Alaska Regional Hospital is part of the for-profit HCA Healthcare Inc. chain of 186 hospitals in the U.S. and England.
At the end of February 2023, after a decade of serving the medical needs of the Anchorage senior community with acceptance of our Medicare benefits, Alaska Regional Hospital closed its Senior Clinic. They claimed staffing issues.
The bottom line was that 4,000 of my fellow Anchorage seniors and I were given a month’s notice before we were abandoned by our medical provider. We all had to find new medical providers who would accept our Medicare coverage. This was kind of like sending your grandparents out to buy groceries with a currency many people are reluctant to accept.
In its 2023 Annual Report to Shareholders, HCA reported, “Amounts received under Medicare and Medicaid programs are generally significantly less than established hospital gross charges for the services provided.” The same report included HCA’s 2023 revenue of $64.96 billion, for a net income of $5.242 billion for that year.
In the most recent Fortune 500 ranking of the 500 largest corporations in the U.S., HCA Healthcare was No. 61 and reported greater revenue for the 2023 fiscal year than other U.S. health care providers Merck, Pfizer, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Eli Lilly.
Given my experience, along with thousands of others with last year’s Senior Clinic closure, it is understandable that the higher return of operating an additional emergency facility in Anchorage could certainly be attractive to a for-profit corporation.
— Fred Traber
Anchorage
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