Imagine you have an investor willing to put up two dollars for every dollar you spend on a project. Now imagine you have a supplier who thinks he isn’t making enough money from your contract. How do you get more money to your supplier?

If you’re not concerned about ethics, morality, or jail time, you might charge your supplier protection money that you then repay 80 cents on the dollar. Your investor sees your 80-cent payment, ignores the kickback you took, and throws in the matching dollars. I can’t imagine anybody in business staying in business long if they tried this.

But that’s precisely what hospitals and a majority of state legislators want to do with a bill, H53/S32. Hospitals would pay a $216 million assessment to the state, get $173 million of that back, and get $350 million in federal money, too. The state nets $43 million, hospitals net $307 million. And the federal government gets a step closer to the financial precipice.