Valeant Pharmaceuticals CEO: We’re in Business of Shareholder Profit, not Helping the Sick

From Ring of Fire:

Pierson’s company is not in the business of curing disease and easing suffering. It exists to make big money for its shareholders, something that Pearson readily acknowledges: “[If] products are sort of mispriced and there’s an opportunity, we will act appropriately in terms of doing what I assume our shareholders would like us to do.” In “acting appropriately,” Valeant has raised the prices on several drugs this year – in some cases, as much as 800%.

More here.

This is a pretty clear and concise explanation why capitalism and the Hippocratic Oath are hopelessly at odds.

I mean, of course, individual capitalists can run their own businesses however they want; in this sense, a doctor can earn money ethically. But the larger a business becomes, the less ability there is to do this, and the more the concerns of business begin to outweigh the ethics of practicing medicine.

Today, the entire field is dominated by such organizations. Corporate medicine. It exists to enrich the wealthy. Not to heal the sick. That's why the ACA, in the long run, isn't much more than a band-aid on a massive malignant tumor. Obamacare will collapse on itself under such conditions.

Socialized medicine is inevitable. The only question to be asked is how many people will have to die before we start doing what we have to do.

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