Posted on August 19, 2005

Health

While Congress continues to debate whether nonprofit healthcare providers should keep their tax exemption, a new report argues that nonprofit providers play a vital role in the country's public health system and also save Americans money. Written by Mark Schlesinger of Yale University and Brad Gray of the Urban Institute, Why Nonprofits Matter in American Medicine: A Policy Brief finds that "form of ownership" — whether an institution is for-profit or nonprofit — affects the quality, accessibility, and cost of services in ways that vary across different types of medical care. Funded in part by the Nonprofit Sector Research Fund at the Aspen Institute and based on an examination of hundreds of empirical studies, the report also finds that the public considers nonprofit health providers to be more trustworthy than for-profit providers, and suggests that without nonprofit providers in the mix, Americans would pay 5 to 10 percent more for their health care by 2013.