AP Exclusive: Ill. hospital tax break costs $10M

CHICAGO (AP) - A little-noticed tax break for investor-owned hospitals that was tucked into a deal last spring aimed at saving the Illinois Medicaid program from collapse will cost the cash-strapped state at least $10 million a year in lost revenue, according to an analysis by The Associated Press.

Hospital industry officials say the tax credit recognizes the free care they provide to the uninsured. But some state officials were puzzled about how for-profit hospitals were able to land a major tax break in the intense closed-door negotiations at a time Springfield was grappling with a dire financial crisis.

“I think we were surprised that it survived,” said Mike Klemens, the since-retired manager of policy and communication for the state Department of Revenue. “We couldn’t imagine the Legislature would be enacting something that would reduce their income tax revenue. We were shut out of the talks at the end.”

The AP’s review looked at how the provision got into the largest piece of legislation that passed the General Assembly last spring and its financial impact, which wasn’t made public at the time.

After extensive wheeling and dealing, Gov. Pat Quinn in June signed a package of $2.7 billion in cuts and tax increases he said was needed to save the state’s bloated program for funding health care to the poor and disabled.

Thousands of working parents lost Medicaid coverage because of the cuts. Taxes on cigarettes went up. And hospitals faced tougher rules for when they must provide free care to poor patients who don’t qualify for Medicaid.

The leader of an Illinois fiscal watchdog group called the Legislature’s tax giveaway _ without a public cost estimate _ “unforgivable” and an example of how politics gets in the way of Illinois resolving its core problems.

“They can’t afford to be giving away tax revenue at all” with an accumulated deficit of $8 billion, said Ralph Martire, executive director of the bipartisan Center for Tax and Budget Accountability. “When they’ve got a hole of that magnitude in their existing budget, they’re giving a tax credit to certain investors. That’s saying we’d rather spend that $10 million to subsidize the income of these mostly affluent investors than use that $10 million to pay for the core services we directly fund.”

Highly involved in crafting the deal and seeing it through was A.J. Wilhelmi, who left the Illinois Senate in February to take a leadership post with IHA, the hospital lobbying group. His name is still listed as a legislative sponsor of the bill that included the tax break.

“It’s good public policy to support the charitable activities of investor-owned hospitals. We want to encourage hospitals to continue to provide free and discounted care,” Wilhelmi said in support of the tax credit.

Wilhelmi told the AP that the hospital association estimated the tax break would cost “up to $15 million a year,” a number that was shared verbally during the negotiations but wasn’t divulged to the public.

“It was certainly discussed in those meetings,” Wilhelmi said. “Was this issue brought up in every session? I don’t think that’s the case.”

Although some insiders knew about the $15 million a year estimate from the hospital group, there was never a request for an official analysis of the impact on the state budget, according to the Illinois Department of Revenue.

There are 28 investor-owned hospitals in Illinois today, most owned by health systems that operate nationally like Nashville-based Vanguard Health Systems. Vanguard will reap an estimated $5.5 million annually because of the tax break, according to the AP analysis.

A spokesman for the Quinn administration confirmed that $15 million was the high end of the hospital association’s estimate. The figure was given without any documentation, said spokesman Mike Claffey.

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