The precise details of the Pfizer scandal are in the current news loop, so there’s no need to detail or repeat them here. However, as I absorb the story’s content and its implications, it seems to me that there can be no doubt, but that avarice and greed are at the heart of it all. What continues to astound me is that this is the same industry that has the nerve to ask me and you to trust them, and ONLY them, with our health care and our lives.
The health care industry shows the style and attitude of a playground bully. It is outrageous that these companies demand exclusive rights to provide health care. They claim that if they don’t have exclusive rights, they’ll go out of business. That case was clearly stated on The News Hour (9/2/09) by Robert Laszewski, of Health Policy and Strategy Associates. The claim is that competition with an American Option would destroy the health care industry.
But this is a lie. By no means will the American Option destroy the health care industry. This foolish notion shows the kind of thinking that comes from a mind weakened by prolonged over-exposure to corporate welfare. It causes softening of both the brain and the spine.
The lie is that companies will be driven out of business. The fact is that for-profit health insurance companies will simply adapt. They will modify their current business model. For-profit companies will not be driven out of business by the American Option. They won’t vanish. They will evolve, as all business must, and do, over time. And for every old business that fails, as the argument predicts some will, there will always be another young business born, fresh with innovation and promise, free from old prejudices. Nature abhors a vacuum. New business opportunities always appear. That’s the miracle of capitalism.
The health care industry, as we now know it, will not be destroyed or driven out of business, as Mr. Laszewski’s whining and kvetching suggests they will. They will simply invent a business model that’s competitive in a market place that now contains an American Option. It can be done. It has been done. It’s not an either-or situation we’re confronting here, and it is an insult to the tax-paying public to suggest that it is.
The real problem is that we are suggesting a change in the way the health care industry does business. We are introducing the American Option. Unfortunately, as we all know, business is slow to accept change.
But change is inevitable, and only a fool would try to stop the flow of time dead in its tracks. Yet, some seem to persist in trying to do just that, and all the while we see that public pressure continues to mount. According to recent polls, between 70% and 80% of Americans favor an American Option.
The Pfizer scandal is a clear look into the way for-profit companies do business. The way Pfizer behaved is pretty much the industry-wide standard. They all drink out of the same cup. They all share the same toothbrush. The Pfizer scandal gives us a peek at the true and honest heart and soul of for-profit health care service. These are definitely not the people I would trust with my life.
The American Option puts my life first, above labor, overhead and advertising/lobbying costs and market value. The American Option won’t turn me down. And it’ll be there when I need it, regardless of how the market is doing.
I don’t see how it can be clearer. The ethical implications of the Pfizer scandal should tell us that, to be tied to this and only this type of provider, a for-profit entity operating in the risky financial market, is simply not acceptable. The American Option must be brought into existence.
I don’t want the filth of the Pfizer scandal to contaminate my health care. I want clean health care. I want the American Option.