Weaponized Profits: The US Health Care System

[xchrom]

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/09/22



Many people who advocate for an improved and expanded Medicare for all for life health system in the US tend to vilify the for-profit, private insurance industry and big Pharma but ignore the atrocities committed by almost every other segment of the system. If we are to fix what ails the US health care system, we will have to get a whole lot more honest about all of the factions that lift profit-making above all else when engaging in the delivery of health care services.

And no matter what Congress does or does not do with the Affordable Care Act/Obamacare, until those of us being most grossly effected by our dysfunctional, profit-first health care system get honest about all the players and their roles in that dysfunction, we will continue to tinker around the edges and watch the numbers of health care dead and broke climb ever higher.

We do not have a coherent health care delivery system in the US. We have taken great pains to protect the interests of the few at the direct expense of the many. More than in any other segment of economic, political or social activity in our society, we have weaponized greed within our health care system. From the usual suspects in the private health insurance and pharmaceutical industries to the hospital corporations, medical equipment manufacturers, medical billing companies, health benefit administrators, private physician groups, medical collection agencies, free-standing clinics, nursing homes, home care agencies and services, malpractice and medical liability insurance companies, and beyond, greed and profits injure and kill Americans.

Patients are essential to the profit-making—you cannot make that money without patients to treat and dose—but patients also have almost no protections and no say in the design of this system that injures and kills without any accountability or shame whatsoever. Sure, as I point out often, the direct correlation between lack of access to appropriate care and poor health outcomes is certainly a function of access to public or private health coverage and the approval or denials of needed care. So it's easy to target the insurance companies as villains. And those companies have earned their status by denying care and collecting premiums. Big Pharma rakes in the cash through all the channels we all have known about and by taking advantage of every chance to boost profits, avoidable accountability and protect patents. But these two target groups aren't by any means the only groups responsible for weaponized greed in the US health care system.

[Scuba]

1. "We have taken great pains to protect the interests of the few at the direct expense of the many."

So very, very true.

[GeorgeGist]

2. IT'S NOT A SYSTEM

It's a racket.

[Divernan]

3. "Non-profit" hospital, my ass! CEO pays himself $6.1 MILLION

UPMC is an international chain of hospitals which started out at the University of Pittburgh (UPMC stands for University of Pittsburgh Medical Center). "Non-profit", non-tax-paying UPMC's CEO, Jeffrey Romoff's total compensation for 2011 (according to tax returns) which includes the value of retirement accounts and other benefits, was $6.1 million, a 3 percent increase from the previous year's total of $5.9 million.

UPMC operates dozens of medical facilities in its "home" state of Pennsylvania. In PA, UPMC has the most full time workers on Public Medical Assistance, next to Wal-Mart and McDonald's.
That level of greed is sociopathic when your employees are struggling to just get by.

Read more: http://triblive.com/.../4025423-74/million-upmc-romoff...
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Too many people mistakenly believe "non-profit" means low cost, charitably motivated.
What it really means is privately owned & operated with no stock holders. There are profits galore, but they are paid out in the form of lavish salaries, bonuses & other benefits to high level executives. The Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield outfit operating out of Pittsburgh has its own building, described to me as having marble floors, hand made rosewood desks & original works of art in executive suites.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

4. "Non-profit" = a legal term for a corporation which does not have shareholders.

That's all it is.

It does not mean a corporation that does not intend to make a profit. It doesn't even mean a corporation that was organized for charitable purposes, although a non-profit corporation can be organized for charitable purposes.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

5. Until the politicians and those related to them give up their stock in medical insurance companies,

there will be no reform.

This is just too profitable for them.