Broken Not Crushed life as a statement, not an apology

I recently checked out this website: madashelldoctors.com.

I think they’re way off base.

The whole presupposition that the profit motive must be inherently flawed, and that a “non-profit” motive must be inherently pure, is wrong. As someone who has attempted to make a profit to support a nonprofit for the last 13 years, I can attest that without profit, there will be no product.

Rather than label the business community as evil, I think it would be far more productive and effective to work WITH them. (Read “The Death of Environmentalism” sometime. It’s a quick read, but shows how this strategy has been far more effective in accomplishing the goals of the environmental movement than the “strategy” of “they are evil and want to destroy the earth”. Same principle.)

Economics is all about how people respond to different incentives. Requiring people to make a HUGE investment/risk (whether it’s medical school, or R&D for new procedures/treatments/drugs, etc.), and then limiting their ability to profit from that investment, will reduce the incentive to take the risk or invest the money. Which leads to dwindling supply. Which leads to higher prices. Which is self-defeating and harms those you care about helping.

Meanwhile, giving people added incentives to USE those resources (through lower or no costs) create added demand on a shrinking supply. The only way to fix that is to lessen demand (rationing), or increase supply–docs MUST accept Medicare, even though each procedure is at a loss, or PAY doctors more. The first will further de-incentivize the docs (further shrinking the supply), and the latter gets you right back to the “evil” starting point…the profit motive. None of these options are sustainable.

Why not embrace the profit motive, the desire for self-interest, and use it, instead of setting up the false dichotomy of “For People, Not Profit”. Just read “Atlas Shrugged” to see the end result of that kind of thinking. People deserve to be compensated for the risks they’ve taken and the value they provide. No one should be told they make “too much” profit…their customers are capable of deciding if the costs are appropriate to the value provided. In a free and uncoerced society, this will put prices exactly where they “should” be.

This analysis doesn’t even touch the Constitutional and freedom-related concerns of their efforts…