(December 7, 2024 at 1:40 am)AFTT47 Wrote:(December 7, 2024 at 12:58 am)Thumpalumpacus Wrote: This is bound to happen when health care is profitized and insurance companies value dollars over lives.
Yeah, the older I get, the more convinced I become that this is morally wrong.
Yes, there are practical considerations. The money to pay for someone's health care has to come from somewhere. At this point in time, we are not a post-scarcity civilization. At some point, we run up against limits and hard choices have to be made. We can't draw blood out of a stone. But currently, we have these corporations profiting off of dying, desperate people.
Profit is not a dirty word. I believe in capitalism. It is a powerful engine that has given us great power and prosperity but there is a time and place for it. Nobody should be profiting off the financing of healthcare because they are at odds! Â Capitalization of research and development of healthcare tech is fine because such R & D might never take place without monetary incentive. But financing of patient health care is directly at odds with profit. The more an insurance company pays out in order to facilitate patient care, the poorer is their bottom line. And their bottom line is their first priority! So insurance companies should not be in the loop! As long as they are, they are public enemies who the populace at large will cheer on when one of their execs runs afoul of some heavy metal poisoning.
Deciding who lives and who dies because patient A's treatment is more soluble than patient B's in terms of ducats is understandable when you're running a business, much less so if you actually care about people.
The American electorate seems to have decided already that they value 401k investments over, you know, Grandma and Grandpa.
