Consequences of a Profit-driven Health Care System

                A profit-driven health care system can lead to unintended and intended consequences such as selfishly profiting from those who are medically disadvantaged, those who are deemed unhealthy falling victim to economic policies, and receiving unfair treatment as a result of not being able to afford health care services. These consequences can lead to or can be based on what Stefan Elbe calls biopolitical racism; racism that is not based on ethnicity or culture but racism based on who is healthy and who is not.

With this in mind, a profit-driven health care system may enable large companies and large pharmaceutical companies to selfishly profit at the expense of those who are medically disadvantaged. Bioethics, Vulnerability, and Protection, an article discussing exploitation in the field of medicine, describes how Pfizer, a large pharmaceutical company, had sponsored a clinical trial in Nigeria that led to severely harming those involved in the trial. This clinical trial had used subjects who were children inflicted with meningitis during an epidemic of meningitis in children. The drug being tested, and therefore had not been approved for use in the United States, was trovafloxacin. The experiment had resulted in eleven children dying as a result and several others becoming deaf or blind (Macklin, 2003). Nevertheless, the company justified the study since the purpose was to “study the safety and effectiveness of the product and… to pioneer a breakthrough treatment for the Third World” (Macklin, 2003).

Even though there are guidelines and regulations that are enforced, that does not meant that they will always be followed. Nevertheless, even if these regulations were strictly enforced, do the individuals participating in the experiment really have a choice? The children participating are extremely sick, their parents have no money, and they are presented, in essence, with ‘free’ medication. Because these individuals are coming from disadvantaged and medically disadvantaged backgrounds they may not have access to any health care services or even beware of scientific concepts and research and their consequences. As a result, having so-called benefits such as receiving medication at no financial cost can be very appealing almost a blessing to parents who have no money to treat their child. Therefore, in a profit-driven health care system a consequence may be selfishly profiting at the expense of people coming from these backgrounds.

Another consequence of a profit- driven health care system may be the possibility of falling victim to economic policies as a result of not being able to have access to health care services. In Aids, Security, Biopolitics, the author of the article had stated that in 1999 a former UN Population Fund official had joked that aids would be a means to controlling population growth in Africa. The author of the article, Stefan Elbe, then summarizes the intentions of the joke as meaning “increased mortality… was one of three ways of controlling population growth, thereby implying that hypothetically letting those infected with HIV die could be beneficial for those surviving the pandemic” (Elbe, 2005).  Again analyzing the words of the official through an economic perspective, Barton Gellman author of The Belated Global Response to Aids in Africa, writes ‘ [i]f the only effect of the AIDS epidemic were to reduce the population growth rate, it would increase the growth rate of per capita income in any plausible economic model’ (Elbe, 2005).

Then, from a main representation of a government, the president of Botswana, summarized in the words of Stefan Elbe, had stated that “providing antiretrovirals (ARVs) to its citizens would have the undesirable effect of keeping persons living with HIV alive longer, thus increasing the chances of further transmission of the virus which was undesirable for the population as a whole” (Elbe, 2005). In essence, these groups who are not only inflicted with disease but are also coming from disadvantaged and medically disadvantaged backgrounds have now become part of economic analysis on disease that only focuses on the benefits of the economy versus the health of the people. Even the health of the people can be dangerous to state because as Stefan Elbe argues, the biopolitical racism results in the idea of those are healthy as benefiting more with the absence of the unhealthy. Rather than provide treatment which can be costly and in which David Korn claims that everyone will benefit, in a profit-driven health care system those who cannot afford treatment can be subjected to unfair treatment and fall victim to economic policies that give priority and importance to the economy rather than the health of those who cannot afford or cannot gain access to health care services.

Finally, another consequence of a profit-driven health care system is receiving unfair treatment as a result of not being able to afford health care services. As Stefan Elbe, author of Aids, Security, Biopolitics, states rather than receive treatment individuals who cannot afford access to health care to get treated are often quarantined, such as those living with HIV/AIDS, faced with violence, loss of job opportunities, ostracized, and in cases persecuted. Again the consequences of simply stating that everyone can benefit by sacrificing pieces of their self to gain benefit in return can lead to consequences such as the justification of such treatment in that this is protecting, improving, and ensuring the “health of populations” (Elbe, 2005). As an example, stated in Elbe’s article, in Colombia, “left-wing guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)” had ordered 30,000 inhabitants to take HIV tests. If they had tested positive they were ordered out of their homes. In addition, they were ordered to carry identity cards that contained the result of the tests.  Again the biopolitical racism that Stefan Elbe discusses is present in this case because there is the unjust treatment of individuals based on them being considered unhealthy by forcing them to leave their homes and forcing them to carry identity cards as if their disease is their identity.

In conclusion, the consequences, whether intended or unintended, can lead to decisions that may harm or even kill populations who are coming from disadvantaged and medically disadvantaged backgrounds. This in turn can also lead to actions being taken that is based on biopolitical racism which may justify the harm being inflicted on vulnerable populations coming from these backgrounds.