Don’t blame the insurance companies for being douchebags

In yet another moment of Rachel Maddow greatness, watch and learn as she explains how and why, in the end, you shouldn’t really blame the insurance companies for trying to cut as many of their clients loose as possible and maximize profits through underhanded and decidedly douchey tactics – it’s just what they do. She makes a very good point.

I’ve already commented on Rep. Weiner’s terrific ass-kicking of the Republicans, so I won’t touch on that here. But Maddow’s lengthy explanation of the healthcare insurance providers being companies, not people with feelings and a moral sense of should vs. shouldn’t, is the true focus of the video, and it’s a point that I honestly never even considered until now.

In other words, it’s exactly as if you put a douchebag in charge of a country. The douchebag is going to be doing some douchey things, out of greed, self-centeredness, and all thanks to a lack of empathy and compassion. He is going to cripple the country, ravage its systems and suck its lifeblood dry, all for personal gain and prosperity. You can hate the douchebag and rage against him all you want, but you still can’t really blame the douchebag for acting like such a douche – it’s what douchebags are, it’s what they do. It’s in their very nature.

This is the exact problem we have with America’s healthcare industry as it is. (And yes, it certainly is little more than an industry today.) People have placed douchebags in charge, in the form of profit-seeking companies and corporations whose role is to provide healthcare in a manner that will result in them getting richer from people’s sickness. No, people may not have directly voted to put this system in place (and if they have, I’m unaware of it), but they let it happen through the incompetent and greedy officials and politicians they elected. And now, we have companies at the head of the nation’s healthcare system, doing just what all good companies do: making money by any means necessary.

Just as with the metaphorical douchebag in charge of the country, we cannot change the system simply by altering a few details, and we cannot attempt to have the companies, themselves, change. You don’t get rid of a douchebag by appealing to his better nature – they probably have none. Instead, you kick them out on their ass and replace them with someone who actually does care about their country’s welfare and happiness.

We need a fucking public option. That’s all it comes down to. End of story.

(via @todayspolitics)