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

The acceptance by corporate officials of a social responsibility other than to make as much money for their stockholders as possible and market medicine's dogma, that the profit motive optimizes care and minimizes costs, seems impervious to evidence that contradicts it.

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 . . .