For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?
- Matthew 16:26, NKJV
I haven't seen Micheal Moore's latest film, SiCKO, but I have paid a great deal of attention to Moore's promotion of his video, whether it's his mini-war with CNN's Wolf Blitzer and Dr. Sanjay Gupta, or his discussion with Keith Olbermann of MSNBC's Countdown program. I have enjoyed how much he's drawn attention to some of the dangers of the health care system in the United States. He's done us all a favor in putting the conversation back in daily rotation, but he hasn't gone so far as to make that discussion an honest one.
Moore's proposal is that, given the corrupt nature of the health insurance system in the United States, we should move to a tax-funded, single-payer health care system provided by the government. A universal health care system is necessary for providing treatment for all Americans, including those who either cannot afford health insurance or those who do not purchase it (I met one of the latter the other day).
Moore continually talks about how health insurance companies are profit-driven organizations who care little for the well-being of the consumer or the solvency of his or her personal finances. Solvency is the ability of an individual or organization to effectively pay for debts. The filmmaker points to the number of people who have gone bankrupt paying for medical care through health insurance companies.
While there are a number of issues to address with the health care system, I want to focus on the increasingly popular idea that profit is bad for the consumer. Profit, when restricted to the financial meaning, simply means the money a corporation or individual has left over after a financial engagement, when everything is taken care of, including debts like salaries and other financial expenses. Health insurance providers, like any other corporation, seek to turn a profit as they try to meet the needs for people. For Moore, this is bad.
But are profits really bad? Any economist will answer in the negative. Business types believe that profit is not only the ultimate reason behind why something is done, but the motivation for doing the best job possible. I suggest that this is precisely the case.
Profits themselves are vulnerable either to taxation or choice. The government of a municipality, state, or nation may tax income and thus, profits are diminished. Profits are also damaged by people seeking business elsewhere. Seems simple enough.
I will get to a point, by the way. Please put up with the economic discussion.
But the idea of profit can also be harmed in the same way. Our governments can provide services, using our taxes, in an apparent non-profit sort of way. But the most evil way of destroying the virtue of profit is to eliminate choice.
This is part of the reason why the health care system is flawed. Because our government says that employers must provide benefits like health care, dental care, maternity leave, etc., employers are forced to use part of a company's income to meet insurance premiums. Employers often make decisions for the whole of the company as well. Because the choice of providing insurance has been written into law, the employer has no choice to make but take sizable portions of income and fund health care. In turn, this negatively affects the employee, who now has no choice in which insurance company to use, or whether health care insurance is desirable in the first place.
By eliminating all of these choices, people lose the money they would otherwise receive in the form of salary or wage income. They could use their money at their discretion to buy alternative policies or not buy a policy at all. It's up to the individual. And these individuals can proceed to make more choices in which competing insurance companies are affected, which in turn try to make better choices in terms of providing insurance. Did I mention that people have more money?
Profits are undercut when choices are made for people by levels of bureaucracy. So the problem, Michael, is not really profit, but those that make decisions for other people. The concept of profit drives innovation.
I mentioned that I was discussing profit in the economic sense, but the verse I quoted helps us understand that profit is much more than some financial black ink. Stephen considers Christianity to be a form of hedonism, not like John Piper's Christian Hedonism particularly, but a hedonism in the sense that the investments and abstinences of Christianity lead to the salvation of the soul. Jesus isn't using "profit" as the "p-word" that Moore discuss, but a way of understanding what salvation is. It does profit the Christian to place faith in Jesus, to search the Scriptures, and live in the community of the Church.
There are other things I'd like to say on economics as I increasingly think about that particular science, although I think I shall leave that for later.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Daniel
Profit
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5 comments:
Egoism might be a better term for my position than hedonism. I am not sure that pleasure is the most important thing, although it can be defined so broadly that it includes every good thing. The Bible assumes something like psychological egoism or rational egoism and appeals to the individual's self-interest. Most of Jesus' parables (as well as the passage Daniel quotes) aren't trying to persuade people that following Him is the right thing to do but rather the rational, self-interested thing to do. One day, a more complete exploration of these idea will probably show up on To Attempt.
Pope, I think part of Michael Moore's argument is that the desire for profit on the part of the insurance companies leads them to deny claims that would reasonably be covered by an insurance policy. Like the woman from the preview who was denied coverage for an ambulance ride because she did not have it pre-approved.
You sort of answer the issue yourself. The woman did not choose a policy that covers ambulance rides (or perhaps reimburses for them, since some ambulance companies are actually contractors separate from the hospitals themselves), and so she earned herself a hassle. It sucks, no one is denying that, but Moore is throwing people off the trail of what really caused her dilemma.
Then he sets up a strawman argument against profit. But the insurance company isn't making any additional profit at all; it's doing exactly what it says in the policy.
Rachie is right about Moore's argument, but the solution is not to put the state in charge of healthcare or heath insurance. The state will act to protect its own interests too. Rather than denying certain individual claims, it will simply make certain services totally unavailable or very hard to obtain (e.g., long queues in the UK for MRIs and cancer treatment). As Daniel suggests, the solution is a system with more individual choice. Removing insurance subsidies for employers and letting everyone select their own insurance plan would allow the individual to select a plan that covers what he or she wants to be covered.
The current concept of health insurance is also foolish. Health insurance should be just that, insurance. The current idea is really private health collectivism. Car insurance doesn't cover gasoline or regular maintenance. Why should health insurance cover regular services like checkups? High-deductible plans make far more sense, and if enough people used them, the cost of services would come down as physicians had to compete with each other on cost.
Yeah Stephen, I've also recently discovered that the health insurance system really is poorly named. But I like the concept.
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