Everything is done for profit. You fix computers for profit. So what? You don't see me trying to tell you how much you can charge for your services.
I think what Merc is trying to say is that the medical sector should be run as a non-profit entity. Sure, the doctors and everyone else will continue to be paid a fair, market rate salary for what they do, same as today. What would be different is you won't have shareholders and rich CEOs to pay "profits" to. Neither of these does a thing to increase the quality of medical care, but they increase the cost. Same thing with the malpractice lawyers.
I'll also add that it seems everyone here is under the collective illusion that modern medicine, and access to all sorts of drugs, actually makes us healthier. Truth is most of the drugs have long term consequences worst than what they're curing. I'm almost 100% sure Lipitor played a bit part in killing my father. He didn't even need to take it if he would have eaten a better diet. In fact, he wouldn't have had his first heart attack in 1989, nor the second one which killed him in 2006, had he led a healthier lifestyle. We need to change the so-called poison lifestyle first before we worry about anything else. That one thing, even if we still have millions with no access to doctors, will enable us to live longer, healthier lives. Until we do that, our current medical system will spend ever increasing amounts of money saving people from themselves. I personally haven't been to a physician since 1980. I don't plan to go to one either unless I need stitches, or to set a broken bone, or anything else I can't do myself. In the meantime I know my body, what to do and not to do, so I can maintain some modicum of reasonable health at least until my body wears out and I'm well into my 90s. Maybe by then I'll need a hip replacement or some other joint repair. Really, that's the only thing modern medicine has had good success with-repairing people's joints as they wear out. Treating anything else is pointless. Heart disease is 100% preventable. So are most cancers. Even when they're not, the current cure rates are abysmal. Everyone I know who has had chemo or radiation therapy died anyway within 5 years. With results like that why even bother? Actually, I know why. Cancer treatment is big money. My guess is even if a cure existed it would sit on the shelves forever. That's really the problem. There's no incentive to get people to change lifestyles when big money is made letting them slowly kill themselves via poor lifestyle chocies, but keeping them alive a little longer. It speaks volumes about the mindset regarding preventive medicine when you see a bunch of nurses puffing away outside during a break.
