The Illinois case focuses on Provena Covenant Medical Center, a Catholic-run hospital in Champaign County, and its disagreement with first the local tax review board and then the Illinois Department of Revenue surrounding the facility’s property tax exemption. All of Iowa’s 117 community hospitals are private nonprofit — owned either by government, churches or some other nonprofit entity. In Iowa, just like the rest of America, most hospitals pay no property tax. In Iowa the “charitable” distinction, according to a spokesman from the Iowa Department of Revenue, is made on a case-by-case basis, and, like Illinois, is not subject to certain thresholds of charity in relation to revenue.

The Illinois Supreme Court, however, is being asked to decide if such a designation needs to be clarified according to how much charity is actually provided. For example, should unpaid medical bills owed to a hospital or the amount of services a hospital offers for free be included in a formula that would determine whether or not a facility could operate as tax-exempt?

Although the decision handed down by the Illinois court will only have an immediate impact on the neighboring state, it will also likely set precedent for consideration by other states. In addition, on the federal level, many hospitals with a property tax exemption also benefit from income tax exemption and are allowed to use tax-exempt bonding for capital improvements. Due to the national debate involving health care, and the estimated expense of proposed reform efforts, the Illinois decision could also impact these other national areas of tax exemption for hospitals.

If the court finds that such tax exemptions should be qualified, and that many existing hospitals don’t meet the benchmark, the hospitals are going to have the additional monetary liability of those payments. The additional burden could force hospitals to re-think how they provide charity care, if they can afford existing specialty services or even if smaller and more rural facilities are worth the time, money and effort.

“[Hospitals] might seek to pass on the tax burdens, but ultimately there will be an impact on community services,” wrote Patrick Coffey, attorney for Provena Covenant, in documents filed with the court.

The Illinois case, which began in 2002, has been decided differently by the courts on its way to the state’s high court. An initial court hearing allowed Provena Covenant to keep its tax-exempt status. Last year, justices from the 4th District Appellate Court reversed the decision, citing charity care by the hospital amounted to less than 1 percent of its revenue. The hospital was required to pay more than $5 million in property taxes, but has since been granted a refund as a part of the appeals process.

Brian Hamer, director of the Illinois Department of Revenue, was adamant in his summary of the case that the property used by Provena Covenant was not eligible for tax exemption under either “charitable use” or religious purposes.

“The primary basis of my conclusion is simple: Covenant admitted that its 2002 revenues exceeded $113,000,000 and its charitable activities cost it only $831,724, or about .7 percent of total revenue,” wrote Hamer. “The property tax exemption it requested was worth over $1,100,000… to obtain the exemption Covenant was required to prove that its primary purpose of charitable care. These financial figures fall short of meeting the primary purpose standard.”

In brief filed in anticipation of the Supreme Court proceedings, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan took the case for charitable use a step further by stating that the hospital purposefully interacted with patients in a way that “concealed the availability of charity care” and submitted many unmet obligations to debt collections.

The Illinois ruling would be of most significance to the 50 percent of Iowa’s hospitals (19 owned by religious organizations and 39 owned by other nonprofits) that are not government-run. According to the 2007 annual survey of hospitals by the American Hospital Association, Iowa’s 117 total hospitals have had a 175.8 percent increase in bad debt and charity since 1998. The hospitals used 4.7 percent, or $612.8 million, of their 2007 gross patient revenue for uncompensated care. In addition, Iowa’s hospitals reported that roughly another $113 million was spent during 2007 on community benefit services such as coalition building, clinical research, in-kind or cash donations, indigent prescription services and community health education.

A spokesman for the Iowa Department of Revenue also notes that while the land used for the hospitals proper may be granted a tax exemption, the status does not carry over to additional properties such as parking ramps and doctor’s offices.

Gov. Chet Culver

“We are very pleased to have a national Democratic star like Iowa Governor Chet Culver agree to be the keynote speaker,” said Alan Pirtle, president of the association. “[He] has a tremendous future ahead of him and we look forward to hearing him speak about his successes as Iowa becomes more of a Democratic state.”

Culver, the federal liaison for the Democratic Governors Association, will speak at the Illinois annual Governor’s Day Brunch on Aug. 19 at the Crowne Plaza in Springfield. He will be joined by several Illinois officials including Gov. Pat Quinn, Attorney General Lisa Madigan, Secretary of State Jesse White, and Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias.

