Why I won't give blood.
I refuse to give blood in blood drives. If my mom needs a pint or two, that is fine. I will go to the hospital and give it to her. But not the red cross.
Do you think that they just give blood away? In 2004 they had $3 Billion dollars in revenue. THREE BILLION. Where'd they get that from? Well they would have had to sell something to get revenue, right? Yes, they sold your blood (that they got for free) to people in hospitals that need it. Why aren't they paying you for your blood? Because that would eat into their profits! But Greggie, they are non-profit.
Are they? A great way to get rid of profits is to pay the executives more. Or better still pay independant contractors millions of dollars...(see page 7 and page 66 of the below link).
See for yourself...here is their 2004 tax returns.
Not everything is as it seems. The Red Cross sells the blood that you donate, and the hospitals and the red cross get rich off of it. (I think its a safe bet that the hospitals mark up the cost of blood, and pass that expense on over to you.).
But hey, at least it feels like you're doing a good deed, right?
posted by Greg at 12:06 PM
4 Comments:
Only 2.1 bil in revenue from Biomedical Services (which I would assume is where the free blood would come in). I would like to see the actual cost of blood after it gets tested, processed and deemed useable by another person. Is 40.5 mil for IT services too much for a company with 3 bil in total revenue? The exec pay didn't see that out of line for a company of this size. Is this blog becoming another new outlet that sensationalizes everything to get a knee-jerk reaction and move on to the next story?
-JR
All non-profit companies usually operate in the same manner and they all have high overhead and are highly ineffecient. They markup a service/product and re-sell it to produce revenue. True, it can make someone upset the fact they play on emotions (Save the people...donate! (or whatever their gay slogan may be)) by luring people in to donate blood then turnaround and sell it at high prices instead of giving it to people at reasonable prices. We all know that nothing is free. Would it be better w/o the Red Cross around? Probably not, but some charities/non-profit organizations could definetly be re-structured and improved upon. How do we do this and where would we start?
Joe
Is this blog becoming another new outlet that sensationalizes everything to get a knee-jerk reaction and move on to the next story?
No. If I wanted to sensationalize something I wouldn't give you a link directly to their tax statements, and ask you to do your own homework.
If I wanted knee jerk reactions I would coninually be talking about abortions, religion, gay marriage, and friends. I just am doing what I have been and will do, I am posting my thoughts on this website, instead of in notebooks.
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