> This fact is missing something essential; Kaiser Permanente is a nonprofit but it sure isn't what you think of when you use that term.
Why is that? You don't think they lay people off in Canada or Japan when there's no patients? Even single-payer systems can have private hospitals. They are simply paid by the govt instead of (or really in addition to) by patients. They still need business and to balance the books.
Canada has a similar mix of all kinds of hospitals like the US, though it may be more slanted in some way.
Re:I'm Married to an ER Doc in NYC
by fraserharris on Thursday June 11, 2020 @03:34AM
(#23486138)
Kaiser Permanente is a conglomerate that is a consortium of for-profit and not-for-profit entities. The health plans (insurance) and hospitals are not-for-profit. The physicians are organized into for-profit partnerships.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaiser_Permanente#Operations
Re:I'm Married to an ER Doc in NYC
by hcknwscommenter on Thursday June 11, 2020 @02:21AM
(#23485731)
>Kaiser Permanente is a nonprofit but it sure isn't what you think of when you use that term.
Huh? It is exactly what I think of when I use the term non-profit in the context of a healthcare maintenance organization. I truly have no idea what you mean by your quoted statement.
My wife is a nurse for Dignity Health (another "nonprofit" hospital here in California) and has been effectively laid off for the last couple months. It's great that the ER is empty, but in the mean time nurses are struggling and people aren't getting their cancer screenings. If this goes on long enough, our healthcare system will fall apart from atrophy, not from overuse.