Uncompensated Hospital Care: Charitable Mission or Profitable Business Decision?
研究医院无偿护理供给如何受市场竞争影响，发现非营利医院在竞争加剧时会减少无偿护理，而营利医院在市场低迷时反而增加供给，因为补偿性护理减少降低了无偿护理的边际成本。
Provision of hospital uncompensated care is generally assumed to be adversely affected as increased healthcare competition decreases demand for compensated hospital services. Economic theory, however, suggests the question is more complex. Non-profit hospitals are assumed in this paper to maximize utility as a function of uncompensated care, subject to the constraint that revenues cover costs. For-profit hospitals, in contrast, are assumed to maximize profit while recognizing that failure to meet community expectations regarding provision of uncompensated care could negatively impact profits. Therefore, for-profit hospital supply of uncompensated care focuses on balancing the hospital's marginal costs and marginal benefits. These models predict that non-profit hospitals will respond to increased competition by reducing the supply of uncompensated care. In contrast, for-profit hospitals will increase the supply of uncompensated care when market demand decreases since the concurrent decrease in compensated care reduces the marginal cost of producing uncompensated care. The models also predict that for-profit hospitals will respond to changes in community expectations regarding the provision of uncompensated care.