Jill Horwitz Questions the Role of Nonprofit Hospitals

<p>Out of about 5,000 community hospitals in the United States, almost 3,000 are nonprofit. More than a thousand are investor-owned, also called for-profit. The balance are owned by state or local governments.</p><p><br></p><p>Nonprofit hospitals, like all nonprofit organizations, must have a charitable mission and for hospitals that mission is generally expressed as providing charity care and various benefits to the community.</p><p><br></p><p>In exchange, nonprofit hospitals are exempt from various taxes, they can receive tax-deductible charitable donations and they may have access to tax-exempt bonds.</p><p><br></p><p>There's a longstanding debate regarding whether nonprofit hospitals deserve the benefits they receive and whether nonprofit hospitals really behave all that differently from investor-owned hospitals.</p><p><br></p><p>Jill Horwitz from the <a href="https://law.ucla.edu/">UCLA School of Law</a> joins <em>A Health Podyssey</em> to discuss the similarities and differences in hospital behavior based upon ownership.</p><p><br></p><p>Horwitz and Austin Nichols published a paper in the March issue of <em>Health Affairs</em> <a href="https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/full/10.1377/hlthaff.2021.01115?utm_medium=podcast&amp;utm_source=a+health+podyssey&amp;utm_campaign=march2022issue&amp;utm_content=horwitz&amp;utm_term=horwitz">exploring the relationship between urban hospitals ownership type and which service lines they offer</a>. They found that for-profits, nonprofits, and government-owned hospitals are all more likely to offer a service if its profitable but for-profit hospitals are overall more responsive to service profitability than nonprofits.</p><p><a href="https://www.pubservice.com/backissue/subbi.aspx?CO=PJ&amp;PC=HR&amp;BI=HRI&amp;utm_medium=podcast&amp;utm_source=a+health+podyssey&amp;utm_campaign=march2022issue&amp;utm_content=horwitz&amp;utm_term=horwitz">If you enjoy this interview, order the March 2022 <em>Health Affairs </em>issue to get research on hospitals, health equity, care