"Partners reports $5m loss; Declining investments push numbers down despite operating gain" by Robert Weisman, Globe Staff | August 14, 2010
Partners HealthCare Systems Inc. yesterday posted a narrow loss for the three months ending June 30 as operating gains at its chain of leading Boston area hospitals could not offset declines in investments.
Related: The Massachusetts Model: Tax-Exempt Memory Hole
WTF is a NONPROFIT doing INVESTING?
The overall third-quarter loss for the state’s largest health care system was about $5 million, Partners reported. It recorded $56 million in operating income, but a nonoperating loss of $61 million due to tumbling financial markets and a drop in interest rates. In the same quarter last year, it recorded an overall gain of $133.4 million.
Also see: The Massachusetts Model: Partners' Profits
“It just shows you the volatility you can have on the investment side,’’ said Peter K. Markell, Partners vice president of finance.
An erosion of its stock portfolio was not the only investment problem for Partners during the April-to-June period. The company was also stung by a drop in the value of financial instruments called fixed interest rate swaps. Partners bought the swaps to hedge against the risk from 30-year variable rate bonds it uses to finance capital projects.
Can't we come up with something better, America?
Markell said the swaps would prove to be a long-term liability for Partners only if they were sold. Over time, he said, the investment is likely to improve as the instruments’ variable rate adjusts to a higher level than the fixed-rate bonds. “We plan to hold them to maturity,’’ he said....
Translation: they are stuck with a PoS Wall Street sold them.
Nonetheless, Partners hospitals enjoyed gains in revenue from both patient services and academic research in the third quarter. At the same time, their labor, health benefit, and pension costs increased. And the health care system had to deal with continued shortfalls from state and federal government reimbursements, especially for Medicare, the federal program that provides health insurance to older patients....
Yeah, your money needs to go for wars, Wall Street, and Israel, America.
Related: Memory Hole: Why the Nation Doesn't Need Massachusetts Health Care
Also related:
"Four major Massachusetts health insurers yesterday reported mixed second-quarter financial results, with two posting losses and two others registering modest gains for April through June.
--more--"
But the EXECUTIVES are still WELL PAID!
"Hospitals spent to keep talent; Documents show executives received hefty 2008 payouts" by Robert Weisman, Globe Staff | August 17, 2010
Seven-figure pay packages for several top Boston hospital executives were propped up in 2008 by retention payments, according to a batch of documents filed with regulators yesterday. The hospitals said the lucrative payments were intended to keep academic medical talent in Massachusetts at a time when leading hospitals across the nation were recruiting heavily.
Who are the hospitals really taking care of, huh?
The filings with the state attorney general’s office — the first requiring reporting of compensation by calendar year — showed the highest-paid was Elaine S. Ullian, then Boston Medical Center’s chief executive.
Ullian, who has since retired, earned nearly $4.8 million, including $3.5 million in deferred compensation granted to get her to stay at the Boston University-affiliated hospital.
Also see: Boston Medical Bonus
How much health care could you buy by letting her leave?
Unemployment hasn't hit the hospital suites, huh?
Retention payouts also figured in the pay packages reported at Partners HealthCare Systems Inc., the state’s largest health care system, and its two founding hospitals in Boston.
James J. Mongan, former Partners chief executive, earned $3.6 million in total compensation that year. The sum included salary, bonus, and benefits. It also included a deferred retention payment of $927,035 for his work between 2003 and 2007, and a $1.1 million incentive payment made when Mongan agreed to remain at Partners for two additional years. He retired at the end of last year.
Just TOSSING the MILLIONS around as they CAN'T PAY for CARE!!
Gary L. Gottlieb, who took over as Partners chief executive on Jan. 1, earned $1.6 million as president of the Partners-owned Brigham and Women’s Hospital in 2008. That included salary, bonus, benefits, and a market adjustment designed to bring Gottlieb’s pay more in line with leaders of other top hospitals in Massachusetts and nationally, according to Partners.
A HEALTHY LOOTING, huh?
Peter L. Slavin, president of Partners’ Massachusetts General Hospital, earned $1.4 million in 2008. That similarly included salary, bonus, benefits, and retention adjustment.
Maybe they could help with the investment losses, huh?
Compensation at Partners and its Boston teaching hospitals, which are affiliated with Harvard Medical School, “remained competitive in order to retain top physician executive talent in an extremely competitive national marketplace,’’ Partners said in a statement....
That is just an EXCUSE to RIP YOU OFF!!
In other filings yesterday, Harvard-affiliated Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston said it paid chief executive Paul F. Levy nearly $1.3 million in 2008.
Ellen M. Zane, chief executive at Tufts Medical Center, a Boston teaching hospital affiliated with Tufts Medical School, received a compensation package totaling about $1.2 million that year.
At the Catholic hospital chain Caritas Christi Health Care, chief executive Ralph de la Torre also was paid $1.2 million in total in 2008.
Gotta give the due his due!
The six-hospital system has agreed to be acquired by the New York private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management, in a transaction that awaits approval from state officials and the Vatican.
Christopher O’Connor, former president of Caritas St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Brighton, had total compensation of $616,129, while Daniel O’Leary, former president of Caritas Carney Hospital in Dorchester, got $603,005....
Gotta make those HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of DOLLARS in PENSION PAYMENTS FORTS, sick person!
No wonder Caritas is going broke!
--more--"
