Written by David Starr   

The purpose of healthcare is to prioritize people's health concerns, not prioritize profits. The profit-motive has no place in making decisions about healthcare. Healthcare is supposed treat people's illnesses, not pad the pockets of CEOs and upper management.

But some have gotten rich through the healthcare industry. In a piece on CEOs' compensation published in Becker's Hospital Review by Bob Herman, examples are given on CEO pay from the three largest for-profit hospital chains:

Alan Miller, Universal Health Services (King of Prussia, PA) - Total compensation is $13.2 million
Wayne Smith, Community Health Systems (Franklin, TN) - Total compensation is $8.8 million
Milton Johnson, Hospital Corporation of America (Nasville, TN) - Total compensation is 7.7 million

In addition, the highest annual salary raises are cited (from a SullivanCotter survey):

Business development executive - 11.6 percent
Ambulatory care executive - 8.5 percent
Quality management executive - 8.4 percent
Medical informatics executive - 6.5 percent

Despite the exorbitant amount of money executives make off of it, healthcare is a basic right. It is needed no matter what the circumstances are. To treat it as a commodity is to relegate it to buying and selling; without care being the most important part of it.

Leaving healthcare to the private health insurance industry makes it less and less affordable in the long run. And because it is attached to the "free" market, healthcare can fall victim to speculation, considering how the "free" market works with its boom and bust cycles.

It also falls victim to greed. Martin Shkreli is a prime example of this, with his $750.00 a pill insanity. Other speculators in healthcare may not be as greedy, but the profit-motive drives them to focus on attaining more and more money to where the sky is not even the limit. The result: many needing healthcare pay more and more in premiums, deductibles and care itself.

In a Healthcare Exchange piece by Michael Gomes, "Since 2005, premium prices have been growing steadily at an average of 5 percent each year. Twenty-fifteen is no exception: employer family health premiums are set to rise 4 percent to $17,454 [compared with 1999, when premiums costed $5,791]. As a result, deductibles have risen "three times as fast as premiums and seven times as faster as wages and inflation."

A single payer/universal healthcare system needs to be established. Government-run or influenced? Sure. One function of government is to promote the general welfare. And healthcare is for the people's welfare. This way it is possible to keep it free and/or affordable since there would be no profit-motive influencing the process and making it more and more expensive.

That is not to say that scientists, doctors and inventors would not be fairly compensated for their labor power. It's that care wouldn't have an expensive price tag on it. According to an OECD report published in a Mother Jones piece by Kevin Drum, general practitioners and specialists in the U.S. make more money than doctors in other countries. So, there's no need to complain here. The other countries, in fact, can provide a positive example of how doctors are compensated.

Raising taxes on the 1% is one way of covering costs for healthcare. (Those tax-free havens in the Cayman Islands and elsewhere must be taxed.) Another is cutting the military budget.

The profit-motive has been a slippery slope leading into greed. It is time to put people before profits.

David Starr writes on various issues, both national and international