Hospital Borrowing Costs Lowered under ACA

a New GFRC study shows that hospital borrowing costs were lowered under the Affordable Care Act ObamaCare.

You can read the GFRC study in PDF form yourself. However, the gist is well summed up in the introduction:

“We study the impact of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) on municipal healthcare borrowing costs. The ACA expanded the insured customer base for hospitals, although exposed them to greater regulatory risk. Following a favorable 2012 ACA Supreme Court ruling, healthcare yields decreased by 39 basis points, for per-issue and economy-wide interest savings of $3.0 million and $1.74 billion. The effect was larger for urban and private hospitals. Yields decreased by another 17 basis points in states that voted to expand Medicaid. However, the ACA effect on long-term yields was weak, suggesting that repeal risk remains an obstacle to long-run financing.”

In short, borrowing costs for hospitals were lowered, especially in urban and private hospitals, especially in states that expanded Medicaid, and especially for short term borrowing, but longer term borrowing trends were not as significant.. likely due to an ongoing repeal risk.