Published by Brian Slezak on 11 Nov 2008 at 02:17 am
Morality FAIL – Health Care
Is the over-inflated cost of health care in the United States an instance of capitalism gone bad?
Is it the role our government to intercede when anything goes bad?
These were a couple of questions that went through my mind the other night as I was doing a poor job at falling asleep. I think I ended up generating more questions than opinions. 
There is money to be made off the sick. Doctors are highly paid, and hospitals have boards and stake holders that receive compensation in non-profit and for-profit organizations. When the actions of a non-profit hospital become about maximization of surplus, (non-profit lingo for ‘profit’,) and inflated reimbursement to executives rather than providing health care for the community, I think they put their 501(c)(3) status in jeopardy. The government collects taxes, and if your organization’s purpose is to provide charitable services, they can waive those taxes.
The previous paragraph aside, and assuming everyone agrees that all people deserve access to medical care, how do you build a system that allows equal access to that care regardless of a persons station in life? Some may measure equality by the cost of the service. I think we should measure equality by the access to the service. On the surface, it doesn’t seem fair that someone with great wealth should pay more for health care than someone with little wealth. I can see how someone would look at that and say, “That’s clearly not fair,” and I suppose they would be right. It is not equitable in value, but it is honorable. I think it is a morality failure for those with more to not help those with less. It is a morality failure to abuse health care for personal gain rather than using it to care for humanity.
We need more incorrupt people managing health care rather than more legislation attempting to regulate moral behavior. Maybe the former is just a pipe dream?
Mark Burleson on 11 Nov 2008 at 6:09 pm #
Agreed it is a failure. It is moral failure for us not to help, that is correct, but others who do not carry the same worldview will think differently.
I personally, like you it seems, think the responsibility lies more on the individual and less on the government. I lean more towards states rights in the end anyway when it comes down to federal versus state.
Overarching principle: the people need to be brought back to the point that THEY make the difference and take the responsibility.. the gov’t shouldn’t be.
Pernickety Curmudgeon on 29 Nov 2008 at 1:40 pm #
Lets remember that all health care is not equal and therein lies the problem. One cannot have “equal” and “fair” healthcare when not every doctor, nurse or pharmacist is equally or even minimally skilled in their profession. In a homogeneous nation like Japan or Sweden one might conceive of some national health model but in the USA quite frankly our gene pool is so mixed up that no statistical approach to allocating(err rationing) healthcare seems possible.
What will save our system which may not be good or fair but is the best in the world, is people paying for their own.
One last note, advances in genetic testing for the deveolment of new treatments in the allocation of old treatments is gonna have profound effects on our system.