Nonprofit hospitals have been concerned that healthcare reform legislation would require minimum levels of charity care to maintain nonprofit status and therefore tax-exemption.
According to the report, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) would be most likely to push for minimum requirements, as he has been “questioning for years the charitable — thus tax-exempt — status of some nonprofits that pay executives huge corporate-like salaries and sue poor patients for payments, while amassing great wealth during the stock market’s boom.”
Sen. Baucus’s bill does include requirements for nonprofit hospitals, including a periodic needs assessment, and the prohibition of certain collection actions, but the report calls these requirements “relatively benign.”
Read the WSJ Health Blog’s report on requirements for charity care.
