Non-Profit Health Industry Author and researcher Thomas Wallace refers to the healthcare industry as a "…rapidly advancing, technologically enhanced medical culture" that is transitioning into "the same politically enabled monolithic corporate model" that practices "skullduggery" as the big financial institutions in the United States (Wallace, 2013). What is happening in healthcare contributes to the ongoing "destabilizing" of the middle class economy, and moreover, kicks dirt in the faces of a "majority of citizens whose incomes have stagnated for over three decades" (Wallace 60). Moreover, the nonprofit hospitals and clinics are raking in very large sums of money, some with questionable status as to whether they should truly be a nonprofit entity or not. The purpose of nonprofit status from the perspective of the IRS is that hospitals will provide charitable services. However, "Its commitment to charity is dwarfed by its preoccupation with profits," wrote Pittsburgh's lead lawyer during a suit challenging the University of Pittsburgh's tax-exempt status (Rosenthal, 2013). In fact, the University paid 20 executives "more than $1 million annually" (Rosenthal, p. 2). This paper delves into the nonprofit vs. for-profit status of medicine and services. Still on the subject of Stamford Hospital, in his investigative article in Time magazine, Steven Brill points out that a 64-year-old woman felt chest pains one night and was rushed by ambulance to Stamford's emergency room.
The nonprofit hospital ran tests on her for about three hours and she had a brief interaction with a doctor; she was told she had indigestion and sent home. She got a bill for $995 for the ambulance ride; $3,000 for the doctors fees (after having only a short moment with a physician), and $17,000 for the hospital (Brill, 2013). The unethical nature of these outrageous fees hospitals charge are…