July 20, 2007 | Read Time: 1 minute
Trent Stamp, president of the Charity Navigator watchdog group, is not impressed by the proposal on nonprofit hospitals article released on Thursday by Republican staff members of the Senate Finance Committee, calling it “political posturing and preening” with no chance to become law.
“I’ll walk to D.C. and apologize to Sen. Charles Grassley in person when this becomes law, and not just a press release,” he writes on Trent Stamp’s Take.
The staff members proposed that nonprofit hospitals be required to allocate at least 5 percent of their annual budgets to providing charity care or lose their tax-exempt status.
Mr. Stamp says the proposal makes good sense, and shouldn’t even be the subject of debate. But he says Senator Grassley, Republican of Iowa, chaired the Senate Finance Committee for almost a decade, and never got serious about proposing new rules to cover hospitals.
“Now that [Republicans are] in the minority, he is hell-bent on reform?” he writes. “Please stop insulting us.”
Do you think the Republican staff members are posturing? Or do you think the Finance Committee will seriously consider the charity requirement for nonprofit hospitals? What do you think about the proposals the staff made? Are they needed?
Click on the comments link below to share your thoughts.
