Des Moines hospitals top Iowa's "fair share" charity deficit list
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Two major Des Moines hospitals fell $70 million short on community support despite tax breaks, according to a report released Wednesday by the nonpartisan Lown Institute.
Why it matters: The gap raises questions about whether tax breaks are doing their job — and whether vulnerable Iowans are paying the price.
Driving the news: UnityPoint Health's Iowa Methodist Medical Center and MercyOne Des Moines Medical Center had the state's most significant gaps between the value of their tax exemptions and what they spend on charity care and community investment — $47 million and $23 million, respectively.
- Of the tax records of 56 Iowa nonprofit hospitals analyzed in the report, 70% had deficits, totaling a charitable shortfall of $162 million a year.
Zoom in: Iowa's hospitals received $331 million in tax breaks yearly, with property tax exemptions making up the largest proportion.
- UnityPoint owns $500 million worth of real estate in the metro while MercyOne owns $360 million, according to the report.
The big picture: Lown found an overall annual charitable deficit of $11.5 billion among the more than 1,800 nonprofit hospitals across 20 states it reviewed.
- It concluded that that's enough to feed more than a third of all food-insecure people or build 150,000 more affordable housing units.
What they're saying: Iowa could improve accountability by setting minimum eligibility standards for financial assistance and requiring hospitals to screen patients for assistance to ensure all eligible patients receive discounts.
- The report's authors wrote that policymakers should address misaligned incentives in hospital business models.
- A spokesperson for MercyOne said the hospital could not immediately respond to Axios' requests for comment on Tuesday, and UnityPoint did not reply to a request for comment.
Yes, but: Some hospitals have argued that Lown's prior analyses failed to fully account for spending on things like research or costs they absorb when government programs such as Medicaid don't fully reimburse for a patient's care, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported.
- The American Hospital Association said the group's report from last year cherry-picked data and highlighted other studies indicating that tax-exempt hospitals provide billions of dollars in benefits to their communities.