> Hospitals are obviously capable of accounting such that Medicare patients are money-losers on the margin, but they keep taking them for some reason.
You seem to be under the impression that there's some deception going on here. There's not, and it's pretty plainly evident. Medicare's reimbursement rates are below COGS. Hospitals control neither of those two things (Medicare sets rates by fiat, and if hospitals could lower COGS by paying vendors less, they would).
As for why they keep taking them - they oftentimes have no choice, legally. Though, incidentally, in recent years, we've started to see hospitals find more creative ways to close their doors to Medicare patients for this exact reason.
> Normal non-VA hospitals accept VA patients and are reimbursed for them.
The number of VA patients hospitals see is negligible. The amount of revenue they receive, proportional to the number of patients they see, is even less.
You seem to be under the impression that there's some deception going on here. There's not, and it's pretty plainly evident. Medicare's reimbursement rates are below COGS. Hospitals control neither of those two things (Medicare sets rates by fiat, and if hospitals could lower COGS by paying vendors less, they would).
As for why they keep taking them - they oftentimes have no choice, legally. Though, incidentally, in recent years, we've started to see hospitals find more creative ways to close their doors to Medicare patients for this exact reason.
> Normal non-VA hospitals accept VA patients and are reimbursed for them.
The number of VA patients hospitals see is negligible. The amount of revenue they receive, proportional to the number of patients they see, is even less.