When money is the mission -- the high costs of investor-owned care

The notion of a free market does not exist for health care. For-profit hospitals, compared to nonprofit facilities, have been consistently shown to provide higher-priced and lower-quality care. For-profit hospitals largely increase profits rather than decrease costs, and their overall higher costs are primarily due to administration, executive salaries, and other forms of overhead. Medical consumers are unable to assess the quality of health care services, compare facilities, or take their purchase dollars to alternate providers. In the absence of a competitive market, the taxpayers simply pay more money without getting better care.