Report on Hospital “Charity Care” in San Francisco

Following up on the recent blog post about defining “charity” in the U.S. and abroad, on January 29, 2008, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that two nonprofit hospitals in San Francisco were recently criticized for delivering little “charity care” to its patients.  Here is an excerpt from the article:

San Francisco’s five nonprofit hospitals received $79 million last year in tax breaks intended to compensate them for providing free care to the city’s poor and uninsured, but they spent just $16 million on charity care, according to a new city report.

California Pacific Medical Center, with campuses in Laurel Heights, Pacific Heights and the Castro, was responsible for the vast majority of the disparity, the report by the city Department of Public Health said. California Pacific received close to $70 million in tax breaks – $67 million in state and federal income tax exemptions and $2.8 million in local property tax exemptions – while spending $5.2 million on charity care, the report said.

. . .

Kevin McCormack, California Pacific spokesman, countered that the hospital’s three campuses are located in wealthy neighborhoods where poor and uninsured people aren’t likely to seek treatment.

“Those neighborhoods are not ones where you have a large low-income community,” McCormack said. “We still have the responsibility, but … it’s not asked of us as much.”

For the entire article, see “2 hospitals got millions, spent little on charity” in the January 29, 2008, San Francisco Chronicle.

DAB