Marc Dann ... equal billing for hospital services

From RH Jones, January 30, 2008
Subject: Fw: Marc Dann ... equal billing for hospital services

To all:

How wise CORE was to endorse and back this wonderful gentleman, Attorney General Marc Dann. Since his election, he has moved Ohio smartly ahead in becoming a more open, just and law abiding society. He most certainly has become a credit to this great state; and, while doing so, has established himself to capture even greater political opportunities in the future. Hopefully, he will even seek higher office. He service to the people of Ohio is greatly appreciated by this citizen!

RH Jones, a proud Concerned Ohio Retired Educator (CORE) member

Ohio attorney general wants poor to pay same for medical care as insurance companies

Posted by Joan Mazzolini January 30, 2008

Cleveland Plain Dealer

Ohio's attorney general wants to ensure that the state's poor and uninsured pay the same prices for medical care as insurance companies

That's but one part of Attorney General Marc Dann's new push to define what nonprofit hospitals must do for their communities to remain exempt from paying property taxes.

Dann said at a meeting this week with Plain Dealer reporters and editors that he will hire experts to help define charity care.

He is concerned about uninsured patients paying high prices for medical procedures because they don't get hefty discounts that insurance companies negotiate.

Dann's push is part of a national effort to make nonprofit hospitals accountable. Communities throughout Northeast Ohio are challenging the tax-exempt status of hospitals, arguing that many of their satellite offices provide no charity care or other community benefits. The first test case will be a Cleveland Clinic facility in Beachwood.

Dann plans to look at what other states are doing as well, and he will consider the work of Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, who launched an investigation into the nonprofit status of hospital systems nationwide a few years ago.

Minnesota is a particular interest. Hospitals there agreed in 2005 not to charge uninsured patients with low incomes more than they charge insurance companies. The agreement prohibits hospitals from using abusive debt collection practices.

In Illinois, the attorney general proposed legislation in 2006 that would require nonprofit hospitals to devote at least 8 percent of their operating costs to charity care or pay the state the difference.

In 1993, Texas began requiring nonprofit hospitals to provide a minimum level of indigent health care.

Programs in which nonprofits make payments in lieu of taxes are common in other cities. In Massachusetts, Cambridge and Boston nonprofit hospitals donate a portion of the taxes they would owe if they were for-profit.

At the national level, the Internal Revenue Service wants to know what benefits nonprofit hospitals provide. Starting this year, the hospitals must report salaries for executives and disclose subsidized care they provide.

Hospitals throughout Ohio and across the nation define and report charity care differently. Dann and the Ohio Hospital Association said they plan to work together to come up with an Ohio standard.

OHA spokeswoman Tiffany Himmelreich said hospitals want Dann to consider the community benefits hospitals provide in addition to charity care. Dann said he would consider those benefits, such as medical research and job creation.

He expects hospitals to provide his office with information on billing and bad debt collection. If not, he has the authority to compel the hospitals to comply.

In an unrelated move Tuesday, Rep. Jim Raussen, a Cincinnati Republican, introduced a broad health-care proposal that would try to define charitable care for nonprofit hospitals.