Investor-Owned and Not-for-Profit Hospitals

To the Editor: In their comparison of financial data for investor-owned and not-for-profit hospitals, Pattison and Katz (Aug. 11 issue) 1 provide valuable insights that are augmented in the accompanying editorial. 2 However, it is not clear that the authors have considered in sufficient detail the pivotal issue of relative operating efficiency. When one is addressing efficiency — charges and collections aside — it is necessary to exclude from the analysis all the major taxes from which the not-for-profit hospitals are exempt. In addition to corporate income taxes, these would include real property and sales taxes paid by the hospitals and — . . . No extract is available for articles shorter than 400 words.