The Wall Street Journal had a front-page story today about a man with an idea to change the nursing home industry.

That topic is worth a post or a dozen in its own right, but for now I'll focus on the topic of who is funding the proposal.

Dr. Bill Thomas, a physician by training, got the idea for shaking up the industry, but needed some financial backing. He turned to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

The foundation--and this is something I had failed to notice before--is loaded. How loaded? It's the fourth largest foundation in the U.S. by asset size, which at the end of 2006, was $10 billion. I'm guessing that it used to be third until that the "new money" Bill and Melinda Gates entered the business.

What can you do with $10 billion? A lot. The Journal says that the foundation is "making 'big bets' on ideas to change social norms."

Isn't that swell? The goal of changing social norms apparently includes plumping for a government takeover of health care.

Far from supporting the independent sector, foundations, especially the bigger ones, are prone to be boosters of government at the expensive of the private commercial sector and civil society. Generally speaking, that's the case with the RWJF.

What of their proposal for nursing homes? Even a blind squirrel finds an acorn once in a while, so perhaps they're on to something. But that's for another day.