Hospital Billing Regulations and Financial Well-Being: Evidence from California’s Fair Pricing Law

Yaa Akosa Antwi, Marion Aouad () and Nathan Blascak

No 25-39, Working Papers from Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia

Abstract: We examine the financial consequences of the 2007 California Fair Pricing Law, which places a price ceiling on hospital bills for financially vulnerable individuals. Exploiting cross-sectional variation in exposure to the law, we estimate its impact on individual financial distress. We find that the law reduces the likelihood of incurring non-medical debt in collections by 19.8 percent and the number of non-medical collections by 39 percent for an individual living in a county with average exposure in California. In addition, we find suggestive evidence that the number of delinquent accounts decreased for exposed individuals. Our results suggest hospital billing regulations can improve targeted individuals’ financial outcomes.

Keywords: financial distress; consumer credit; hospitals; health care (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G51 H75 I18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 43
Date: 2025-12-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-inv and nep-mac
Note: Supersedes Working Paper 23-20 – I've Got 99 Problems But a Bill Ain't One: Hospital Billing Caps and Financial Distress in California
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:fip:fedpwp:102195

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DOI: 10.21799/frbp.wp.2025.39

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