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Senators Consider Curtailing Hospitals' Tax Breaks
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Issue
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| Contributor | Jason |
| Last Edited | Jason Jul 09, 2009 09:52pm |
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| Category | Proposed Legislation |
| Author | BARBARA MARTINEZ |
| Media | Newspaper - Wall Street Journal |
| News Date | Friday, July 10, 2009 03:00:00 AM UTC0:0 |
| Description | Senators working on health-care legislation are considering provisions to pare back the billions of dollars in tax breaks enjoyed by U.S. hospitals.
More than half of the 5,482 hospitals in the U.S. are nonprofits that don't pay federal, state or local taxes, according to the American Hospital Directory. This status is rooted in the 19th century: the first U.S. hospitals almost exclusively served the poor; others paid for medical care at home. The tax exemptions were meant to help hospitals shoulder the costs of providing such free care.
But in the past decade, some nonprofit hospitals have amassed big cash surpluses, even as they engaged in aggressive bill-collection tactics. Some provide less in charity care than the value of their tax breaks.
Helping drive the debate is the idea that any federal health-care overhaul that provides for the uninsured would reduce the need for charity care.
One change being floated by Senate Finance Committee leaders Max Baucus (D., Mont.) and Charles Grassley (R., Iowa) is that hospitals would be required to offer a minimum amount of charity care, limit charges to the uninsured and tame their collection practices -- or face an excise tax. |
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