Column: Indiana University, IU Health focused on making more money, not serving Hoosiers
In high school I never considered any other college than Indiana University. It was “our university,” a school founded to educate Indiana students at a reasonable cost. Both the students and the state benefited.
Now I perceive IU as a business based on education. Programs benefiting students and public are dropped if they lose money, such as the former pairing of physical therapy students with physically impaired individuals. Programs are expanded which attract foreign students paying higher tuition. I provided data upon request to an Asian SPEA graduate student researching veterans’ affairs funding but refused to write her paper “Because my English is not too good.” I also lost respect for an IU with compromised educational standards.
What also upsets me as an IU graduate is the formerly honorable Indiana University name being more sullied by incorporation into Indiana University Health. What shocks me is the blatant and evidently unrepentant presence of IU management officials on the board of IUH. Not just a conflict of interest, complicit. I am also shocked by the IU acceptance of the $416 million donation from IUH and the lack of meaningful explanation.
More in opinion: Lawmakers should act to dismantle Indiana not-for-profit hospital monopolies
The United States has the world’s highest annual per capita health care expenditure at $12,531 but ranks 22nd in health care quality. Life expectancy has dropped to 26th among the 35 industrialized countries. The lack of a national health care system has not been efficient nor effective for the United States, but it has kept the door open for corporate profit and for questionable donations.
For Indiana University Health quality of care is secondary, a means to an end. “Indiana University Health, the state’s largest hospital system, has the highest prices – about 50% above the national average.” (Wall Street Journal). Making money is the goal, with huge salaries to executives who are not directly involved in health care; rather in marketing, financial management, and a professional apologist. The latter explained away part of their billion dollars average profit as needed to cover increasing costs of charity care. IUH has spread through Indiana by absorbing local hospitals, eliminating their competition. The charity patients have fewer places to go other than to an IUH hospital ER.
To plead increasing charity cases require more income is like a man who killed his parents pleading for mercy because he was an orphan. All those billions of excess profit dollars came from patients and insurance. Profit from disease. Hard to negotiate a better deal if you are suffering.
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Our family physician — empathetic, professional, and positively reviewed — is leaving her practice next month. She can no longer tolerate working for IU Health. Our former podiatrist works for IU Health. His needless surgery on my left foot resulted in a permanent impairment but more money for IU Health. When the same symptom began in my right foot, I went to a podiatrist who had refused to join IU Health. He told me to get wider shoes. Symptom disappeared.
The only reasonable conclusion is IU Health was desperate to preserve their “not-for-profit” status in order to avoid corporate income taxes by showing reduced after-expenses income, and IU was a willing co-conspirator in order to get more money. Sadly, GOP-dominated Indiana government underfunds higher education. Don’t forget IU Health “after expenses income” also means after the expenses of huge salaries for executive management. Sadly, Internal Revenue Service staffing has been gutted by the GOP. The decision makers of IU Health and IU protect their personal incomes.
What did Joseph Welch ask Joe McCarthy during the Army-McCarthy hearings? Oh, I remember: “Have you no decency, sir?”
Have you no decency, Indiana University Health?
Have you no decency, Indiana University?
John Tilford is a retired veteran's service officer. He lives in Bloomington.
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Column: IU, IU Health focused on making money, not serving Hoosiers
