WASHINGTON, March 13 /PRNewswire/ -- In a polite but stern letter sent to Dick Davidson, president of the embattled American Hospital Association, Senator Chuck Grassley, the powerful Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, noted that his "request to the nonprofit hospital community went unanswered for months" in regards to pricing charges to the uninsured and related issues. The Senator bluntly suggested that the AHA "should take a more active and serious role in this discussion."

Sent to the AHA last Wednesday, the Grassley letter goes on to say, "In light of then Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson [2004] letter to the AHA, I am troubled by some of the ten hospitals to whom I wrote last year still claiming that Medicare regulations still prohibit them from providing discounts to the uninsured." In February of 2004, Thompson rebuked the AHA in a letter stating clearly and unequivocally, "Nothing in the Medicare program rules or regulations prohibit such discounts."

K.B. Forbes, Executive Director of the Consejo de Latinos Unidos, a national non-profit organization that educates and assists the uninsured, praised the Senator for holding the AHA accountable. "The AHA is in a constant state of denial about price gouging and has done a tremendous disservice to its members. Maybe Grassley's letter will slap the AHA out of a constant and numbing cycle of deception, defiance, and denial."

Grassley writes, "Providing discounts to the uninsured and developing a standardized definition of and accounting for charity care and community benefit are two very important issues to be addressed by nonprofit hospitals." The Senator closes with the comment, "As you are aware, I have been and continue to be a champion of fair hospital payment and regulatory policy...."

The entire letter can be viewed at http://www.consejohelp.org.