Profits

Our economy is basically based on profiteering.

Lets be clear, there is nothing wrong with making a profit, it inspires enterprise which stimulates the economy and creates jobs.

However it depends a lot on how many are eating at the trough.

Profit related to value added is productive, but profit related to effectively nothing is a problem.

In one model you might have the producer, say the farmer, who could sell direct to a consumer resulting is a single profit.

That became less possible so we see them selling to middlemen who take the product from the farm to the city say.  A second profit.

Generally they then resell the product to retail outlets who sell to the consumers, a third profit.

This is true for almost all the things we buy with escalating profits.  Of course there is usually some real service provided.

In health care of course we have multiple streams.  There is the delivery of the medical service, the equipment used, and the cost of running the hospital.  We then add the profit stream of the insurance provider.

How to reduce the cost unrelated to the actual delivery of health care would go a long way to making health care more affordable.

We just don't want to.