Fed bailouts to rich hosps

Hospitals hoarding massive piles of cash got billions of dollars in federal coronavirus bailouts while vulnerable health centers were forced to scrape by, a report says.

The feds have given more than $5 billion in grants to 20 big hospital chains that already had more than $108 billion in cash, The New York Times reported Monday.

The money was part of $72 billion in grants the Department of Health and Human Services has distributed to hospitals and other providers since April under the $2.2 trillion CARES Act, which Congress passed to shore up struggling businesses amid the pandemic, according to the report.

But some grants went to institutions with cash reserves so large, they could afford to gamble some of them on Wall Street, the Times reported.

They include Seattle’s Providence Health System and the Cleveland Clinic, which got more than $700 million in combined aid after each reaped more than $1 billion in investment profits last year, the story says. Providence has nearly $12 billion in cash while the Cleveland Clinic had $7 billion last year, according to the Times.

The hospitals argued they needed the money to help offset hefty losses as the coronavirus crisis forced providers to limit elective surgeries and other nonessential services. Providence said its grant helped stave off layoffs and pay cuts.

But the bailout program gave some cash-strapped hospitals a pittance by comparison. Hospitals serving more wealthy patients with private insurance got twice as much aid as those that focus on people with Medicaid or no insurance at all, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation Study.

St. Claire HealthCare, a rural hospital system in eastern Kentucky, got just $3 million in federal money in April — enough to cover two weeks of payroll.