RedNova News - Health - A Taxing Question for Not-for-Profits

RedNova News - Health - A Taxing Question for Not-for-Profits: "A Taxing Question for Not-for-Profits

Congress is continuing to question whether not-for-profit hospitals are providing sufficient charity care to justify their tax- exempt status. But the question, framed too narrowly, misses most of the reasons not-for-profit hospitals merit tax exemption in the first place.

'It would be very dangerous to address a broken system such as ours by simply revoking the federal tax-exempt status of nonprofit hospitals. . . . [A] blanket revocation of federal tax-exempt status would revoke more benefit than the tax revenue stream it would produce to support the uninsured.'

-Nancy M. Kane, Professor of Management, Department of Health Policy and Management, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, in testimony before the House Committee on Ways and Means, May 26"