Nonprofit hospitals do make a profit

At least some of them do. The ten most profitable hospitals include seven  nonprofits; each of the ten earn more than $163 million in total profits. I'm talking about hospitals such as Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, Johns Hopkins, Mass General.

The hospitals are designated nonprofit and thus exempt from federal and local taxes in exchange for providing a certain amount of “community benefit.” How a community benefit is defined varies. A 'benefit' can be a community health fair (which is more of a marketing affair. Is staff training a community benefit? Is Medicaid? These are some of the items the hospital can write off as a nonprofit.