In health care reform, who cares for the community?

Health care reform has again focused the issues of ownership and mission of organizations in the health care field. Some believe that universal entitlement will eventually make both charitable patient care and the nonprofit form of organization obsolete. Others believe that special treatment of nonprofit organizations does not depend on charity at all; rather that the nonprofit form has social value in and of itself. The authors reflect a different point of view. They suggest that with reform, community benefit as the modern expression of a charitable mission will become ever more important in achieving the nation's health care goals. They believe that nonprofit organizations will continue to be entitled to special treatment only if their missions and programs extend beyond care of patients and entitled populations to focus also on care of communities. Any health organization's investment in disciplined community initiatives encompasses all the people in targeted communities, including those served by competing organizations. Without tax exemption, an organization committed to community care initiatives will be at a competitive disadvantage under the proposed community rated capitation payment system. Rather than abandoning the community benefit standard for tax exemption, health care reform calls for more systematic management of community care initiatives by nonprofit organizations and also of tax-exemption eligibility by the IRS.