September 18, 2008 | Read Time: 1 minute
Sen. Charles E. Grassley, of Iowa, is turning up the heat on two tax-exempt hospitals, demanding information about their nonprofit status, their billing practices, and the kinds of patients they serve.
Mr. Grassley, the senior Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, announced that he had sent 11-page letters to the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, in Houston, and the University of Chicago Medical Center, with each letter containing more than 40 detailed questions about their operations. The Chicago hospital was Michelle Obama’s employer before she took a leave to work on the presidential bid of her husband, Barack.
Both medical centers have been in Mr. Grassley’s sights following press accounts about how they do business.
An April article in The Wall Street Journal detailed the difficulties of a leukemia patient who had problems receiving treatment at M.D. Anderson because it required payment in advance for its services. In August, The Washington Post wrote about the University of Chicago Medical Center’s steering uninsured and under-insured patients to clinics.
“The answers to the questions I’m asking are critical to understanding whether these hospitals are setting standards for their peers,” said Senator Grassley.
The inquiries are the latest move by Mr. Grassley to investigate the role and responsibilities of nonprofit groups, including the nation’s charitable hospitals, which he says receive as much as $40-billion in benefits through their exemptions from income, sales, and property taxes; tax-deductible contributions; and tax-exempt bonds.
Both hospitals said they plan to respond fully to Mr. Grassley. Officials at M.D. Anderson said they agree that the problem of the uninsured and under-insured is a major concern, especially “because cancer is a catastrophic illness, is very expensive to treat, and is rising in incidence as our population ages and grows.”
