For years, nonprofit hospitals have shied away from quantifying the amount of charitable care they provide communities. Hospital officials argue that it's almost impossible toput a dollar value on charity and doing so would take valuable 1time and resources away from actually serving the need. 2 The charity question is significant because nonprofit hospitals get major tax breaks. Also, because of loopholes in state laws, nonprofit hospitals are often permitted to make huge profits. Tocomplicate things further, the 2005 Government Accountability 3Office study concluded that, when it comes to charity care, the "differences between nonprofit and for-profit groups were oftenbig." To make up for this, nonprofit hospitals tend to arrange deals 4with city and state governments to provide "payment in lieu oftaxes"(also known as PILOT programs). But for these payments 5often don't equate the hospitals' overall tax benefit and are 6perceived as acts of good faith to show that hospitals are playing nice with their communities. Recent economic downturns, therefore, have shined a 7detective's spotlight on the amount of charity care hospitals provide. Investigative reports have shown up in Atlanta, East Bayand Boston newspapers question charity care policies. The Boston 8Globe report calculated that Boston's "10 leading hospital companies benefited from an estimated $638 million in federal,state, and local tax breaks as well state discounts on borrowing in 92007, which accounts to $264 million more than the value of 10care for the poor and other charity work."