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Non-profit hospitals are justified in having tax exemptions due to their mission, goals and the contributions they give to the communities they serve. Unlike for profit business whose goals are to maximize profit and increase the wealth of their stockholders, non-profit hospitals have a mission and goals to serve the health needs of their community. These hospitals provide a safe environment for the surrounding population and make the community an attractive place to live. This in turn helps to recruit new businesses and jobs into the area. Additionally, these hospitals provide charity care to members of the community who are uninsured or unable to pay for care. This charity care takes the burden of caring for these people off the community and improves the population’s health as a whole. These hospitals also provide preventative services, which improves the population’s health and saves the community money by reducing the costs due to unnecessary illness. Additionally, non-profit hospitals provide employment, which strengthens the community’s economic and financial wellbeing.
Taking away the tax exempt status would cause these hospitals to have to reduce the amount of charity care they can provide because of increased financial obligations due to taxes and they would have to look for ways to reduce costs and become more cost restrictive. This could result in members of the community not receiving the care they need and patients not receiving high quality care due to cost reducing efforts by the hospital. Also non-profit hospitals will not be able to allocate as much money to promoting disease prevention and control in the community, which will increase the occurrence of illness and raise the health care ...