American Hospital Association


The American Hospital Association is a health care industry trade group. It includes nearly 5,000 hospitals and health care providers.
It was founded in Cleveland, Ohio in 1898 with offices in Chicago, Illinois and Washington, D.C.
The organization has lobbied against Medicare for All proposals. The organization has filed lawsuits to stop the U.S. government from requiring that hospitals make their prices public.
During the coronavirus pandemic, the AHA asked Congress to provide $100 billion in aid to hospitals for coronavirus testing and treatment.

History

In 1870, there were only about 100 general hospitals in the United States, but the institution was growing rapidly. Hospital administrators formed an organization, The Association of Hospital Superintendents of the United States and Canada, which held its first meeting in 1899 in Cleveland, Ohio, where seven of the eight superintendents in attendance were based. The organization was promoted by publisher Del Sutton, whose journal, The National Hospital Sanitarium Record, was adopted by the group in 1900, gradually coming under control of the organization until it was replaced by the organization's own publication, The Modern Hospital.
In 1906, the organization adopted its present name. Membership was 450 in 1908. Records of early annual meetings detail some of the conflicts in the emerging hospital culture of Canada and the United States concerning whether hospitals should be governed by physicians or administrators, with non-professionals representing a heavy majority. Current ongoing research into the cost-effectiveness of such a decision has led to an increasing health disparity as administrative overhead makes up a disproportionate amount of health cost.

Professional Membership Groups

Professional Membership Groups are societies which fall under the umbrella of the AHA:
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