CHICAGO - Ascension Health's sale of two Kansas City, Missouri area hospitals to a for-profit was cleared after Ascension agreed to set aside $20 million in sale proceeds to fund acute indigent medical care, Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster said.
Ascension, the nation's largest not-for-profit health system, is selling its St. Joseph Medical Center and St. Mary's Medical Center to the for-profit California-based system Prime Healthcare.
Koster had raised concerns that funds for indigent medical care would fall with completion of the sale. The attorney general's office has a say in any transfer of non-profit healthcare assets to a for-profit to review whether the seller will use sale proceeds in a manner consistent with the original charitable purpose. About $20 million is held in a philanthropic foundation for the hospitals.
Koster's office noted that the hospitals had benefitted from privately solicited funds due their historical connection to the area and commitment to serve the area. They also enjoyed millions of dollars in tax benefits through their property tax-exemption. The two hospitals created Carondelet Health in 1997 and they were acquired by Ascension in 2002.
"For more than a century, the people of the Kansas City region have invested in St. Joseph and St. Mary's Medical Centers, both through their charitable contributions and their tax dollars," Koster said. "The Kansas City community has a right to expect that the company managing the assets it has nurtured for decades won't sell those assets for a profit and then take the money out of town."
St. Louis-based Ascension — a Catholic sponsored system — operates more than 70 acute-care hospitals and nine specialty hospitals operating in 23 states and the District of Columbia which generate $16 billion in annual operating revenues.
