Perkins’ targeting of private hospitals comes under fire

Thursday, Feb. 10, 2005 | 9:47 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- A hospital association official said Wednesday that he was mystified by Assembly Speaker Richard Perkins' suggestion that private hospitals should be required to invest a percentage of their profits in local programs.

In his opening speech to the Assembly on Monday, Perkins, a Henderson Democrat, said the Legislature should "look at a Community Reinvestment Act for Health Care modeled on the financial services industry.

"This would require hospitals to invest a percentage of their profits into local programs before they pay off-corporate headquarters," said Perkins, who added that the state needs legislation that "prohibits these out-of-state corporations from harvesting our pocketbooks to ship millions of dollars back east."

Perkins said he has not yet fully fleshed out the legislation he suggested. Perkins said some details of his plan will be unveiled tonight at a special meeting of the Assembly Committee on Health and Human Services.

Any such proposal will run into strong opposition from the hospital industry, Bill Welch, executive director of the Nevada Hospital Association, said Wednesday. Though statewide hospital profits totaled $60 million last year, that was down from a tally of $87 million the preceding year, he said. In Clark County profits did rise last year, but only by 1.2 percent, he said.

Hospitals in Nevada are one of the biggest employers, they pay higher-than-average salaries and they have invested millions of dollars in new construction, Welch said. Hospitals also pay a variety of hefty tax bills in Nevada including property taxes and sales tax on the purchase of equipment, he added. All of that amounts to investment in the state's communities, he said.

Welch said further limits on hospitals' profits would discourage new investors from coming to Nevada. The private sector is now providing the bulk of the beds in the state. If private hospitals start to move away from Nevada, than taxpayers will have to finance more county hospitals to care for these patients, Welch said.

There was a mixed bag of private hospitals that earned profits or reported losses in Clark County in the last fiscal year.

Profits at private hospitals last fiscal year in Clark County were reported at Summerlin Hospital Medical Center, $8.3 million; Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center, $245,449; Valley Hospital Medical Center, $13.8 million; MountainView Hospital, $9.9 million and St. Rose Dominican Hospital Siena Campus for $18.8 million.

Losses were reported at the private hospitals of North Vista Hospital, $1.2 million; Southern Hills Hospital Medical Center, $11.5 million; Spring Valley Hospital Medical Center, $7.7 million and St. Rose Dominican Hospitals Rose de Lima campus, $754,157.