IHA to hire state senator to senior leadership post
and Andrew L. Wang
January 27, 2012
(Crain's) — State Sen. A.J. Wilhelmi has been tapped for a senior leadership post at the Illinois Hospital Association, the powerful lobbying organization that represents 200 hospitals, sources have told Crain's.
Mr. Wilhelmi replaces Howard Peters, executive vice president of policy and advocacy, sources said.
An association spokesman declined to comment on Mr. Wilhelmi's hiring but said Mr. Peters will be a senior adviser to the group.
Mr. Wilhelmi did not return messages.
A Democrat, Mr. Wilhelmi was appointed by his party to fill a vancancy in the state Senate in 2005 and elected a year later. He represents the 43rd District, which extends from west suburban Bolingbrook to far south suburban Channahon.
The Joliet native is a 1990 graduate of Loyola University Chicago and a 1993 graduate of Chicago-Kent College of Law. In 2008, he joined Murer Consultants Inc., a legal-based health care management consulting firm whose clients include hospitals and physician practices. A year later, the Joliet-based firm opened Murer Brick & Wilhelmi LLC, which focuses on real estate and business law.
In the Senate, Mr. Wilhelmi has sat on committees that oversee education, appropriations, agriculture, conservation, and criminal and civil law, according to the general assembly's website.
Mr. Peters worked in state government for nearly three decades, eventually becoming a key aide to former Gov. Jim Edgar.
Before joining the IHA in 1999, Mr. Peters was secretary of the Illinois Department of Human Services. He earned about $375,000 in total compensation in 2009, according to IHA financial filings.
The Naperville-based hospital association is in the midst of a heated political battle with the state over the charitable status of nonprofit hospitals.
Gov. Pat Quinn has called for new legislation after his Department of Revenue in August took away exemptions from three hospital properties, including Northwestern Memorial HealthCare's Prentice Women's Hospital, in part for not providing enough charity care. The move could force the hospitals to pay millions of dollars in property taxes.
Hospital executives argue that the Revenue Department is too narrowly focused on charity care and doesn't give enough weight to other factors, such as education and below-market reimbursements paid by Medicaid and Medicare.
But advocacy groups say nonprofit hospitals need to be held more accountable for the free care they don't provide.
(Crain's Columnist Greg Hinz contributed to this report.)
Editor's note: The story has been corrected to say that Mr. Wilhelmi was appointed by the Democratic Party.