MacIver News Minute: Free Market Charity Care

Charity is on a lot of our minds this time of year, and hospitals throughout Wisconsin thought it was perfect time to brag about their supposed largess. The Hospital Association just released a report about all the charity that non-profit hospitals are doing and claimed things like that don’t happen in the free market. Too bad for them, the MacIver Institute, Wisconsin’s premiere free market think tank, saw that report, and decided to look into that claim. We quickly found multiple academic studies from places like Harvard and John Hopkins that show for-profit hospitals actually provide more charity care than non-profits both in Wisconsin and across the country. Also, according to the IRS, non-profits are required by law to provide that care. True charity doesn’t come from government compulsion. It has to be given freely, and the only place you’ll find the conditions to do that is in the free market.