Letters to the Editor | Aug. 12, 2025

The recent article on the multimillion-dollar salaries of nonprofit health system CEOs should disturb anyone who has ever found a surprise fee buried in a medical bill. Executives are taking home massive paychecks, while patients across Pennsylvania are being hit with “facility fees.”

Facility fees are tacked on to cover hospital overhead for expenses such as utilities, building maintenance, and even landscaping. These fees can add hundreds of dollars to medical bills, even for basic outpatient services — some that do not even take place in a health system’s facility. A friend was charged a $156 facility fee after seeing her doctor in his private home office, not a hospital, simply because the doctor was affiliated with a health system.

Lawmakers in more than a dozen states have recognized the dishonest nature of these fees. States have passed laws to limit or ban them, or at least require that patients receive advance notice. Pennsylvania, meanwhile, hasn’t even managed that. Bills, including one to simply require health systems to notify patients before they’re charged, keep stalling in committee.

When nonprofit hospitals prioritize CEO compensation over affordability and transparency, they betray the communities they’re supposed to serve. It’s time for Harrisburg to act.

Rosemary Gregory, Horsham

Regarding the recent article on Isaac A. Sheppard Elementary School in West Kensington, the question that we should be asking isn’t, “Why are some people considering closing the place?” But, “Why is a 130-year-old structure that is over 70% empty still open?” The original Abraham Lincoln High School, one of the largest structures in the district, opened in 1950. It was demolished, and a new building opened in 2009. If Lincoln could be demolished in less than 60 years, why is Sheppard still standing when it’s more than twice that age?

Schools like Sheppard are high maintenance. And every school requires administrative and support staff. Unless the school district is sitting on a wad of cash, keeping schools like Sheppard open cannot be justified.

Yes, parents will argue that they want a school that’s within walking distance for students, but kids have been riding buses to school since the dawn of creation. In many Pennsylvania districts, the children would be shocked to learn there was any other way to get to school.

Mike Egan, Plymouth Meeting

As fact-checked information keeps surfacing about this president, I ask myself: When is enough enough? Misogyny, racism, sexual abuse, tax evasion, fraud, Jan. 6, 2021, habitual lying — I’m checking all the boxes, and yet the MAGA cult is still 10 toes down with their support. I have friends and colleagues who were former Red Hats, and they have, for whatever reason, now seen the light. Unfortunately, I didn’t ask any of them why they finally snapped out of their disillusionment, in part out of fear of them flip-flopping. But in light of the snowballing Epstein scandal, and its ties with Mar-a-Lago, how low is the bar for this administration’s supporters? I get ego and the shame of admitting to being suckered by a con man, but please wake up. Our country depends on it.

K. Mayes, Philadelphia

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