If it's wrong for health insurers to make a profit, what about those selling food, shelter and clothing?
Doesn't the same logic apply - that these necessities should not be sold for profit? And what of the doctors themselves? Who much money should they make? Or do health insurers make a profit by prudent investing, knowing that if they denied service frequently they would lose subscribers?
Other - Politics & Government - 5 Answers
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1 :
I think making EXCESSIVE profits at the expense of suffering people is pretty immoral.
2 :
You'd think not having those items would lead to a premature death as well...which is why you'll get no justifiable answer. The fact is other Government's already have their foot in the door..."Give a mouse a cookie and he wants a glass of milk." Consequently, we were on the path to give houses away...didn't turn out so well.
3 :
I get your point. But we have low-income housing programs. And we have food stamps. And we have welfare and unemployment payments. All of that helps people afford food, clothing, and shelter, which are relatively inexpensive. If you have priced individual health insurance plans for families, you would see that they are more expensive than average rent. If you take the risk of not having insurance, and someone in your family becomes seriously ill, the bills can bankrupt you. So it is different. But that doesn't mean health insurance companies should not make a profit. It just means they need a big, efficient new competitor that forces them to lower their prices, improve their service, and lower their costs. They have no motivation to do that now. And doctors have no motivation to control their prices. If a government health plan becomes an effective competitor, the results can be dramatically reduced healthcare costs. But if they screw it up, the results will be a disaster. As I have said many time, you think healthcare is expensive now, wait until it is free and anyone can drop into the emergency room for a hangnail without thinking twice about the cost.
4 :
SOCIALIZE EVERYTHING....people can rationalize the justification of need almost anything as a necessity. 1)car - need it to get to work, buy food 2)house - i have to live somewhere 3)shoes/sneakers - i can't be walking outside barefoot my feet would be cutup 4)socks - goes with shoes/sneakers 5)clothes( summer/winter) - i have to dress appoapriately to work 6)underwear - might get sick and go to hospital what would the doctors say if i have dirty or torn underwear 7)pet - i need a pet to calm my nerves etc... see my point....bring on the USSA - united sosialist states of america
5 :
This is a huge question. Imagine you worked for a company who decided to run things like Marx suggested - "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need". It sounds like a good plan, until "ability" and "need" are sorted out. Imagine futher that you are one of the ablest people in the company - you are creative, ambitious, motivated and inventive. You work very hard and produce a lot of revenue for the company. You do not get rewarded for your work - instead, because you are so able, you might get asked to work overtime for no additional pay. Imagine that at the same company there is a family who has more children than they can really afford to feed or take care of, and perhaps acts irresponsibly in their eating, drinking, smoking, driving or other lifestyle habits. These are not very able people, but they are certainly needy. You will watch as your hard-earned money goes to their excessive need. How will you feel? Will you suddenly get wise, and stop demonstrating how able you are? Will you be resentful of their lifestyle, sucking the life out of the fruits of your energy and abilities? Profit is a great motivator. What you are not seeing is that "excessive profits" are distributed to shareholders; that means not just individual fatcat Wall Streeters, but pension funds and 401K plans for working Americans. The more successful a company is, the more profit they make, and the more money is distributed into the company. While you can be jealous of the highly paid executives and their bonuses, be careful - this is a very small portion of the overall profit - most of which gets plowed back into the company to make them bigger and stronger and (here's the key) more able to meet your needs. You have to look past the big buildings and see the expensive computerized infrastructure and the reach of the companies, all of which act to keep prices low. Profit and wealth are only immoral if they are the result of dishonest business practices. In Capitalism, the markets should be able to find their own balance point - in other words, if you deliver the best product, it will be in high demand; if it is in high demand, competition will keep the price point low. If your product sucks, it won't sell, and unless you use dishonest marketing practices it will go off the market and you will go back to the drawing board. Health insurers face many difficulties - tort laws in this country cause Malpractice insurance rates to skyrocket. Doctors are in a position to have to prescribe test after unnecessary test just to "build a defense file" in case something goes wrong (and something very often does - Doctors are not gods) and they get sued. Health insurers pay for these tests, but ultimately, they come out of your pocket. If you begin to speculate that necessities should not be sold for profit, then those who make them will lose their incentive, and they will be manufactured by government mandate. Some bureaucrat will decide how to fill the pharmacy and supermarket shelves, rather than what the public decides they want; this leads to either political lobbying or rationing or both. Lasix surgery is a great example. Unlike X-rays and MRI's and other covered tests, Lasix is not covered by most insurance. It is, however, an incredibly popular procedure. What has happened since its development? The technology has advanced at a rate in multiples of the other, "price controlled" tests; competition is high, opthamologists are getting better and better at it and guess what? The cost of Lasix has come steadily down as a direct result of pure market forces. Further, we have already started limiting the amount of money Doctors can make in certain situations. Medicaid, for example, pays limited amounts for treatment, as do certain health insurers and HMO's. What is the result? The better doctors do not see Medicaid patients, and they don't accept many insurance policies. Are they immoral? How so? What about the college senior who decides that he'd rather go into law or business instead of medicine, because of the limited income potential? Restricting (honest) profits in a free-market economy is a very, very dangerous practice. It is highly moral to seek profit, regardless of your industry, as long as that profit is sought by the production of excellence. If people in business and medicine followed that moral code, prices would be naturally low due to competition. The government is immoral in deciding who should get how much profit, and who is not deserving of the fruits of his own labor and ingenuity
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