Opinion: Hospitals that make profits should pay taxes
As diligent taxpayers breathe a sigh of relief that the hassle of filing their tax forms is over for another year, the Internal Revenue Service continues to let most U.S. hospitals pay nothing in federal taxes. It’s time for Congress to take a hard look at the IRS’s hand in health care.
The agency uses a vague “community benefit” standard to liberally grant tax-exempt status to so-called nonprofit hospitals even as many of them are financially taking advantage of sick Americans with inflated medical bills. Several of my Johns Hopkins colleagues and I published a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association showing that some nonprofit hospitals sue and garnish the wages of low-income patients who can’t afford to pay their medical bills. Where’s the community benefit in that? Nonprofit hospitals are supposed to be compassionate and merciful, not predatory and ruthless.
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