Non-profit does not mean volunteer. It doesn't mean they don't make money. It never has. Non-profits are businesses. They operate like businesses. Any impression you had that they do anything differently is a misconception.
It is common for people to equate the word "profit" with "making money", and therefore mistakenly assume that "non-profit" must mean they don't make money. But the word here is specifically referring to the ownership of the organizations net-assets: all assets belong to the business itself, rather than it being the equity of shareholders.
Non-profit only means that the company must use it's property for its own organizational goals, and it does not have owners that the property can be distributed to.
> I haven't looked through financial statements of one of these hospitals, but does anyone else have any experience with doing so and do they actually see that hospitals do need to charge those enormous amounts for everything to run effectively or to survive?
From a link someone else posted elsewhere in the comments:
> Median operating margins reached 1.7% in 2018
https://www.modernhealthcare.com/providers/operating-margins...
Basically it's hard to reconcile the fact that hospitals are "non-profit" while also charging what seems excessively for everything.
I haven't looked through financial statements of one of these hospitals, but does anyone else have any experience with doing so and do they actually see that hospitals do need to charge those enormous amounts for everything to run effectively or to survive?