The ["Build the Block Downtown"] pro-museum campaign is asking taxpayers to help fund a $136 million project through a sales tax referendum, saying it will bring jobs to the area, yet isn’t supporting the local economy itself, they say, and it just sends a bad message.

Leonard Unes of Unes Printing said he was outraged when he received a Build the Block mailer last week. “Since it’s a local building campaign, they need to use local printers. We have all the capabilities in Peoria, there’s no reason to go elsewhere. We’re just as competitive,” he said.

The referendum, which will appear on an April 7 ballot, calls for a sales tax increase of 25 cents for every $100 worth of purchases made in the county. The taxes would pay for a combined Peoria Riverfront Museum and Caterpillar visitors center.

A spokesman for the pro-museum group said a great deal of money had already been spent with local printers and union shops on the awareness campaign. The group chose to go with Victory Enterprises, he said, because they needed a merchant that offered both printing and mailing with access to political databases. The other printer in the area which had such capabilities was not “completely unionized,” and wasn’t allowed to use a “union bug” on mailers.

Victory Enterprises, which was founded in 1993 by Steve Grubbs, a former Republican Party of Iowa chairman, produces a host of political literature, auto-dials and campaign paraphernalia primarily for Republican clients. Although there is no mention on the corporate site of unionization, the company has produced other mailers which contained a union symbol. A campaign finance disclosure report filed by Brent Oleson, a Republican successfully elected in November 2008 to the Linn County Board of Supervisors, indicates that a fee paid to Victory Enterprises included “printing, production (Union Sub-contract on graphics) for Advertising Insert.”

In January 2007, when Iowans were engaged in a discussion regarding “fair share” legislation, Victory Enterprises conducted a poll for the National Federation of Independent Business, showing that 61 percent of those asked were against the legislation.

See the Mission Freak Web site for more bands and MCM events.

Essayist and fiction author Ben Marcus is MCM’s featured keynoter on Saturday afternoon at The Mill. Marcus is the author of “Notable American Women,” “The Father Costume” and “The Age of Wire and String” and will likely draw a local writerly crowd into the classic Iowa City venue.

Mission Creek Midwest is a local version of a west coast music expo that began (and still flourishes yearly) in San Francisco. MCM began when local founders Andre Peery and Tanner Illingworth came to Iowa City and started their east-central Iowa version with the Mission Creek brand name.

The fest has expanded its team of show producers. There are now five MCM producers plus a “street team.” Together, they organize shows, create posters, and deal with venues, booking and bands.

Some people have compared MCM to the legendary (and epic) SXSW fest in Austin, Tex. But SXSW is a music expo put on by the music industry for the music industry, so the comparison falls short.

Illingworth told the Iowa Independent that, “With Mission Creek, we are trying to put on a festival for Iowa City.  It’s a celebration of the arts and culture we have right here at home, not to mention all around the Midwest.  People come to Mission Creek to have fun for four days and experience some music that they aren’t going to see other places, not even SXSW.”

The Mission Freak Web site is the official space for festival news. Those interested can purchase festival passes on the site.

As part of the festival, Iowa City-band Illinois John Fever is playing at The Mill on Saturday night.

A year ago at Public Access Television’s studio in Iowa City, I.J.F. played “Biological Radio”:

But after his speech, she said she had made up her mind and will caucus for Obama on Jan. 3, 2008.

Before the event, she was leaning toward caucusing for Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd and had made Obama her second choice after taking an on-line quiz to see who most closely matched her ideal candidate. The result from the website was Dodd. 

But after listening to Obama speak, Roepke changed her mind. She said that the Illinois senator has “a much better chance” than Dodd.

Sen. Barack Obama gave a 30-minute speech in Vinton, Iowa, on Thursday before a crowd of about 300. During the speech he said that some had questioned his experience.  Without naming them, he called out his opponents in the presidential race on the subject of experience and Washington beltway “seasoning”:

“You can have the right kind of experience and the wrong kind of experience. Mine is rooted in the real lives of real people, and it will bring real results if we just have the courage to change. I believe deeply in those words, but I have to admit those words are not originally mine. They were actually Bill Clinton’s in 1991 and 1992. …”

More videos from Obama’s speech in Vinton are below the fold.

Retired Gen. Tony McPeak, former chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force, and Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller were also at the event,  supporting the presidential bid of the Illinois senator.

A live interview with Wolf Blitzer was broadcast to the standing-room-only crowd before Obama took the stage.

