Congressional Tax Committees Examine Tax-Exempt Hospitals

The House and Senate tax committees in recent days have examined tax-exempt hospitals:

The House Ways & Means Committee on Thursday held a hearing on The Tax-Exempt Hospital Sector. Here is the witness list:

• Mark Everson (Commissioner, Internal Revenue Service)
• David M. Walker (Comptroller General, U.S. Government Accountability Office)
• Mark McClellan (Administrator, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services)
• John Colombo (Professor, University of Illinois College of Law)
• Stan Jenkins (Chairman, Champaign County Board of Review)
• John T. Thomas (Senior Vice President and General Counsel, Baylor Health Care System)
• Sister Carol Keehan (Board Chair, Sacred Heart Health System & Chairperson, Board of Trustees, U.S. Catholic Health Association)
• Jill R. Horwitz (Professor, University of Michigan Law School, and Faculty Research Fellow, National Bureau of Economic Research)
• Nancy M. Kane (Professor, Department of Health Policy and Management, Harvard School of Public Health)

Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, on Wednesday sent a letter to ten hospitals asking 46 questions on issues including charitable activities, patient billing, and ventures with for-profit companies and hospitals.