A lot of the serious problems in our society today can be attributed to the difference in goals between the citizens of the country and monetary goals of the corporations that run most of the country. For example, oil companies want to make money at the expense of people’s pocketbooks and the environment. Health care companies want to make money from multiple doctor visits and procedures instead of trying to keep citizens healthy (which would mean fewer doctor visits). In order to make capitalism work in society’s favor, we need to somehow change the rules so that monetary benefits for companies are aligned with the needs and goals of the citizens and country as a whole. If there were monetary incentives to fixing health care, education, etc in this country then it would happen much faster than anything the government might do. So how do we change the rules to align companies and citizen’s goals? Is it even possible?

I’m not sure if this is possible. Obviously any changes in the rules to shift how the money is distributed in these industries would require law changes from Congress. And since Congress is run by the lobbyists of these industries, there is absolutely no incentive to do such a thing. The Veteran’s Health Administration is a great example of how this might work.  Since most people stay in they system for their entire life, the VA actually receives the benefits of doing preventive medicine.  Preventive medicine keeps the veterans healthy and prevents costly procedures being done later in their lives.  Since many people switch between HMO’s frequently (with each job change at least), one HMO does not see any benefit for good preventive care, since the later cost savings may be reaped by a different HMO.  So if we keep patients under one health care company for their entire lives, the company monetary goals end up in the best interest of the patients.  It seems that we should keep everyone under one health system to improve preventive care for everyone.  I think the most logical basis for this would be a national health care system based on the current VA system.