Obama acknowledged his staff and supporters before beginning his speech.  The speech took two familiar paths, addressing the experience of others compared to his own and the longtime Obama campaign theme of change. At one point, he asked, “Who can actually deliver change?” and continued:

“You can’t argue that you should be elected because you are the master of the broken system in Washington that’s not working for the American people and yet offer yourself as the person best able to bring about change.”

He also answered critics who have said he needs to show more anger about current U.S. politics: “We don’t need more heat; we need more light,” in Washington, D.C.

He reminded the audience of his work as a professor of constitutional law. “I will be a president who has taught the Constitution, who believes the Constitution and will obey the Constitution of the United States of America,” he said, and finished his speech with a passionate defense of his “hopeful” campaign theme:

“This is our moment; this is our time. … I believe that if you stand with me in seven days, if you will stand for change so that our children have the same opportunities that we had, if you stand to keep the American dream alive for those who still hunger for justice, who still thirst for opportunity, if you refuse to accept what the cynics tell you you have to settle for and instead reach for what we know is possible, then I believe that we will win this caucus, and we will win this election, and we will change the course of our country’s history. …  And I have no doubt that we can begin that journey right now.”

Obama will continue his campaign throughout Iowa until the caucuses on Thursday.

With his mother, Karen Koch, he traveled a half-hour to see Illinois Sen. Barack Obama in Washington, Iowa last week and listen to the presidential candidate give an address entitled, “Reclaiming the American Dream.” 

Calling Obama “a great man,” he said:

“He says what he thinks and what other people don’t want to hear but what he wants them to hear … he’ll bring all the people from the war back and we can trust him.”

Koch also told the Iowa Independent that he wasn’t going to sell his recently acquired Barack Obama autograph, he was keeping it.

More Iowa Independent reporting from this event can be found at: Obama, Loebsack Campaign in Washington, IA.

More videos, including Obama’s comparison of his and Clinton’s health care reform transparency and an outline of his education plan are at: Obama’s Health Care Plan: ‘Not Behind Closed Doors.’

And I.I. reporter Dien Judge has a video, Obama Criticizes Edwards’ Senate Record, from a campaign stop in Oskaloosa, Iowa.

From Obama earlier today:

“John, yesterday, said he didn’t believe in 527s. Those are these independent groups that raise money without disclosure … We found out today that there’s an outside group that’s funding $750,000, just bought three-quarters of a million dollars worth of television time, and the individual running the group used to be John Edwards’ campaign manager.”

This video is John Edwards’ first response to the questions from Obama on the so-called 527s or soft money groups:

He was asked about Obama’s 527 criticism following an event in Lisbon, Iowa, and said, “I found out about this probably after most of you did through the news media.”To begin the brief press conference following his speech and question and answer period, Edwards introduced a stimulus package to boost the economy.

He was joined at the event by James Lowe, Des Moines attorney Roxanne Conlin, and the Lakey family.

Obama responded by addressing two parts of the man’s question: “electability and governance.”

For the final part of his answer he drew a sharp distinction between his methods and the Clintons’ work on health care in the 1990s.

He said, “My plan is not that different from Hillary Clinton’s plan or John Edward’s plan or any of the other plans. The question is how do you move it forward … I admire Sen. Clinton and Bill Clinton for having tried in 1993 but they did it the wrong way … they went behind closed doors … the Clinton plan was dead on arrival … “

He went on to say he would try to work differently: “This is all going to be on C-SPAN, the American people will be watching, so it’s not behind closed doors, it’s open.”

Obama was joined onstage by Rep. Dave Loebsack. He recently endorsed Obama for president and introduced the Illinois Senator.

Obama fan Rachel McPherson teaches family literacy and ESL at Kirkwood Community College in Iowa City, Iowa.

She told the Iowa Independent that Obama would make her proud to live in the U.S. again.  She said sometimes she tells people she is from Brazil and has had thoughts of moving to Spain to get out of the U.S.

She met Obama at the 2007 Tom Harkin Steak Fry and said that he was her “man” for the caucuses.

In this video she describes that experience and her thoughts on his plan for education:

Another questioner asked him about funding for U.S. schools:

Obama said before the crowd in the Washington Junior High School gymnasium that he said he would “change No Child Left Behind, which left the money behind.”

I.I. reporter John Deeth has more from this event.

In this video Cornell student and birddogger Abigail Pedersen talks about the issues that concern her and shares her opinion about Barack Obama’s response to her question on HIV/AIDS.

Watch Obama’s response in a video below the fold.

Obama said the “all of us [candidates] have said we want to do something about AIDS, the question is how do we follow through.”