1.   Nonprofit hospitals enjoy tax-exempt status in exchange for meeting such community needs.

2.   Analysts said the partnership reflected a nationwide move toward clinics focused on specific diseases and toward innovative attempts by nonprofit hospitals to find new sources of capital to grow.

3.   And it would put a temporary ban on the conversion of nonprofit hospitals to for-profit.

4.   And last week, the Rhode Island state health department delayed a purchase by Columbia of a nonprofit hospital, pending a review by the state attorney general.

5.   As insurance companies lower their payments to hospitals under managed-care reform, nonprofit hospitals are finding that they no longer can afford community services.

6.   A few nonprofit hospitals with solid credit ratings are still borrowing money with relative ease.

7.   A decade from now, it would not be surprising if all nonprofit hospitals, except those with generous patrons or unusually competent management, were closed or sold.

8.   A similar effort occurred two decades ago, when workers in nonprofit hospitals lobbied successfully to change a federal labor law that had prevented them from forming a union.

9.   Agreeing to talk merger only among themselves, eight nonprofit hospitals, including East Jefferson, have formed an alliance.

10.   But nonprofit hospitals as a group provide more such care than do for-profit hospitals.