Capital finance and ownership conversions in health care

This paper analyzes the for-profit transformation of health care, with emph asis on Internet start-ups, physician practice management firms, insurance plans, and hospitals at various stages in the industry life cycle. Venture capital, conglomerate diversification, publicly traded equity, convertible bonds, retained earnings, and taxable corporate debt come with forms of fin ancial accountability that are distinct from those inherent in the capital sources available to nonprofit organizations, The pattern of for-profit con versions varies across health sectors, parallel with the relative advantage s and disadvantages of for-profit and nonprofit capital sources in those se ctors.