More than half of the nation’s 5,000 hospitals operate as not-for-profit entities. In theory non-profit hospitals get an exemption from income tax, property tax, sales tax and get preferential financing because they provide a public service to the communities in which they operate. I worked for a large non-profit hospital system years ago and a financial analyst did the math and estimated our tax exclusion was worth something like $100 million a year. In return for the huge tax advantage all the hospital had to do was provide between 4% and 5% of net revenue in charity care for low-income patients.