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Running head: GOING AGAINST ETHICS: THE UNITED STATES HEALTH CARE SYSTEM.

Going against ethics:

The United States health care system.

Juan Miguel Roman Roig

Business Ethics
Dr. Steve Huenneke
William Woods University

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It is in the right of every individual to care for their health, the way they also care about
breathing and eating. This right must not be leave it only to the population, the governments
needs to get involved in this matter, thankfully the majority of them are. Most of the countries
have in their national constitution some points where they give importance to the right of health
care for their citizens. This makes a big difference in a society, where one of the main things
must be the health care, because nothing it is more important than life itself.
However, a study made by the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health showed that that it
is not the case of The United States, who does not guarantee health protection for their citizen in
their constitutions. Even when in 2009 the United States spent more than any other country on
health care (17.4% of its GDP), indicates the Organization for Economic Co-operation and
Development (OECD, 2011). Sadly this statistic about how much the country spent on health
care do not indicate that they are doing what it is right for all the people and that they are
providing a good health services. It indicates that the prices of health care in the United States are
really high in comparison to other countries and also that there is a large amount of these money
that is wasted.
This waste of money is represented on doctors asking for procedures that are not
necessaries, doctors having patients more time than needed, hospitals getting people in the
emergency room even when it is not an emergency, the increase on the doctors compensation
making them earn more than some CEOs and the huge gap between public and private
expenditure on health. The U.S. Census Bureau indicated that 16.3% of the population remains
uninsured and that this percentage is increasing within the years.

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Knowing what it is shown above and without going in more details of statistic about
health care in the United States, people could realize that the things are not right in this matter. As
a student of a Business Ethics class, one could learn how there is a lot of unethical companies
whom do not care at all about the clients and community, mostly because of the greed of some.
But, learning about the idea that a country as developed as the United States has this troubles
with health care ethics is another subject. The United States is a country that is on top in almost
everything. However, in something that important like health care it is struggling.
The fact that the health care in the United States is not good is also related to the greed of
the unethical companies. Hospitals in the United States have becoming a money making
machine, health has always generated a lot of money, but not the way it does now. This is proven
by the compensation that the president of MD Anderson is paid, $1,845,000 the last year, like if it
was a prosperous business. And as a matter of fact it is, MD Anderson ended having a profit of
$531 million on that year, a profit of 26% on revenue of $2.05 billion (U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services). That is the problem, thinking that hospitals are businesses and
only care about getting profit. Before, people wanted to be a doctor, or have hospitals because
they wanted to help the society; they wanted to provide happiness by healing other people. One
could see that in most hospitals that is not the purpose anymore. It is incredible the scenes people
could see in hospitals, where a person is dying on the floor of it and nobody do anything about it
because this person does not have a insurance and might not be able to pay the treatment.
Nowadays, when a person think about becoming a doctor, the first thought it cross his mind is
money, they know that they could earn a lot of money and that will be his primary goal. This

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make people (doctors and the ones that work in health) do things that an ethical person would not
do it. The duty of these people is not to the costumer, but to the company where they work.
All of these brought continuous debates between the political parties, the republicans and
the democrats. In one of the debates the issue was a health care fee, where the law will require
people to buy health insurance or pay a fee. This fee is a tax not a penalty, and they make it
constitutional. Republicans go against this health care law because it represents one of the
largest tax increases on the middle class that weve ever seen (Gov, Bob McDonnell of Virginia
said on a conference call organized by the Republican National Committee).
In 2010 the President Barack Obama presented reform bill named The
Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The purpose of this reform was
like the law above it, to increase the number of insured people, give
incentives to companies in order to these provide health care to their
employees. Despite that this reform sounds good for society and some
people could think that the president is caring about the health issues, and
article called Obama Democrats VS Tea Party Republicans: A Fake Fight over
Fake Health Care Reform talks about that the government and the two
parties (republican and democrats) agree with Obama health care legislation
because it is not the best bill for patients, but the best deal for the insurance,
pharmaceutical and medical companies. The debates and the implements of
the health care laws could continue, but the purpose of this project is other.

