Subsidizing Health Care Providers Through The Tax Code: Status Or Conduct?

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

6-2006

Journal Title

Health Affairs

ISSN

0278-2715

DOI

10.1377/hlthaff.25.w312

Abstract

The merits of tax exemption for nonprofit health care providers have been hotly debated for decades. Mark Schlesinger and Brad Gray provide a useful, dispassionate meta-analysis of past research; they conclude that there are real differences in the performance of nonprofit and for-profit hospitals and nursing homes, although they vary along several key dimensions. Unfortunately, their findings offer no insight on whether these differences are large enough to justify a sizable subsidy and whether it makes more sense to use an undifferentiated subsidy tied to status (current practice), or a graduated subsidy tied to quantifiable and objective measures of performance.

First Page

W312

Last Page

W315

Num Pages

4

Volume Number

25

Issue Number

1

Publisher

Project HOPE

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