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©2005
Consejo de Latinos Unidos |
Press Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
CONTACT: Dave Mohel/Audrey Mullen 703-548-1160
Thursday, November 17, 2005
K.B. Forbes 202-320-1212
CATHOLIC LEADERS ATTEMPT TO “HUSH-UP” DEBATE ON ABUSES AGAINST UNINSURED
LATINOS
Internal Email Exposes “Deliberate and Immoral” Campaign to Ignore Facts
WASHINGTON, DC—Just a few hours before the release of an investigative
report showing that the top 7 Catholic non-profit hospital systems raked in
over $2 billion in profits in 2004 while price gouging uninsured Latinos,
worried religious leaders of the Catholic Health Association sent an email
to all CEOs of Catholic hospitals on Tuesday morning telling them, “We are
trying to balance our communications strategy so as not to bring additional
attention to the allegations … while appropriately responding with comments
that question [the report author’s] motivation….” Sister Carol Keehan, head
of the Catholic Health Association, was the author of the email.
“Our church’s greatest scandal was caused by the silence and intentional
‘ignoring-and-covering-up-the-facts’ behavior when young boys and girls were
being raped and sodomized by Catholic priests,” said K.B. Forbes, a
practicing Catholic and Executive Director of the Consejo de Latinos Unidos,
the group that issued the report. “Now, today, the Catholic Health
Association is engaging in a deliberate and immoral campaign to ignore the
facts at hand and to insidiously hush-up discussion about the day-to-day
behavior that many Catholic hospitals are engaged in: price gouging and
financially destroying middle-class, uninsured Latinos while making a
windfall.”
Using numbers provided by the hospitals in their annual financial reports
and tax returns, the Consejo, a national non-profit consumer advocacy
organization, released the report on Tuesday that showed that the top 7
Catholic non-profit hospital systems had garnered over $2 billion in profits
in 2004, are sitting on over $20 billion in cash and investments, and
continue to price gouge uninsured Latinos, 9 of 10 of whom are Catholic.
Uninsured middle-class patients are typically charged three or four times
more than what a hospital would accept as payment in full from an insurance
company. One in three Latinos is uninsured.
“Obviously the facts are indisputable, so pathetically, leaders of the
Catholic Health Association had to question what our motives are. Answer: to
help end price gouging and provide fairness to all uninsured patients
regardless of race, ethnicity, or income,” said Forbes. “We suggest that the
disgraceful leaders of the Catholic Health Association engage in a serious
examination of conscience, pay a visit to the confessional booth, and pray
an Act of Contrition.”
In 2003, Consejo was credited by The Wall Street Journal with “a big win”
after forcing the nation’s second largest for-profit hospital chain, Tenet
Healthcare, to end price-gouging against uninsured patients. Tenet now
offers the uninsured the same discounted prices as insured patients pay.
The Consejo’s report and background information can be found at
www.catholicdisgrace.com .
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Consejo de Latinos Unidos
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