WASHINGTON – Despite being tax-exempt, nonprofit hospitals across the country are making big money at the expense of their patients. The New Jersey Hospital Scorecard was created based on recent findings from the New Jersey Policy Perspective, the Lown Institute, PatientsRightsAdvocate.org and others about troubling practices at hospitals in New Jersey. These practices are at odds with what the public expects from charitable organizations, especially since New Jersey nonprofit hospitals receive hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks each year.In response to these troubling findings, Consumers for Quality Care (CQC) released the following statement:

Nonprofit hospitals in New Jersey seem to operate less and less like charitable organizations and more and more like big corporate businesses that put profits over people. These hospitals are charging huge mark-ups for care and even suing poor patients when they cannot pay while at the same time pocketing big tax breaks due to their status as nonprofits. There’s something wrong with that. These hospitals should put patients and their care first and they should be held accountable when they don’t.