2005 was also the year in which the issue of hospital profits moved to the front-burner. Critics have always raised questions about how well doctors do and the money non-profit hospitals make. But this year events became far more serious as hospitals became the subject of several lawsuits for allegedly over-charging the uninsured. The first class-action suits, filed by Mississippi attorney Dickie Scruggs, were largely unsuccessful but did produce settlements in a number of cases where hospitals agreed to new pricing schemas for the uninsured.
Of course, hospitals have a fundamental problem pricing for consumers in that they don't have a clue how much they are supposed to charge them. A recent study by the California Healthcare Foundation, which "mystery shopped" hospitals looking for prices for common procedures, found an industry that just didn't know how to respond. The issue will remain on the radar for non-profit hospital executives.