The analysis was led by a visiting international researcher, Dr. Rudolf Blankart (pictured), working with experts from Brown University's Center for Gerontology & Heatlhcare Research, and uses 19 years of data from state elections and nursing center cost reports. Results show that partisan political control of the two legislative chambers impacts for-profit nursing centers’ financial performance: Democratic control leads to an increase in revenue and profits; Republican political control leads to lower revenues and profits. While partisan political control does not affect not-for-profit centers’ financial performance, all centers – for-profit and not-for-profit – increase their numbers of private pay patients following Republican political control.

While they cannot attribute the findings to specific policies, the researchers say that analyzing the effect of political control provides important insights into how policy institutions shape the industry.