The report was discussed last week in another post

TLDR upmc grew super fast to control 60% of hospital beds in the area and they should be broke up to a more reasonable smaller size.

Im a little surprised that in Pittsburgh $15 is no longer a floor for wages and $18 in 2025 will also be too low with inflation. I wonder if upmc provides better health insurance for employees than other service jobs. Do other hospitals pay more than UPMC? I’ve heard the nursing pay is low. They probably need a union to get paid better.

I don’t think they should lose non-profit status because if they make hospitals pay taxes, we will all pay in the end through higher hospital bills

I get that. UPMC will cover the taxes by increasing their income. But a lot of that income comes from outside the city, outside the county, outside the state, heck, outside the country.

> I don’t think they should lose non-profit status because if they make hospitals pay taxes, we will all pay in the end through higher hospital bills

fuck this. they should pay their share

edit: or at least do non-profit things like actually help people (for free)

All health insurance companies can suck a Dick, should just nationalize them.

I can’t speak in generalities, but specifically in my case, my ex wife was a UPMC nurse. My operating engineer union healthcare is better than her healthcare, and I have UPMC healthcare.

I’m glad I have good healthcare, but the fact that it’s better than what their actual nurses receive is fucking lunacy.

I can't get down with the whole "Don't hold large companies more responsible, or they'll charge us more" thing. Stand up to the bully. If they fight back, stand up to that, too.

How can an organization that owns so much pittsburgh property and owns the insurance company used to pay themselves be a nonprofit? A health insurance company should not have their name written on a damn sky scraper. It's ridiculous.

UPMC the evil empire.

I used to work out of the union hall for various contractors. Then the government. Now UPMC(still union luckily). UPMC has not only the worst insurance of anywhere I’ve worked at, but the most expensive.

The fact that employee upmc health insurance is its own extremely restrictive category is way to close to the "company store" model. Pay is ridiculous, we can't keep even doctors for too long because of it. The model is profit over people squeeze the most out of one person before thinking of spending money to hire more

If they can afford to pay their president 9 million, then they can afford to pay some taxes. I worked there a looong time ago, when they first started into health insurance, a single person policy was only $40 a pay but not now. My partner is also union and pays $10 a week for a very good health family plan. If you work in healthcare the health benefits are usually mediocre at best. Just paid $1200 for a root canal with insurance, my union partner paid $0 for exact same services ( clearly we need to up our oral care routine) LoL

Love that at least several years ago one of their produce provider contracts went to a supplier owned by a member of their board of execs. God bless nepotism

They are a nonprofit because they reinvest excess money back into themselves instead of enriching investors on Wall Street. I don’t think taxing UPMC would lead to higher worker pay or better working conditions or market competition. The county has said it would raise revenue by 5%. I’m just curious what else it would actually accomplish. Highmark, the second largest nonprofit hospital and insurance conglomerate owns naming rights to the Buffalo bills stadium so UPMC on a skyscraper is not unusual considering they have offices in that building. I think the biggest issue is UPMC marketshare and the most effective solution is to force them to divest two hospitals - Children’s and Mercy and employees should unionize. The executives lawyers and accountants are probably laughing at us for wasting government resources litigating their non profit status instead of just breaking them up into smaller pieces

I would be in favor of that if it is in conjunction with strong anti corruption laws and we can directly elect management instead of it being controlled by psychopath Republican politicians

I understand union health insurance is better than non union. I’m curious how UPMC health insurance compares to other jobs. I’ve worked in tech and employees are well paid but the health insurance is usually expensive high deductible plans which really stinks if you have a chronic health problem. Does a nurse at UPMC get better or worse health insurance than an accountant at PNC or does a minimum wage worker at UPMC get better insurance than a minimum wage worker at giant eagle or eat and park?

The model is get big so they don’t get pushed around by out of state for profit insurance companies.

Property taxes would be on a county and township basis. They don’t make profit because they spend any excess money on new buildings so there is no profit to tax.

The strange thing is they have the best plans on the public insurance exchange. I’d be curious how their employee plans stack up to other non union employers. Most non union employers have put the rising costs of health insurance solely onto the employee over the last twenty years. If they want better pay and benefits they should probably unionize

They would pay $50 million in property tax while canceling the $1billion in free services so that’s not a great trade off. Better solutions are break them up and unionize

So ...

City residents pay property taxes to the school district.

UPMC does in fact make "profit"(revenue - expenses). In 2021 they had "excess money" of $843 million. A good bit of that money they invest in other companies.

UPMC finances the construction of new buildings by issuing bonds.

They would probably find a way to rework their accounting to zero out excess revenue if they were subject to income tax. Does any entity besides the state have business income tax?

I work for UPMC on the insurance services side and the insurance is pretty good, they cover an incredibly expensive injectable my wife takes for a chronic disease. I've got no complaints.
 
In general health insurers cover what the policy holder asks them to cover. If your insurance doesn't cover much, you can talk to your HR department about it because they set the terms.

The full year I worked at UPMC and paid for UPMC insurance is the most I’ve ever paid for healthcare in my life. I didn’t even see a doctor once that year.

Just wanted to mention that UPMC is the best health insurance I've ever had.

So, unionize and make us pay ridiculous union dues? I just don’t see the benefit of unions in the healthcare sector. But, I’m open to listening to your ideas about it.

Unionized workers almost always make more even after paying union dues. Some unions provide a lot of training so dues are high but that’s not going to be an issue for upmc employees

I appreciate your reply. Thank you.