Aside

A little slice of sanity

24 Aug 2009

Andy Lubershane makes a decent argument for why government-run health insurance may not be such a bad thing. One pillar of his argument is the inherent conflict of interest for the health insurance companies. They make more money when fewer policyholders receive treatment. It’s an argument that Bill Maher has made, citing that healthcare didn’t always used to be a for-profit industry. He also notes that our prison system and TV news weren’t always ruled by the almighty dollar. There was also a time when making money off of war was frowned upon. But that’s clearly not the case anymore.

Not everything in America has to make a profit. You know, if conservatives get to call universal healthcare “socialized medicine,” I get to call private, for-profit healthcare “soulless, vampire bastards making money off human pain.”

… The problem with President Obama’s healthcare plan isn’t socialism. It’s capitalism. When did the profit motive become the only reason to do anything? When did that become the new patriotism?

[Via Roughstock]