PANEL (4/5): The National Security Implications of the Genetics Revolution

 

Technology Concept

The National Security Implications of the Genetics Revolution
April 5, 2016 12:00 PM
Pound Hall, Room 101
Harvard Law School, 1536 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA

 

Panelists:

  • Jamie Metzl, JD ’97, Senior Fellow for Technology and National Security of the Atlantic Council. He has served on the U.S. National Security Council, State Department, and Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as Executive Vice President of the Asia Society and with the United Nations in Cambodia. A globally syndicated columnist and regular guest on national and international media, he is the author of a history of the Cambodian genocide and the novels The Depths of the Sea and Genesis Code.

Topic: The National Security Implications of the Genetics Revolution

  • George J. Annas, JD, MPH, William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Department of Health Law, Bioethics & Human Rights, Boston University School of Public Health; Professor in the Boston University School of Medicine, and School of Law

Topic: Post-9/11 Uses of Public Health and Medicine by National Security Agencies 

  • Jonathan D. Moreno, PhD, David and Lyn Silfen University Professor of Ethics, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania

Topic: National Security and Biology

This event is free and open to the public. Lunch will be provided.

Cosponsored by the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School, the Harvard National Security & Law Association, the Harvard National Security Journal, and the Center for Bioethics at Harvard Medical School, with support from the Oswald DeN. Cammann Fund at Harvard University.

Tax exemptions and nonprofit hospitals: An uncertain future

Of the 4,926 community hospitals in the United States, the majority, about 58 percent (2,870) are not-for-profit. About 21 percent (1,053) are for-profit, and the remainder are owned by state and local governments. Hospitals serve communities by caring for the sick, but they’re also often billion dollar enterprises and tension between the mission and business model of nonprofit hospitals is growing.

Nonprofit hospitals are expected to benefit their community in exchange for their tax-exempt status. Hospitals have most commonly fulfilled this obligation by providing uncompensated care, or charity care. However, this has historically been poorly regulated. A 2013 study found that on average nonprofit hospitals spent 7.5 percent of their operating expenses on community benefit activities, and 85 percent of that was charity care. However, there was major variation in the amount allocated to community benefit, ranging from 1 percent to 20 percent.

The Affordable Care Act introduced new community benefit reporting requirements for nonprofit hospitals in an effort to bring more clarity and accountability to the amount and quality of “community benefits” delivered in exchange for 501(c)3 tax exemption. The value of the nonprofit tax exemptions for hospitals is significant: it was estimated at almost $25 billion in 2011. For states and municipalities in particular, the foregone tax revenue is nontrivial, especially as their taxes bases were squeezed by the burst of the housing bubble in 2008. It should be little surprise, then, that municipalities have started to scrutinize the tax exemptions for nonprofit hospitals.

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