From the Editor-In-Chief Health AffairsVol. 5, No. 2 From the EditorJohn K. IglehartPUBLISHED:Summer 1986Free Accesshttps://doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.5.2.4AboutSectionsView PDFPermissions ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmail ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack CitationsPermissionsDownload Exhibits TOPICSFor-profit statusClinical care The “Coming of the Corporation,” as author Paul Starr characterized it in his memorable book several years ago, has provoked a contentious debate within America';s health sphere that is far from over. Of course, there have been health care corporations around for a long time, but what Starr was making reference to was the emergence of for-profit corporations that manage, operate, and own hospitals. The latest and most comprehensive reflection of the state of this debate was the recent release of the massive report of the Institute of Medicine's Committee on Implications of For-Profit Enterprise in Health Care. In a fascinating exchange between two of the committee's most prominent members, Arnold S. Relman, editor of The New England Journal of Medicine, and Uwe E. Reinhardt, professor of economics and public affairs at Princeton University, discussed in a series of letters one of the study's key questions: Are physicians businessmen or professionals that march to a different drummer? That correspondence, plus a new offering written by Reinhardt for Health Affairs to summarize his views, opens this issue. In the next essay, William C. Hsiao of Harvard University and three colleagues discuss lessons learned from their extensive evaluation of New Jersey's hospital payment system, which served as a prototype of Medicare's prospective payment scheme. Economists Louis Garrison and Gail Wilensky of Project HOPE discuss cost containment and medical technology. Mark Schlesinger and Terrie Wetle, also of Harvard University, propose a changed future for the Veterans Administration's medical care program based on close collaboration with the private sector. In the next selection, Ronald Bayer of the Hastings Center and Jonathan Moreno of George Washington University discuss government's role in promoting a healthy society. The second half of the issue is devoted to a forum of papers that address the question: What is right about American medical care? Most of the papers were prepared for a 1985 conference convened by Project HOPE. In this issue, we also offer commentary by Robert Patricelli of the CIGNA Corporation, and our annual DataWatch on innovation, this year authored by Michael Pollard, Joseph Perpich, and Gary Persinger. Loading Comments... Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. DetailsExhibitsReferencesRelated Article Metrics History Published online 1 January 1986 InformationCopyright © by Project HOPE: The People-to-People Health Foundation, Inc.PDF download