Tax Breaks Under the Microscope

New health care reform proposals include tighter restrictions for nonprofit hospitals. They're meant to make sure that the charitable institutions aren't being greedy:

In the era of billion-dollar government bailouts to defunct corporations, why would the government target hospitals that supposedly serve the public good? The reason is big money. In fact, $93.5 billion in federal subsidies are provided every year in the form of tax breaks. But research shows that nonprofit hospitals behave no differently from for-profit ones. And in some cases, nonprofits have been caught mistreating the poor for the sake of financial gains. One example: A nonprofit academic hospital in Connecticut aggressively pursued "deadbeat" elderly patients by placing liens on their homes. More recently, several nonprofit Chicago hospitals were reportedly transferring uninsured patients to the county emergency room. Stories like this are what sets off Grassley.

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