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September 16, 2009, 11:38 AM ET
Senator Baucus Releases Health-Care Proposal for Hospitals
A health-care proposal announced by Sen. Max Baucus, the Montana Democrat who chairs the Senate Finance Committee, would require nonprofit hospitals “to conduct a community health needs assessment at least once every three years and adopt an implementation strategy to meet the community needs.”
The senator’s bill, known as the “chairman’s mark,” will be reviewed by the finance committee next week.
The Baucus proposal also would require hospitals “to adopt, implement, and widely publicize a written financial assistance policy” and to “bill patients who qualify for financial assistance no more than the amount generally billed to insured patients.”
Mr. Baucus’s plan would require the Internal Revenue Service to review information about a hospital’s community-benefit activities, currently reported on the Form 990 informational tax return, at least once every three years. “Such review is intended to be similar to review of companies registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission,” the proposal said.
The IRS currently uses a “community benefit” standard to determine a hospital’s nonprofit eligibility.
Mr. Baucus would require the Secretary of the Treasury and the Secretary of Health and Human Services “to annually report to Congress the levels of charity care, bad debt, expenses, unreimbursed costs of means-tested government programs, and unreimbursed costs of non-means tested government programs incurred by private tax-exempt, taxable, and government hospitals as well as the cost of community benefit activities incurred by private tax-exempt hospitals.”
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