Imposing a 3 percent gross receipts tax on Intermountain Health Care will drive up costs for everyone, jeopardize millions in charity care and force loyal IHC employees out of their jobs, opponents to SB61 told lawmakers Friday.
If the health-care giant isn't taxed, other Utah health-care providers who pay their taxes and still provide charity medical care will continue to compete on an unlevel playing field, opponents argued.
On Friday, impassioned pleas on both sides of SB61 left a committee of lawmakers sifting through piles of contrary assertions — that either the "sky is falling" with endorsement of SB61 or that Utah's overall delivery of health care will decline if SB61is killed.
With all that to consider in a two-hour time frame, lawmakers ultimately took no action and will more than likely take up the issue again on Monday.
Sen. Michael Waddoups, R-Taylorsville, proposes assessing the tax on IHC and putting the $100 million in revenue into the state's uniform school fund.
Raising taxes for schools, he says, is not the impetus for the bill, but rather to make IHC compete under the same circumstances as for-profit hospitals.
For the first six months of last year, Waddoups said IHC reported in excess of $138 million in reserves. Its net assets were at $1.7 billion.
"I would call that a profit."
Opponents, who showed up in droves for a rally outside and filled the committee room beyond standing room only, say the lawmaker's efforts run contrary to numerous decisions over the years that have upheld the appropriateness of IHC's tax-exempt status and the studies that conclude the health-care corporation not only meets but exceeds charitable requirements.
"We do not believe you will be doing your duty by imposing this tax," said Kent Murdock, an IHC volunteer community trustee and president of the O.C. Tanner Co.
But IHC critics say the corporation does not have the corner on the charitable care market.
"Regardless of patients' ability to pay, they will be treated the same at a tax-paying facility as they would be at a non-tax-paying facility," said Mitch Tibbetts, chief executive officer of St. Mark's Hospital. "To do so otherwise would be illegal."
Since a federal law was passed mandating hospitals treat the uninsured and indigent, the lines have blurred between charitable and for-profit hospitals, supporters said.
Dr. Jeff Bennion, who has a practice in Cache Valley, says he does charity-care cases but delivers his services at the for-profit hospital in Logan because they allow him to do so more frequently than the community's IHC facility.
Critics, such as Midvale Mayor JoAnn Seghini and Karen Crompton, head of Voices for Utah Children, said tearing down the good that IHC has done will simply lead to more uninsured Utahns and decrease access to care.
E-mail: amyjoi@desnews.com