GE plans to donate $50 mln to U.S. health clinics

General Electric Co plans to donate about $50 million to community health clinics across the United States over the next couple of years, saying that urban clinics can play a role in the effort to slow the rapid rise of the nation's healthcare bill.

The largest U.S. conglomerate doubled its prior pledge on Wednesday as it announced $1 million in grants to two Atlanta clinics, bringing its total giving since it kicked off the drive last year to $8.5 million.

"These facilities are treating hundreds of thousands of people a year, many of whom are at the low end of the income scale or are uninsured," said GE Vice Chairman John Rice, in an interview. "For them, a clinic is their only alternative to the emergency room."

The United States spends some $2.5 trillion on healthcare each year, more per-capita than any other developed economy, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. Uninsured Americans often turn to hospital emergency rooms as their only source of healthcare, raising cost pressures. A recent Harvard University analysis found that treatment in a hospital emergency room for a nonemergency condition costs almost eight times as much as treatment in a clinic.

With the grants to Atlanta's West End Medical Centers and Southside Medical Center, the Fairfield, Connecticut-based company has extended funding to some 37 U.S. clinics, mainly intended to fund equipment purchases and outreach programs.

GE generates about $16 billion of annual revenue from its healthcare business, which ranges from selling big equipment like CT-Scan and MRI machines to advising hospitals on how to operate more efficiently. The company said its charitable giving is unrelated to its healthcare business.

(Reporting by Scott Malone, editing by Dave Zimmerman)