AHA Responds to CRFB’s Call to Repeal Hospital Tax Exemption

                                    Rick Pollack, President and CEO, American Hospital Association

Not surprisingly, the American Hospital Association responded to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget’s report recommending that tax exemption for hospitals be “reformed or repealed.”  I have complained in the past that AHA responds in kneejerk fashion whenever a scholar or group criticizes tax exempt hospitals.  But, well, in this instance the response might be justified once you sift out the hyperbole and name-calling.  CRFB’s report is more an advocacy piece than an objective report.  Which is ok, there is nothing wrong with advocacy. But the report is too full of speculation to support the action CRFB calls for.  The authors admit, for example, that the estimated cost of hospital tax exemption — $260 billion over ten years – is highly speculative.  Nevertheless, the report argues that the cost might be even higher than that.  The AHA calls the report “irresponsible” and a “drastic oversimplification” of a complex issue.  I feel like agreeing.  Here is some of AHA’s response:

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget is supposedly committed to being “an authoritative voice for fiscal responsibility.” That’s why it’s so disappointing that they would propose something so irresponsible in a new report — repealing nonprofit hospitals’ tax exemption. In reality, eliminating that exemption could result in more burden being placed on taxpayers to cover the cost of all the benefits and services these hospitals provide to their patients and communities. Worse than that, eliminating the longstanding exemption would cause hospitals across the country to close their doors, which would be the epitome of fiscal recklessness.

AHA’s response would be more persuasive if it didn’t attack the messengers. Hospital tax exemption might still be justified, or not, but nobody can argue that it cannot be improved.  AHA always finds a way to inject some sinister music into anything questioning hospital tax exemption.  And then the second thing about AHA’s response – and I am not trying to be mean here, I’m just trying to help – is that the President’s picture always accompanies AHA’s response.  And . . . well . . . the picture makes him look like a used car salesman trying to unload a clunker, ok. Way too much smiling.  I’m just trying help is all.  Here is a little more from AHA:

Drastically oversimplifying these complex hospital-community relationships by boiling them down to a single metric — charity care — serves no one except those committed to smearing hospitals at every opportunity. Yet that is exactly what the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget has done in its report. This position would be surprising if not for the fact that this report was produced in conjunction with the well-known anti-hospital, billionaire-backed Arnold Ventures and in large part relies on prior studies also funded by Arnold Ventures that the AHA has debunked time and again.

“Smearing hospitals at every opportunity,” as if there is nothing at all troubling about hospital tax exemption.  I might give that assertion more thought if AHA used a contemplative photo without that off-putting Cheshire grin.  And less name-calling when addressing legitimate and substantive questions about hospital tax exemption.  Leave the name-calling for politics.  

darryll k. jones