SPRINGFIELD — Now that the state’s high court has decided Provena Covenant Medical Center must pay property taxes, it remains to be seen how the ruling stands to affect other hospitals in Illinois.
 

Some say the ruling was so narrow, addressing only the facts of a single hospital and a single tax year, that it sheds little light on the nagging question of what standards must be met by charitable organizations throughout the state.
 

“It was a huge letdown,” said John Colombo, a University of Illinois law professor who has been following the Provena tax case.
 

“Unfortunately, we don’t know any more about the test for nonprofit hospitals today than we did yesterday,” Colombo said Thursday, a few hours after the Illinois Supreme Court affirmed a decision by the 4th District Appellate Court denying the Catholic hospital in Urbana a property tax exemption.
 

With two justices excusing themselves from the case based on undisclosed conflicts of interest and two others concurring only in part, the ruling wound up a narrow majority of three justices.
 

“All five agreed that Provena wasn’t entitled to a property tax exemption, but two of them agreed only on an extremely narrow point,” Colombo said.
 

The Illinois attorney general’s office views the ruling as much broader, with Attorney General Lisa Madigan calling the decision good news for the nearly 2 million uninsured Illinoisans who lack access to affordable health care.
 

“The decision draws from existing Illinois law which says that every nonprofit hospital in the state can avoid property taxes only by giving their neediest patients the gift of free or discounted care,” Assistant Attorney General Evan Siegel said.
 

“This is not a new idea, but one that reflects 103 years of precedent,” Siegel added. “The court’s decision unambiguously tells health care providers that free and discounted care for a substantial number of people is the essence of charitable giving — rejecting the hospital industry’s notions that health care is, by definition, charitable, that so-called ‘community benefits’ count, or that the billing practices of Medicaid or Medicare somehow amount to a primarily charitable use of property.”

More in Friday's News-Gazette.