When Money is the Mission — The High Costs of Investor-Owned Care

Abstract

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 hospitals²⁷; 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 . . .