Commodified Lives: Corporate Healthcare Systems Exploit Profit from Human Suffering

September 26, 2024
Martin C. Johns MD

Innovations in Healthcare and Medical Economics

The blog "Commodified Lives: Corporate Healthcare Systems Exploit Profit from Human Suffering" by Martin C. Johns MD exposes the unethical practices of for-profit healthcare corporations that prioritize financial gain over patient care. Johns, drawing from his experience as a physician and Chief Medical Officer, reveals how hospitals manipulate documentation, rush patient care, and engage in fraudulent reporting to maximize insurance reimbursements while minimizing expenses. This commodification of human life results in worse patient outcomes, particularly for marginalized communities, as the system prioritizes profit extraction over healing.
Johns describes a healthcare landscape where patients are reduced to data points, and physicians are pressured to follow profit-driven metrics rather than compassionate care. He highlights the broader societal impact of rising healthcare costs, which push Americans into debt while producing subpar health outcomes. The blog advocates for a radical overhaul of the healthcare system, replacing it with a patient-centered, transparent, and non-profit model.
The Financial Policy Council (FPC), which Johns praises, is portrayed as a key player in fighting these corporate forces. The FPC plans to release a white paper outlining policy solutions to dismantle the current profit-driven system and restore human dignity in healthcare. The blog ends with a call to action, urging healthcare professionals and the public to join the revolution against corporate greed and demand a healthcare system that values life over profit.

What would you do if the people entrusted with your health weren’t healers, but unethical profiteers? And what if your life, your well-being, was just another commodity on their balance sheet veritably written in human blood—an expendable cost in the quest for profit? Unfortunately, that is exactly what is being done.

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The Dark Side of Healthcare Profiteering

Large for-profit Healthcare Corporations earn their money by many unethical means. They categorize patients to pull as much money as possible from insurance companies and payers. Physician documentation determines the amount of money eventually collected, so they pressure doctors to maximize their words and to even alter documentation to get the most reimbursement for these companies. This leads to excessive insurance company billing, fraudulent documentation, and increased copayments and the patients are responsible for what doesn’t get covered. These corporations also falsely underreport infections and complications that result from understaffing of nurses and doctors and aggressive rapid movement of patients in and out of emergency rooms and inpatient beds. By avoiding reporting these infections for example, the corporations avoid huge fines and decreased insurance repayment. The activity is fraudulent and unethical and goes on in almost every hospital every day. In this Blog I will unveil some of these activities and dark pursuits. I will explain how this affects the reader, and solutions to prevent this suffering from continuing.

Introduction: The Human Cost of Corporate Healthcare

This blog aims to expose the exploitative nature of corporate healthcare systems that prioritize profit over human life. It seeks to rally healthcare professionals, policymakers, and the public to demand reforms that center on patient care, transparency, and ethical practices. By revealing the detrimental effects of this commodification, the blog advocates for systemic change that can restore the dignity and humanity of healthcare in America.

My Experience Inside Corporate Medicine

Truth be told, I have never written or conspired to write a blog. As a Physician Leader, Hospitalist and Emergency Room Doctor it has been my role to keep my mouth shut and to conform to the norm while always striving to be at the top of my game, helping the sick and saving lives. After joining the FPC and realizing I have assistance fighting the fetid shroud of lies that smothers the world: it is time to reveal that this slime covering applies not only to governments and pure financial groups, but also to healthcare.

Unveiling the Truth: A Physician’s Perspective

As a Chief Medical Officer and Site Medical Director for possibly the largest “for profit” healthcare group in the world I was asked to take part in misinforming patients and other physicians at the bottom of the pyramid scheme of corporate greed. Herein is a world where the sanctity of life is reduced to mere data points, where every breath, every diagnosis, and every heartbeat is calculated not for care, but for capital. In this dystopia, the patient is no longer a person with a history, a family, or a future; instead, he or she has become a series of numbers fed into an algorithm that coldly weighs worth in dollars and cents. Here, pain is not a cause for concern but an opportunity for profit extraction. Recovery, not a goal, but a liability that threatens the bottom line. Doctors, once the guardians of healing, are now subservient pawns in the tyranny of corporate metrics, their hands tied by a system that commodifies suffering.

The Broken Promise of Corporate Medicine

Corporate healthcare has undergone dramatic changes in the past few decades. Once focused on patient outcomes, many hospitals and healthcare organizations have shifted to a profit-driven model, where financial metrics often outweigh patient care. This shift has been fueled by deregulation, consolidation of healthcare providers, and the growing influence of insurance companies, creating a system that is increasingly divorced from the well-being of the patients it serves.

