The highest-paid hospital CEO made $43 million last year all while Americans hold $220 billion in medical debt

Once again, for-profit hospital executive compensation numbers are out, and once again, people are outraged. Even Congress is getting frustrated, as the House Ways and Means Committee held a hearing in April questioning hospital CEOs on their spending and growing healthcare costs. People in the US owe a collective $220 billion in medical debt, according to the Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker, and healthcare costs are expected to rise 9% this year, according to a Business Group on Health survey. While executives during the hearing blamed rising premiums and said consolidation could help, nurses on the ground pushed back. “It is simply outrageous and immoral that healthcare CEOs take home multimillion-dollar compensation packages as we workers and patients witness skyrocketing healthcare costs and face chronic short-staffing that undermines patient care in our hospitals,” Karena Jimenez Pulido, chief nurse representative with National Nurses United at HCA Florida Largo Hospital, told us via email. Salary breakdown. When it comes to providers, it’s not surprising that for-profit CEOs are paid the most. Here are the top for-profit salaries from 2025, according to federal SEC documents: Tenet Healthcare CEO Saum Sutaria: $43,108,969 HCA Healthcare CEO Sam Hazen: $26,456,606 Universal Health Services President and CEO Marc Miller: $16,148,937 Community Health Systems CEO Kevin Hammons (became permanent CEO on Oct. 1, 2025): $4,772,869 In some cases, CEOs at some of the biggest nonprofit health systems are making similar salaries. Here are the top total nonprofit CEO compensation figures from 2024, the most recent information available, per 990 filings: Kaiser Permanente CEO Gregory Adams: $12,976,050 Ascension CEO Joseph Impicciche: $12,281,151 Advocate Health CEO Gene Woods: $25,781,275 For comparison, non-executive healthcare workers make significantly less. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that registered nurses’ median annual salary was $93,600 in 2024, and