Dallas Morning News – Quotes Jonathan Skinner, professor of community and family medicine, and of the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice at Geisel, and professor of economics at Dartmouth, on a recent study that revealed it is common practice at Texas General and two other for-profit medical centers in North Texas to charge patients upward of nine times the cost of care. While insurance companies and federal health care programs arrange lower prices with hospitals, the uninsured don’t have the same negotiating power and are often left with hefty bills.