This will be my first foray into the revelation of this dark chapter of my life. I’ll throw in some literature supporting the truths outlined by my experiences. If I end up taken in a white unmarked van and whisked to an underground bunker never to be heard from again, I want to equally thank my two children, my friends, and the FPC for the opportunity to share. The FPC is an extraordinary organization of empowerment and foresight – dedicated to uncovering truths and providing guidance in a current climate of depression and turmoil. I hope this series will help others attempting to navigate the recesses and tunnels of healthcare corporate greed and avarice.

A Personal Journey Through the Medical Labyrinth

Why am I bitter? I spent the greater part of my adult life losing sleep and burning the candle at both ends like an Astral Doctor Strange passionately ingesting the magic of medicine. I am rewarded with a quarter million dollars in debt and no guidance in business or personal finance. When I graduate medical school I’m introduced to the AMA, an organization dedicated to Draconian bloodletting; its members forced to maintain archaic board certification and studying to pass testing on topics ten years behind the times, then forgetting this outdated information until the next exam ten years later. Despite these boundaries, I push and persevere because I want to help people. In practice I unfortunately and eventually acquired a job as a leader in a corporate medicine group dedicated to the bottom line, not patient outcomes.

The Broader Societal Impacts of a Profit-Driven System

Beyond the individual suffering it causes, the commodification of healthcare has broader implications for society. Rising healthcare costs have pushed millions of Americans into debt, while the emphasis on profit over care has led to worse health outcomes, particularly among marginalized communities. The long-term economic burden of a failing healthcare system affects us all, from lost productivity to the spiraling costs of treating preventable conditions.

I am told to blindly follow metrics based on financial benefit NOT empiric data nor patient benefit (at the peril of losing my employ). Such metrics hit patients with monetary bazookas that they often must supplement out of pocket: aimed at high reimbursement from insurance companies. Is everyone having a Stroke, experiencing a Trauma, and Septic at the same time? I am instructed to ignore what’s occurring at the clinical level – misrepresent in medical record documentation for maximum dollar recouperation, participate in rapid shuffling of patients through the emergency room on clocks posted on huge blinding screens, and send still ill patients home to make room for boarders in the ER because the hospital will not spend the money needed to support adequate nursing staffing (it’s never a situation of lacking beds- always lacking nurses).

The Harsh Reality of Profit-Driven Patient Care

Administrators tell physicians to cancel orders, and labs to discard blood culture results and diarrhea tests to avoid reporting of Healthcare Associated Infections to governmental agencies thus avoiding fines and penalties and instruct doctors to place patients on broad spectrum antibiotics since lab results were “contaminated or lost”. This means we don’t truly know how many infections are out there. We don’t know how completely our efforts to prevent Healthcare Associated Infections and Conditions have failed. And the corporations in medicine profit as a result.

The True Cost of Corporate Healthcare

You might now realize the brutal truth, the system isn’t broken—it’s functioning with terrifying precision, doing exactly what it was engineered to do. This is no accidental failure; it’s a meticulously crafted machine, designed not to heal you, but to control you, to commodify your very existence. The healthcare industry doesn’t care about your recovery or well-being—it cares about how much it can extract from you, how deeply it can sink its demonic claws into your life and turn your pain into profit. It’s not here to save you; it’s here to own you, to bind you in a cycle of dependency, where every diagnosis, every prescription, every procedure tightens its grip. You aren’t a patient—you’re an asset in its vast, profitable portfolio, and the longer you suffer, the more valuable you become to the system. Behind the glossy facade of ‘patient care,’ beneath the well-lit corridors and smiling staff, lies a ruthless economic machine, humming with precision and devoid of humanity. Every scan, every test, every diagnosis is not determined by what will restore you to health, but by how much profit can be extracted from your pain. It’s a cold calculation, where your suffering is a lucrative commodity and your well-being an afterthought. This isn’t about healing—it’s about maximizing revenue streams, turning your body into a battlefield where the corporate juggernaut feeds on your fear and vulnerability. What once was the sacred act of care has now been transformed into the most grotesque of marketplaces, where life and death hang in the balance of financial algorithms, and compassion has been traded for profit. You’re not a patient here—you’re a product, a resource to be mined, exploited, and discarded when your profitability wanes. This is healthcare, stripped of its soul, reduced to a brutal, unforgiving economy.

