Health Affairs, 25, no. 4 (2006): w312-w315 (Published online 20 June 2006) doi: 10.1377/hlthaff.25.w312 © 2006 by Project HOPE	New Online   House Health Reform Bill   Paying for Reform   Vetting AHIP's Report   HIV/AIDS Costs   Brief: Insurance Reform   HA Blog Top 10

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

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.

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