How has the profit motive affected our healthcare system?
953481
The insurance companies tossed the Law of Supply and Demand and consistently charged slightly more than whatever the market would bear.  The inevitable results have happened: inflation and shortages.  \n\nDemand is finally starting to drop and may force the insurance companies to re-implement the law.  But even if they do, I doubt they will maintain compliance very long.  As soon as demand plateaus or starts to increase, they will again ignore the supply and demand law and charge more than the market can bear for longer than the law allows.\n\nSome economists might claim that this amounts to a second-order compliance with the Law.  \n\nFine.  Because increases in salaried and hourly income are typically either linear or non-existent, non-linear manipulations of the Law of Supply and Demand amount to nothing more than price-gouging.  Once again, inflation and shortages result.\n\nIf they don't like that line of reasoning, tell them to take it to the bank.
684639
It's all about money. Drug companies don't want to find a cure for AIDS or any other disease. They just want to find and sell drugs to treat the symptoms, so they can prolong your life and sell you lots of drugs, and make lots of money. Most drugs have side effects, so they can sell you more drugs to control the side effects. The last time the drug companies found a cure for a disease was in the fifties when they found a cure for polio, and when they found a cure they couldn't sell any more drugs to treat the symptoms, and then couldn't make any more money from the disease. They decided then to not find cures for any more diseases. Now they just find drugs to treat the symptoms so they can prolong your life and sell you drugs for the rest of your life. Finding cures for diseases is not in the best interest of drug companies. It's all about money. If every person was healthy and disease-free, the drug companies and virtually the entire health-care industry would be out of business. There is no financial incentive to prevent or cure a disease. Rather, the entire health-care industry is driven by one overshadowing motive: to make money. The entire health-care industry is run by individual people in the form of officers and directors of the publicly traded corporations that make up the industry. These people are, with rare exception, some of the most ruthless, wealthiest, and greediest people on the planet. It's all about the money.
692140
1. It will lower the cost of health care for people as a large portion of our health care that we pay goes to covering the cost for those that do not pay, such as illegals using emergency rooms.\n2. It will allow us better control of who is going in and out of this country, and any possible threat they may be to our security\n3. It will allow a correction in the prices of products. Currently some products are priced very low due to illegals working for pennies on the dollar, and we will be adjusted to the more accurate price on all items as it will ripple through the economy.
438405
No. Maybe some other programs based on income but not insurance. Insurance Companies are profit making Companies as most all others. This is a capitalistic country.
531434
Pancakes... ah how nice it is to be upper middle class, but maybe you should turn off the TV all together and visit some of our poor communities.... only the rich come here to get health care... the poor in the country can't afford it... just because they aren't the brightest, doesn't mean they shouldn't get health care...\n\nsimple answer to your question is greed... the sin of greed is very acceptable to our "moral conservatives," in fact it's encouraged...
854901
I think that the answer is socialized healthcare.  Too much money is wasted in the current American healthcare system.  Not only do we pay about twice as much as other western countries, but the quality of care is also inferior.
184875
Dear MissTexas, I believe that Medicaid expenditures may have changed mainly due to the rises in the cost of living, the medical profession and pharmacology.\nOther changes that may be experienced could be attributable to the outsourcing of benefits. \nThis has a tendency to curtail many local economies and their respective tax base and this is certainly an unexpected exppenditure upon our local governments/ states/ counties/ cities/ hospital districts/ school districts.\nAnd now to face an increase in property taxes just because we have 'outsourced' our workforce. Gees, Miss, I do believe that expenditures by medicaid's administrators have changed the solvent face of medicaid.  Jose
582972
Read the following article for future of Cost Accounting in healthcare:\nhttp://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=10284497&dopt=Abstract
16858
Canada's government did not fall apart.  Government coordinated healthcare systems are successful in other nations (including the German system, which I know little about, but have heard is probably the best system for the US to look to as a guide).  Health Insurance companies currently waste excessive amounts of money on marketing, administration and other non-healthcare related costs...  That doesn't seem very efficient.
122867
Because of the population.  There are more people to insure and medical costs are out of control, thus higher premiums.
101312
33 yo female student RN.\nHuge...advertising, and of course, the reps in the healthcare setting that push their drugs for increased sale purposes. It is the doctors that ultimately decide what to give patients, and the patients who ultimately decide to take the drug. When you say health? Are you speaking of wellness or illness?
439623
Health Care is a big problem for me, I have no health care and am a diabetic. I don't take all the medicines that I should to help control it because it is so expensive. It should be controled at worst so that it don't get so out of hand as it is now. I think it might help the research end because there would not be as huge a profit to just treat a disese. It would be better to cure it.
1184496
Absolutely not.  Our health care system is a mess, it's true, but I think the best way to fix it is with less government intervention, not more.  You see, as with everything else, you tend to get all the best and most expensive stuff you can when someone else is paying the bill.  Well, if the government is paying the bill, that really means the taxpayers.  It's not fair for healthy people to have their tax burden substantially raised because some others can't or won't take care of themselves.  Which leads to a related point:  If you're paying your own bill, you're more likely to take good care of yourself, so you don't end up paying more than you absolutely have to.
42633
Yes. If people get sick or hurt they need something to fall back on. Plus it helps the employer too. People with health insurance can get back on their feet faster and, if the stay home briefly, don't get others sick. On top of which you probably can deduct this expense from the company's taxes.
531384
The upper managment likely has a large portion of ownership.  If they increase the bottom line, they're indirectly increasing their own profits.  With most people, this greed wins out so they increase the bottom line versus caring for the employees.
227587
Yes. Not necessarily because the person was done harm that needs to be paid for, but because there needs to be punitive damages to deter the medical system from treating patients like commodities. The cost to the system has to be high enough to punish the insurance industry, not just the individual doctor's premiums.
65734
because they started a company from scratch and filled a need, and thus became rich. lawyers sue people ( those with money ) to attain wealth, they do not care about fairplay and justice, the want settlements, period. doctors have to deal with the hmo system so they are prone to over prescribed or steer patient into group owned ( by a group of doctors )and very lucrative diagnostic centers ( where they really do not care if you get treatment, so as long as you get a CAT scan, xray ect.. ), those are worth big insurance dollars.