Unbelievable in many ways! They brought it all on to themselves.
Perhaps it’s the High Dollar Doc’s that can contribute to their cause by themselves.

Because they can. I have heard St. Lukes is capping all nurses pay raises, not matching future employee retirement donations and limiting vacation time accrual and usage. It is all about the “Benjamins” for the “non-profit”.

I encourage everyone to read about IDAHO GIVES. This event started last year to help connect amazing nonprofits with potential donors. Please consider finding your favorite nonprofit and donating on this day.

http://www.idahogives.org/

I am giving this year to Recreation Unlimited. They helped my son learn to ski and now I am a volunteer and board member with them. http://idahogives.razoo.com/story/Recreation-Unlimited

GoG, BC/BS being non-profit “in Idaho” has nothing to do with Idaho or Idaho politics. It’s a quality some theorize allows an insurance company to focus on things other stock price.

Take for example your liberal brethren to the NW in the weed state of Washington where 2 nonprofit insurance companies have amassed over 1 BILLION dollars in their coffers.
Any cynicism left over for the Washington State politico-business shenanigans?
http://www.insurance.wa.gov/laws-rules/legislation-rules/legislation/non-profit-health-surplus/

St. Luke’s didn’t even pause to consider the anti-trust verdict or resultant legal fees. In short order, they are absorbing the entire Elks System (hospital and outpatient facilities alike). The empire keeps growing.

a person could go buy a nice thank you card and send it to your doctor without going through St Lukes foundation for “National Dr. Day”…. and it would probably mean more to your Doctor.

But of course why would St Lukes foundation want you to do that?

Just saying

I have a different angle on the doctor thank you. I am a long-time patient of a specialist practice now owned by St. Luke’. I just got a voicemail from the appointment desk regarding confirming an appointment made four months ago. In the call, I was told that the practice is very busy and that if I did not call to confirm the appointment, it could be cancelled and someone else would move into my scheduled time.

Gee, should I say thank you for selling to a hospital that raised the price of lab work and office visits and ignores the long-time doctor / patient relationship? Perhaps, I spoke too quickly. For the same price of a doctor visit; I now get to see a Physician’s Assistant with much less training.

St Lukes is a deplorable organization, but I have always received great care there.

And for all of you who think Obamacare had anything to do with this, you are, of course, totally wrong. Obamacare only attempts to fix problems with health INSURANCE – it has nothing to do with the quality of care you get nor how much doctors and hospitals charge you or how much nurses are paid.

Mergers, whether it be airlines, phone companies, cable TV companies, cell phone companies or hospitals. are ALWAYS bad for the consumer.

No, you are flat wrong. Just call your local death panel or Sarah Palin! LOL

Rod – the market rigging behavior of the insurance industry was enabled by the Government in the first place. They have no intention of fixing anything meaningful. Obamacare was written by industry insiders for the benefit of industry insiders, and addresses only superficial issues, but cost shifts loads on to young people, and creates more costs and more collateral damage. As long as people believe that big Government and their friends (hospital corps, insurance, pharma) are the solution to what is fundamentally a lack of functioning health care markets – nothing positive (for the folks) will be accomplished. Which is why this whole mess is spiraling out of control, and getting rapidly worse. Oh well. We get what we vote for. And we are getting it….right up the doo dah. Phil says hi.