Hospital Competition and Charity Care

Federal Trade Commission Bureau of Economics Working Paper No. 285

38 Pages Posted: 26 Oct 2006

Date Written: October 2006

Abstract

This paper explores the relationship between competition and hospital charity care by analyzing changes in charity care associated with changes in a hospital's competitive environment (due to mergers and divestitures), using hospital financial and discharge data from Florida and Texas. Despite the pervasive belief that competition impedes a hospital's ability to offer services to the uninsured and under-insured, I find no statistically significant evidence that increased competition leads to reductions in charity care. In fact, I find some evidence that reduced competition leads to higher prices for uninsured patients.

Keywords: Charity care, mergers, divestitures, uninsured, hospital competition

JEL Classification: I11, L10, L44

Suggested Citation

Garmon, Christopher, Hospital Competition and Charity Care (October 2006). Federal Trade Commission Bureau of Economics Working Paper No. 285, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=940427 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.940427

Christopher Garmon (Contact Author)

Bloch School of Management ( email )

United States
816-235-2689 (Phone)

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