FREE NEJM E-TOC    HOME   |   SUBSCRIBE   |   CURRENT ISSUE   |   PAST ISSUES   |   COLLECTIONS   |   Search Term  Advanced Search

Sign in | Get NEJM's E-Mail Table of Contents — Free | Subscribe

Previous Volume 341:444-446 August 5, 1999 Number 6 Next

	Since this article has no abstract, we have provided an extract of the first 100 words of the full text and any section headings.

	Full Text Purchase this article Add to Personal Archive Add to Citation Manager Notify a Friend E-mail When Cited Related Article by Silverman, E. M. PubMed Citation

Few trends could so thoroughly undermine the very foundations of our free society as the acceptance by corporate officials of a social responsibility other than to make as much money for their stockholders as possible.

— Milton Friedman¹

Market medicine's dogma, that the profit motive optimizes care and minimizes costs, seems impervious to evidence that contradicts it. For decades, studies have shown that for-profit hospitals are 3 to 11 percent more expensive than not-for-profit hospitals^2,3,4,5,6,7; no peer-reviewed study has found that for-profit hospitals are less expensive. For-profit hospitals spend less on personnel,^2,3,5,6 avoid providing charity care,^4,8,9 and shorten stays. . . . [Full Text of this Article]

References

This article has been cited by other articles:

• Yeh, S.-C. J., Huang, C.-H., Chou, H.-C., Wan, T. T H (2009). The influence of facility ownership structure on individual responding to stress: a multilevel model. Health Serv Manage Res 22: 62-70 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
• Colombo, J. D. (2006). The Role of Tax Exemption in a Competitive Health Care Market. Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law 31: 623-642 [Abstract]  
• Woolhandler, S., Himmelstein, D. U. (2004). The high costs of for-profit care. CMAJ 170: 1814-1815 [Full Text]  
• Devereaux, P.J., Heels-Ansdell, D., Lacchetti, C., Haines, T., Burns, K. E.A., Cook, D. J., Ravindran, N., Walter, S.D., McDonald, H., Stone, S. B., Patel, R., Bhandari, M., Schunemann, H. J., Choi, P. T.-L., Bayoumi, A. M., Lavis, J. N., Sullivan, T., Stoddart, G., Guyatt, G. H. (2004). Payments for care at private for-profit and private not-for-profit hospitals: a systematic review and meta-analysis. CMAJ 170: 1817-1824 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
• Geyman, J. P. (2003). The Corporate Transformation of Medicine and Its Impact on Costs and Access to Care. J Am Board Fam Med 16: 443-454 [Full Text]  
• Devereaux, P. J., Schunemann, H. J., Ravindran, N., Bhandari, M., Garg, A. X., Choi, P. T.-L., Grant, B. J. B., Haines, T., Lacchetti, C., Weaver, B., Lavis, J. N., Cook, D. J., Haslam, D. R. S., Sullivan, T., Guyatt, G. H. (2002). Comparison of Mortality Between Private For-Profit and Private Not-For-Profit Hemodialysis Centers: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. JAMA 288: 2449-2457 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
• Harrington, C., Woolhandler, S., Mullan, J., Carrillo, H., Himmelstein, D. U. (2001). Does Investor Ownership of Nursing Homes Compromise the Quality of Care?. Am. J. Public Health 91: 1452-1455 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
• Pearson, S. D. (2000). Caring and Cost: The Challenge for Physician Advocacy. ANN INTERN MED 133: 148-153 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
• Coulter, S. L., Jones, P., Ahmed, F., Thompson, B., Kleinbaum, D., Maniccia, M., Mansheim, B. J., McKinlay, J. B., Marceau, L. D., Smith, R. D., Himmelstein, D. U., Woolhandler, S., Hellander, I., Wolfe, S. M. (2000). Quality of Health Care and the HMO Marketplace. JAMA 283: 602-605 [Full Text]  
• Greene, H. R., Packard, B. J., Mick, B. A., Menendez, R., Zinberg, S. S., Silverman, E. M., Skinner, J. S., Fisher, E. S., Himmelstein, D. U., Woolhandler, S. (1999). When Money Is the Mission -- The High Costs of Investor-Owned Care. NEJM 341: 1768-1770 [Full Text]