Health Care

This paper traces the economic history of the health care system in Massachusetts from the early 1900s to the present and offers a series of recommendations that would bring to Massachusetts the advantages of a more market-based system.

The analysis presented in the paper suggests areas in which caution must be exercised to assure that community benefits provided by nonprofits are preserved in a post-conversion environment, and that full value is realized and appropriately redirected. Nothing in the analysis indicates that nonprofit to for-profit conversion should be barred from consideration in Massachusetts.