FROM HEALTH-SERVICES TO MEDICAL MARKETS - THE COMMODITY TRANSFORMATION OF MEDICAL PRODUCTION AND THE NONPROFIT SECTOR

In recent years the language and logic of medical care have moved from providing medical services to marketing product lines. Analysis in th is article examines this task transformation and its implications for transformation of the nonprofit sector and of the state. The authors a rgue that these transformations are essential explanatory elements to account for the origins of medical services in the nonprofit sector, t he early exclusion of capitalist organizations from hospital care, and the changes that fostered corporate entry. To wit, medical care tasks have undergone a two-stage transformation. The first transformation c hanged open-ended, ill-defined services with uncertain funding into mo re highly organized and codified services with stable funding, attract ing both capitalist enterprises and capitalist logic into the nonprofi t sector. The second transformation standardized medical care tasks in to product lines, a process that also challenged the status of the non profit organizations performing these tasks. In an analysis of the sec ond transformation, the authors argue that this challenge is in the pr ocess of turning back upon itself, undermining the conditions that fos tered capitalist entry into medical care delivery in the first place.