Non-profit hospitals invest $11 for every one dollar they do not pay in taxes because of their tax-exempt status.
Or so says a study prepared for the American Hospital Association.
According to the study, in 2013 non-profit hospitals provided $67.4 billion worth of benefits to their communities compared to the $6 billion they would have paid in taxes had they been for-profit hospitals.
Those community benefits came in four forms:
- financial assistance and means-tested government programs (such as unreimbursed Medicaid costs)
- community-building activities
- Medicare shortfalls
- bad debt attributable to charity care
Learn more about what the study found and how it reached these and other conclusions by going here to read the AHA report Estimates of the federal revenue forgone due to the tax exemption of non-profit hospitals compared to the community benefit they provide, 2013.