title: Public expectations of nonprofit and for-profit ownership in American medicine: clarifications and implications.
abstract: Policymakers, advocates, and scholars frequently make claims about how the American public sees ownership affecting the delivery of medical care. In this paper we provide a comprehensive assessment of how Americans think about nonprofit and for-profit ownership. We summarize findings from surveys fielded between 1985 and 2000 and supplement them with findings from a new survey. Most Americans believe that ownership matters for multiple aspects of medical care; they expect nonprofit hospitals and health plans to be more trustworthy, fair, and humane but lower in quality. People who are better informed about ownership have more positive expectations about nonprofits' performance.
authors.affiliation: Yale and Rutgers Universities, USA. mark.schlesinger@yale.edu
authors.forename: Mark
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Schlesinger
authors.forename: Shannon
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Mitchell
authors.forename: Bradford H
authors.initials: BH
authors.lastname: Gray
mesh_terms: D003695:Delivery of Health Care / Q000458:organization & administration*; D005382:Financing, Personal; D005102:Health Expenditures; D006302:Health Services Research; D006801:Humans; D010067:Ownership; D011639:Public Opinion; D011787:Quality of Health Care