Nonprofit hospitals under growing scrutiny over how they justify billions in tax breaks
By Andy Miller and Markian Hawryluk, KFF Health News
- July 10, 2023
The growing interest in how tax-exempt hospitals operate — from lawmakers, the public, and the media — has coincided with a stubborn increase in consumers’ medical debt. KFF Health News reported last year that more than 100 million Americans are saddled with medical bills they can’t pay, and has documented aggressive bill-collection practices by hospitals, many of them nonprofits.
In 2019, Oregon passed legislation to set floors on community benefit spending largely based on each hospital’s past expenditures as well as its operating profit margin. Illinois and Utah created spending requirements for hospitals based on the property taxes they would have been assessed as for-profit organizations.
And a congressional committee in April heard testimony on the issue.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/10/health/nonprofit-hospitals-community-benefits-kff-health-news/index.html