Private for-profit healthcare seems to lead to lower staffing, higher death rates, and worse care overall. But is that so bad as long as it generates a handsome profit for its owners?

When your politicians tell you healthcare is a business, pick up your crutches and run the other way.

Ten years ago a study came out that seemed to turn common knowledge on its head. At the time everyone assumed that private hospitals gave better care. They were more efficient, and the doctors had an incentive to provide better service.

But then a group of Chilean researchers looked at 6,000 studies on healthcare, and winnowed them down to a handful of h…