For-profit health care organizations are vilified in the media and those wanting to reform health care
But are the attacks justified or not? Val Jones points to several instances were non-profit academic institutions engaged in less than ethical behavior, while pointing out examples of for-profit companies who “who cultivate a culture of environmental responsibility and charity.”
Judgments should not be made on profit status alone, but instead on the degree of transparency into their practices and biases that each company offers.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
As if public, or not-for-profit, organizations do not have a budget to work with. there is no reason to believe that for profit means no ethics, or that not-for-profit means ethical.
If you are the victim of bad care, do you feel better of the harm was done by a not-for-profit organization?
I agree that what’s important is transparency, in order to lessen the likelihood of unethical practices.
It’s nice when organizations do noble things like charity and environmental responsibility. But such altruism doesn’t provide an offset that allows them to “engage in less ethical behavior.” One thing has nothing to do with the other.
Dr Kevin,
Do you think that unethical behaviour by a for-profit academic institution is the same as the ethics of patient caregivers engaged in for-profit medical care?
The audacity of that comparison is boggling…. and terribly weak.
You will find, in the area of ethical health care, that any for-profit entity is inherently in conflict of interest.