Patients over profits

To the Editor;
As our health care delivery deteriorates — lacking the quality and outcomes found in other advanced nations at twice the cost — the hospital conglomerates, the government and the press are sometimes claiming progress. And, in spite of this, the growing national outrage is being met by policymakers scrambling to hold our nation’s bloated health care money pit.

Health care is now an industry, a venture for profit. Hospitals, clinics, insurers and drug manufacturers — many on the stock exchange — make billions. Rather than being guided by what it best for patients, corporate-driven medical care leads to driving administration costs and over-priced drugs where doctors and patients are trapped in a system that financially exploits their relationship. Billions of dollars are extracted by the medical industry and shifted to shareholders to grow and increase market share. Patients pay obscene bills and often blame their doctors. As medicine becomes more corporatized, patients resent their doctors more without realizing the true cause of the problem.

The ultimate threat to corporate health care is for patients and doctors to align with each other to get the greed out of American medical care.

Linda Bennett
Charleston