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It is to show the ethical dilemmas and the possible solutions related to the
health care system.
This system is combined by three parties: Providers (hospitals and pharmacies),
costumers (patients) and finally the insurance companies. Each of these parties has different goals
they reach by any means. The goals of the patients are to be treated as a human being and get the
best care. The only goal of the insurance company is to have a big number of insured people in
their companies. And the only goal of the Hospitals is maximize their profits. These goals were
introduced by the ideas of the society and the willing of getting rich. Things need to change
about these goals in order to improve the health care system. If we become conscious we will
know that this is not right. Only the goals of the patient do not need to change, the other parties
have work to do.
It is understandable that a goal of hospitals and pharmacies is to maximize profits, but it
seems that today that is the only goal they have and that is definitely wrong. They are companies
and they need revenue and profits to continue in business but their primarily goal should be
provide the best health care for the patients. The same happen with the insurance companies,
their primarily goal should be offer the care for the people who most need it. There is a lack of
ethics in every point you see. The health care industry should not be a place where you work to
get rich. It should be a place where all the ethics values reign. There need to be equilibrium
between the goals of all the parties.
Health care industry is not like a supermarket or a restaurant. In this industry employees
are dealing with lives. A small decision could mean a death of a person and the opposite. Lives

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are something that must not be commercializing, and must be put before everything. In the
debates and speeches about this matter, what is given more importance is the money. There is no
discussion about the ethics established in this industry, and the valuable lives are. There is no
discussion about the chargermaster and the difference of prices that a person without insurance
needs to pay in comparison to what a insured person pays. Taking in account that the prices that
hospitals paid for medicines are lot less than what they charge to patients.
In an interview made by Bill Moyers to Wendel Potter, a former vice president of
communications of CIGNA (health insurance company) became a whistle blower after taking in
account how was the reality that the United States was living, he saw how many people went to a
county fairground to get health care because they could not afford to get in other place. He
started to question, how was possible that so many people needed health care. He knew that there
was approximately 47 million people without insurance, but I didnt put faces with that
number, he said. That is a problem that happen really often, government and executives they all
know about the numbers, they have the statistics, but they do not care, because they do not have
any friends or relatives in those numbers. When Potter was able to see that, he knew how badly
was the health industry. Meanwhile his company was going perfectly, having a luxurious jet to
go to meetings.
The utilitarian ethics would go against this health care, where the men in charge only care
about the money of the company, where these persons made decisions that affect the lives of a lot
of people only because they want to maximize their profits. We cannot see at all the greater good

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for the greater number; we can only see a capitalism system that lead a company to only care of
itself.
One cannot understand what kind of world is this where there is the possibility to help
someone but people do not do it because that would mean to lose money. Talking about the help
that a hospital could give, it could be about live or death. However, it remains the same, there is
not help provided. Kanthian ethics would indicate that it is the duty of a hospital to help the
patients. It is the duty of the pharmacies to provide medicine to help these patients and about that,
people could make an argument. How could the human being make the pharmaceutical industry
so powerful? If there is a change in this industry imagine how many people would live because of
that. Medicines had become so expensive that even people from the middle class could not
afford it, imagine the lower classes. Pharmacies and hospital setting these prices are going
against the virtue ethics and some of the common-sense ethical principles, like beneficence,
integrity, non-injury and respectfulness.
Adam Smith indicates that self-interests of the companies would lead them to become
good for the community, giving importance to the clients, community, employees and no t only to
the company itself. This is something that did not happen with the health care industry, these
companies self-interest only lead them to increase prices in order to achieve the only goal they
have, maximize their profits.
Other ethical dilemma presented by the health care system is the idea that insurance
companies have a limit of age when giving insurances. The age limit of the insurance companies
is of 65 years. What happen with these old people? All of them do not work anymore; they might

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not have the savings to pay for health care. At that age the body start to give difficulties, it does
not work like when you are young. So, insurance companies are not giving insurance to the
people that will need it the most. And that is because it is not rentable. An old person does not
have the right to demand a good health care, or at least the same as the other people? Where is the
common sense principle of justice here?
The health care system of the United States has a lot of ethical dilemmas that need to be
seen with more time and study. The health care should be one of the main concerns of every
single country, because all of it is about the lives of the people and that is priceless. Governments
should get more involved with this subject whether it is by giving regulation, incentives to
businesses to give health insurance to the employees or helping with the public health care.
Countries spent millions of millions of dollars in wars, guns and other things, but they cannot
spend on public health. It should be a right to demand the health care. Ethical awareness is
something needed in this system and so do the kanthian, utilitarian, right based and commonsense principle ethics. These ethics must be in every part of the health care system, that it is what
will make the difference is needed in it. Not being like any other business but like the business of
lives, where the patient is the most valuable person.

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References
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Dixon, Bruce (2010).Obama Democrats VS Tea Party Republicans: A Fake Fight over Fake
Health Care Reform. Black Agenda Report. Retrieved from
http://blackagendareport.com/content/obama-democrats-vs-tea-party-republicans-fakefight-over-fake-reform
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_the_United_States
Killough, Ashley (2012).Republicans, Democrats spar over health care fee. CNN. Retrieved from
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/06/29/republicans-democrats-spar-over-healthcare-fee/
Moyers, Bill (2009). Whistleblower in health care industry discusses health care policy. Bill
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OECD (2011).Why is Health Spending in the United States So High? . OECD indicators.
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