Charity Care Debate Flares

Abstract

Bloomberg Law's Daily Tax Report, on April 5, drew attention to an article in the April 3 issue of Health Affairs journal, finding that nonprofit (and government) hospitals are providing lower levels of charity care than for-profit hospitals. Using 2018 Medicare hospital cost reports, the Health Affairs authors compared charity care provision across 2,709 nonprofit hospitals, 1,024 government hospitals, and 930 for-profit hospitals. Nonprofit hospitals are said to have spent $2.30 of every $100 in total aggregate expenses incurred for charity, while the charity care expenses for government hospitals was $4.10/$100 and for for-profit hospitals was $3.80/$100.