Let's be honest. As the midterm elections approach, the Democratic messaging apparatus has made a calculated pivot. Having apparently exhausted their talking points about the price of eggs and unleaded gasoline, they have directed their focus toward health care, desperately trying to frame the routine cost of staying alive as some sort of affordability crisis. It is a catchy phrase, designed to play well with the base. But as I watched this narrative unfold from the Acela quiet car this morning, I could not help but feel a profound sense of disappointment in our political discourse. Why are we demonizing the only industry in America that still knows how to turn a reliable profit off human frailty?
Just last Tuesday, I sat down for an off-the-record lunch with a senior executive at UnitedHealth Group at a rather nice spot near Capitol Hill. Over a very acceptable sea bass, he looked practically grief-stricken. Here is a company that has worked tirelessly to achieve record-breaking revenues, streamlining the exact science of denying prior authorizations, and their reward is to be dragged into the political mud by politicians claiming an inhaler should not cost the same as a used Honda. We are punishing success.
The fundamental misunderstanding driving this so-called crisis is a simple matter of perspective. When a working-class family is forced to liquidate their retirement savings to cover a surprise emergency room billing code, the Democrats see a tragedy. I see liquidity entering the marketplace. That money does not simply vanish into the ether. It goes toward administrative salaries, dividend yields, and the construction of dazzling, glass-paneled regional oncology centers that look like contemporary art museums. The American health care system accounts for nearly twenty percent of our gross domestic product. Trying to make it affordable is tantamount to sabotaging the economy.
The Republicans, to their credit, have largely avoided this trap. While they may occasionally gesture at the cost of living, their messaging has rightly remained focused on the actual priorities of the American voter, like ensuring that corporate tax rates remain in the basement where they belong. They understand that you do not fix the economy by attacking the job creators who bravely figure out how to charge eighty dollars for a single Tylenol tablet.
The industry is already feeling the sting of this ungrateful rhetoric from the left.
It is deeply hurtful to hear lawmakers call our quarterly earnings a crisis when we have worked so hard to optimize the monetization of chronic illness.
Consider the sheer arrogance of the voter who expects their health insurance to actually cover their medical needs without a deductible roughly equivalent to a mortgage down payment. We have fostered a culture of entitlement. My own personal trainer recently complained to me about the out-of-pocket costs for his wife's insulin. I had to gently remind him that without those high premiums, pharmaceutical executives would lack the financial incentive to occasionally sponsor a charity golf tournament for diabetes awareness. You simply cannot have it both ways.
Furthermore, the constant whining about prescription drug prices completely ignores the essential role that advertising plays in our culture. If we cap the cost of medications, how will Pfizer afford to run those beautiful, slow-motion television commercials featuring people walking through fields of golden wheat while a voiceover lists thirty-five terrifying side effects? Those advertisements are a staple of the Sunday shows. They are part of the American fabric.
Just last month, a private equity firm acquired the only remaining independent hospital in a nearby zip code, immediately closed the unprofitable maternity ward, and converted the real estate into a high-yield concierge wellness clinic. This is the free market operating at peak efficiency. To hear lawmakers describe this magnificent consolidation of capital as a crisis is frankly an insult to the brilliant minds on K Street who made it happen.
The Democrats' insistence on messaging around affordability is a clear sign that they have lost touch with the realities of modern venture capital. We should be celebrating the fact that a single appendectomy can generate enough revenue to keep a mid-sized billing department employed for a month. Instead of demanding lower premiums, perhaps the American consumer should focus on acquiring a better portfolio of health care stocks. If you cannot beat the affordability crisis, you should at least have the good sense to collect a dividend from it.