Who Actually Owns Your Healthcare? (The Answer Changes Everything)

Here's a question most people never ask: When you pay your medical bills, where does that money actually go?

Shareholders in New York? Private equity investors cashing out in 3-5 years? Hospital executives with multi-million dollar compensation packages?

Or does it stay in your community?

The thing nobody talks about—might be the most important factor shaping your care. Using AllCare Health in Southern Oregon as a case study, he shows how a physician-owned structure creates completely different incentives than corporate healthcare.

You'll discover:

• Why 76% of doctors owned their practices in 1983, but less than half do today (and what that shift means for you)
• The legal trick that lets AllCare prioritize long-term community health over quarterly profits (it's called Benefit Company status—and it changes everything)
• How physician-owners make different decisions when they'll see the results in their own exam rooms next month
• Why preventive care programs make zero sense to shareholders but total sense to doctors who'll practice in the same town for 30 years
• The three ownership models dominating American healthcare (and why most people don't realize there's a fourth option)
• What happens when surplus healthcare dollars get reinvested locally instead of flowing to distant investors

This episode is for you if:

• You've ever wondered why healthcare decisions seem disconnected from what patients actually need
• You're choosing health insurance and want to understand what really matters beyond premiums and deductibles
• You're tired of corporate consolidation but assumed that's just how healthcare works now
• You're a clinician feeling pressure to sell your practice and want to know there are alternatives
• You believe structure shapes incentives, and you want to see the receipts

No jargon. No corporate speak. Just a straight conversation about who owns the system making your healthcare decisions—and why that ownership determines almost everything else.

The uncomfortable truth Noah shares: Most healthcare reform focuses on treatments, technology, or payment models. But if ownership incentivizes quarterly profit over long-term health, all those reforms hit a ceiling. Change the ownership structure, and suddenly different decisions become possible.

Why this matters beyond Southern Oregon: While private equity investment in healthcare approaches $1 trillion and physician ownership hits historic lows, AllCare proves alternative models can work at scale ($472M annual revenue, 70,000 patients). This isn't boutique medicine for the wealthy—it's a different way of structuring mainstream healthcare.

The episode connects directly to previous discussions of Jackson Care Connect and housing-as-healthcare, showing how ownership structure enables the community-focused investments other episodes explored.

One question to ask yourself: Next time you interact with healthcare—picking a plan, choosing a provider, navigating insurance—ask: Who owns this system? Where does the money go? Who benefits when decisions get made?

That question cuts through a lot of noise.

Listen if you want to understand: Why healthcare often feels like it serves someone other than patients (because it often does—the ownership structure tells you who), what alternatives exist beyond corporate consolidation, and how to evaluate healthcare organizations based on incentives, not marketing.

No prescriptions. No sales pitch. Just clarity about how ownership shapes the system everyone's trying to navigate.