a favor to give back to the city while we had plenty of paying customers we could have been working on instead. Priya runs software for many major league sports teams and does well at it.

>Just trying to help you understand it

> i hope you understand that point better

Your just assuming you know best and have to explain it to me like I’m a child … buzz off

> Dude, they were residents of the Run...people who lived there.

The people living there wanted the money to go to their problems instead. Their houses are built on a drainage channel and will never stop flooding. It didn’t seem to me like they made any compelling arguments about how the MOC would negatively affect them besides spend the money on bailing out their basements instead. There are two sides to every project and also a lot of shill involved so everyone has to think for themselves about who is telling the truth and who isn’t. There was a pile on affect of every activist in the city jumping in to hate on upmc and cmu and they took advantage of the local residents to get their chance in the limelight. The project was probably a waste of money and I don’t think cmu or anyone with influence really cared about it anyway. But I think it was more about using the schools as a punching bag than it was about actually helping the run. Now that the project is canceled, the activists have moved on to other nonprofit bashing efforts while the run is still in the same shit condition and always will be because saline street should be a stream instead of a street

> Nothing monolithic - either good or bad

That’s just a basic fact about any org

>I hope you understand that point better.

condescending