I can’t remember how I found out about the Fix It campaign recently. I do remember, though, that I sat up when I heard about it because it brings such a refreshing new angle to the whole health care debate in the United States: The angle of a businessman. Fix It is a documentary conceived and produced by Richard Master, “the founder and owner of MCS Industries, a world leader in the picture frame and decorative mirror business.” He brings to this debate his business experience – and is not crying about how a single-payer system might be anti-capitalist, anti-free market, putting guns to doctors’ heads (that last one, I really don’t get… if a single-payer system puts a gun to doctors’ heads how is the current multi-payer system preferable? Wouldn’t it put a whole arsenal to their heads?!).

The current sickness profiteering system we have in the US is creating an artificial middle layer that adds nothing to the delivery of health care, says Master. In addition, it makes health care delivery inefficient and much, much more expensive than it should be, thus unduly increasing insurance costs for businesses, making them less competitive internationally. And it flies in the face of long-term support for a capitalist economy (similar to ignoring climate disruption). For some reason, health insurance is not being viewed as an externality that should not be shouldered by businesses. If people don’t like forcing businesses to shoulder the true environmental and social costs of doing business, why is health an exception?

There is another aspect to this as well that Master has not addressed: The additional anxiety that our system creates in those of us who worry about what medical bills we’re facing when getting the care we need. There is quite a bit of evidence about the relationship between stress and illness, so creating a system that increases stress seems to contradict the supposed intent of health care. Clearly, we are not invested in prevention otherwise we’d address the distress caused by financial worries over health-related costs head on: By creating a system that is providing both health and care. It is rather ironic that our current system, which claims to be so focused on cost-reduction, has not caught onto this sickness creation. Or maybe it has: There’s more money to be made when we keep people stressed and in fear…

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