A radio and TV campaign running in Chicago and Washington, D.C., is specifically targeting 47 Catholic hospitals in Illinois for failing to provide enough charity care to patients, reports an article in the Chicago Sun-Times. The ads, which are sponsored by the not-for-profit Fairness Foundation, claim that Illinois Catholic hospitals put “profit over mission” and need “to be forced by lawyers to do the right thing to be moral.” The legal reference is the legislation recently proposed by the Illinois Attorney General requiring all tax-exempt hospitals in the state to devote a minimum of 8% of total operating costs to charity care. The Fairness Foundation is backed by J. Patrick Rooney, who owns a private health insurance company, which has been at odds with hospitals over their billing procedures.
