Word: profit
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...nation's problems by multiplying the misery of the underpriveleged. We hope that the country's elected representatives will show vigilance in protecting necessary social programs and will fight for restraint in defense spending. It is high time that those beneficiaries of the Reagan recovery, the wealthy and the profit soaked corporations, make a small sacrifice towards a big problem. Most of all, we hope that, despite four more years of Reagan, Congress can begin to show the nation the way back toward compassionate and responsible government...
Even so, some doctors believe that mixing the profit motive with the Hippocratic oath is a poor way to provide medical care. Dr. Arnold Relman, editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, criticizes companies like Humana, saying that they are "industrializing medical care" and are more interested in turning a profit than providing health services. Relman argues that the chains will eliminate necessary medical programs rather than take a loss on them...
Others, though, say that this position is, well, Hippo-critical. They point out that doctors, as some of the best-paid professionals in America, can hardly contend that they have not profited from medicine. Princeton Economist Uwe Reinhardt, who is participating in a study of for-profit health care, says that so far he has not seen much difference between the behavior of commercial and nonprofit hospitals. Says he: "Hiring big names is good business and good academics. It's one way to achieve a certain luster. DeVries and the artificial heart give Humana legitimacy in the medical world...
Relman believes that for-profit hospitals skim paying patients from the community, depriving other institutions of needed revenues and leaving the poor for the nonprofits to worry about...
While doctors and hospital administrators debate the ethics and merits of for-profit medical care, Wall Street considers it a good investment. John Hilde-long, an analyst for Dillon, Read, calls Humana an "attractive long-term" stock...