September 1, 2005 | Read Time: 1 minute
Why Nonprofits Matter in American Medicine: A Policy Brief, by Mark Schlesinger and Bradford H. Gray, examines the debate about nonprofit health care and argues that despite their flaws, nonprofit groups have an important role to play in providing medical care. Drawing on more than 250 studies of health services, Mr. Schlesinger, of Yale University, and Mr. Gray, of the Urban Institute, say the difference between for-profit and tax-exempt health-care providers is greater than many critics have suggested. For-profit providers often charge more overhead for services, place less emphasis on innovation, and are more concerned with the bottom line, they write. But the pair also emphasize the many challenges facing nonprofit health-care institutions, namely Americans’ scanty knowledge of the distinction between for-profit and nonprofit care, inadequate accountability in many instances, overly vague standards or expectations for how organizations should serve society, and a lack of knowledge about which kind of providers do the best job in a particular city or town.
Publisher: Aspen Institute, 1 Dupont Circle, Suite 700, Washington, D.C. 20036-1133; (202) 736-5800; fax (202) 467-0790; http://www.aspeninstitute.org; 35 pages; available free for download on the publisher’s Web site.
