What Does P.J. Parmar Say His Refugee Clinic Costs Compared With Other Care?

On TED Talks Daily, P.J. Parmar says his clinic at Mango House is cheaper than the places his patients would otherwise go. The clinic serves about 15,000 refugees a year at a lower cost than that alternative. He does not take the profit home. He puts it back into the refugee community as a business expense, paying for food, clothing, an after-school program, English classes, and other services run by tenant groups in the building. He calls the model social service arbitrage: using inefficiencies in American health care to serve people who are poor. Doing it as a private clinic, he adds, means taxes, legal exposure, and Medicaid rates that move.