It’s Good Business

It is amazing what we in America consider to be good business. As example, we accept that a business can and at times should shutdown certain operations. A company may need to close stores to control cost to put the company into a better position for profitability. This will make the shareholders happy, and the board will reward the leadership with multimillion dollar bonus for being successful.

This all makes sense, and we accept that people and businesses must make decision to keep themselves in operations. What is also being accepted is the consequences and the impact of the decision. The closing of an operation such as, a store branch puts people out of work.

The impact to these peoples is dramatic. While others are making millions for a good decision, these people are losing their income and their employer provided health care. This can and many times cause a spiraling down effect in the person’s life. The progress of building a life falls apart. Evictions from homes and apartments start.

It can be even worse for some. Take a single mother raising a child making forty-five thousand building a life with a home and car payments. The child needs medication. With the loss of insurance and job she can no longer afford the two-thousand dollars a month for medication. The medication is critical to keeping the child healthy and out of the hospital. It allows the child to live a normal life. However, without the medication, the child runs a high risk of being hospitalized, which the mother cannot afford. This continues the downward spiral for these people’s lives. The mother collects huge medical expenses and could still loose the child. This mother literally loses everything.

In America, this is what we call good business.

We can solve one of the problems here in this scenario, health care. The wealth and bounty of America should be able to cover the health care needs of its people. Business can afford a few less dollars of profits and bonus to save lives. It would also go a long way to easing poverty problems and the disparity of health care related to race. Overall a healthy population is good for the nation as a whole.

It seems like a simple problem so what is the problem? There are several concepts which prevent Americans from helping themselves. One, they fear it is another tax. While taxes will certainly pay for it, I think we can consider the current insurance premiums as a tax. Secondly, many see these people as lazy thanks to years of political rhetoric. They think that they just need to get a job. The example cited above is based on a real person. They are hardly lazy. Next, due to the Cold War rhetoric, Americans fear socialism like a plague, COVID19 excluded. They have a strong belief that it will lead to the old Soviet style government and therefore, it cannot work. Despite the clear examples of most of the entire industrial world having universal health care.

Lastly, there is the disinformation of death panels and the government not allowing people to get the care that they need. Yet, the real “death panels” are the insurance companies. Choosing which medicines that they will approve and what procedures will be allowed despite that a doctor has requested it. There are probably many reasons, but I think these are the top on my list.

The result American continue to let their fellow Americans suffer and feel good about.