You listen to Barack Obama and you would think that Health Care companies are this great Satan. I think today I finally got to the root of what the Democrats think about health care. A while back I was with a friend of mine and we were talking about another friend of mine in medical school. He expressed reservations and I was amazed. What I did not get at the time is his statement that he does not like people making a profit off of health care.
This attitude is common among pro public option advocates. They believe that health care is a fundamental right, and to try to skim extra money off people in order to perform it is sicking. I, on the other hand, see no problem with making money in medicine. To me, I am not opposed to doctors making higher margins. The truth is that the public option will have a huge edge over private insurers because there is no profit margin on the people running the public option. It will drive down cost, period. Still, the balance of flexibility is something I am willing to have for higher cost. With this public option, private options will drop by the wayside.
With the lack of profit, I worry about the lack of innovation and then the lack of quality in the doctors. Doctors make a lot of money because they do work that requires a lot of knowledge and they do work that the people who use it consider it very important. I don’t worry about how much my doctor makes, I worry about how competent he is. If we let the quality of health care bleed due to the lack of a profit motive, in the end, I believe that it hurts everyone. Thus, while to some it seems wrong, I think it is the best that people in medicine have a profit motive.
