The difference between nonprofit hospitals’ tax breaks and the amount they spent on community investments or discounted care is enough to “rescue the finances of every rural hospital at risk of closure,” according to the Lown Institute’s latest review of 1,773 private nonprofit hospitals’ 2020 financial disclosures, Fierce Healthcare reports.
Put another way, the collective $14.2 billion “fair share” deficit of these hospitals would also be sufficient to wipe the medical debts of 18 million Americans, the think tank said.
“Americans desperately need hospitals to use their billions in tax breaks as intended: to relieve the problems of medical debt and access to care,” Vikas Saini, M.D., president of the Lown Institute, said in a release. “These are charitable organizations and they should do a better job at prioritizing social responsibility over profitability.”
Lown found that 77% of the reviewed hospitals spent less on community investments and charity care than the estimated value of their tax breaks. The group wrote that many facilities that had the largest deficit “also received millions in COVID-19 relief funding and ended the year with high net incomes.”