With the TRUTH nauseously spinning in your mind, gut, and heart you work up the courage to speak up. Your blood boils in response to these conditions, and as a Healthcare Provider you find yourself either shackled with golden handcuffs or relocated to peer review for cases where you were perceived to not “follow the standard of care”: such standards established by bean counters and sycophants looking to move up in the ranks in this evil empire. Doctors, bound by our calling to heal, are enslaved to navigate a landscape dominated by bureaucrats and bean counters, where treatment plans are dictated by cost-effectiveness, not compassion. Doctors are forced to rush patients through systems, avoid necessary tests and treatments but instead perform unnecessary but financially profitable (for the corporations) procedures.

The Silencing of Ethical Healthcare Providers

But this corporate system leads to better outcomes, right? Tighter systems with more metric driven care yields decreased morbidity and mortality? Not according to this JAMA article from last year1. Are patients with mental illness immune to the lies and deceit of Corporate Health Care? No, my friend, as illustrated in this recent paper on the exploitation of Psychiatric patients for company profit, they are targets, goals, and “cash cows” in these algorithms of darkness2. This all means you and your loved ones are more likely to contract further illness, further confusion, or die as a patient in a corporate healthcare system. [Stick to your rural and non-for-profit community systems where outcomes are better.] What entity exists to derail these insidious individuals and groups from their evil intentions?

FPC: A Beacon of Hope in Healthcare Reform

The Financial Policy Council (FPC) has long advocated for free markets that are driven by human values, not by the commodification of suffering. As part of our broader mission, the FPC seeks to expose the corrupt structures in corporate healthcare and demand a radical overhaul of the system. The FPC holds its members to the highest standards such that eventually, US Leadership will look to us to WRITE THE NEW NARRATIVE.

Being a part of the FPC has allowed me to feel protected and supported by individuals trying to make a difference. We are standing at the precipice, and only bold, radical action will reclaim healthcare from the clutches of corporate interests. We don’t need to patch up this monstrous system—it needs to be violently torn down, root and branch, and replaced with something that honors human life instead of selling it to the highest bidder. This is the moment to rise as real superheroes, to fight, and to rebuild a system where human life is valued beyond profit margins. But first, we must burn it down.

A Call for Radical Change

To dismantle this profit-driven healthcare system, we must first support policies that promote transparency in healthcare costs, protect whistleblowers within the medical community, and incentivize non-profit models of healthcare. On an individual level, patients can seek care from community or non-profit hospitals, support politicians who advocate for healthcare reform, and demand accountability from healthcare providers.

Call to Action: Join the Revolution

Right now, you have a choice: to allow this viral, parasitic system to thrive off the pain of others or to stand up and demand something better. Don’t let your silence enable the profiteers. Share this message, call for justice, and align yourself with the fight for real change. If you remain silent, you become part of the problem, complicit in the suffering. Every moment of hesitation feeds the system’s insatiable greed. You have the power to change that. Stand up, speak out, and act before it’s too late.

Join the Healthcare Revolution

The Financial Policy Council (FPC) stands as the uncompromising force at the forefront of the battle for justice in healthcare and beyond. While others settle for minor adjustments to a fundamentally broken system, FPC demands nothing less than a radical overhaul. We believe in free markets—but not markets that exploit human suffering for profit. Our vision is one where markets are driven by human values, where profit never overshadows life, and where healthcare is a right, not a privilege. The upcoming FPC White Paper on Healthcare, set to be published in September 2024, will expose the grotesque realities of our current system—a system that thrives on human suffering. More importantly, it will provide bold, concrete policy solutions that can dismantle the chains holding healthcare hostage to corporate greed. This paper is not just an exposé; it’s a blueprint for rebuilding healthcare into a system that serves people, not profits.

We’re not content to merely diagnose the problem—we’re prescribing the cure. The FPC’s white paper outlines a transformative vision of healthcare that is decentralized, patient-owned, and cooperative. Imagine a system where doctors are not bound by insurance companies, but instead, free to prioritize patient care, upholding the Hippocratic Oath without compromise. The FPC challenges the corrupted structures that have turned healthcare into a marketplace of exploitation, advocating for policies that restore dignity, freedom, and equity to every individual. This is not about reform—it’s about revolution. With FPC leading the charge, we can build a future where healthcare respects and uplifts life, instead of commodifying it.

You can either stand by and watch this system swallow more lives whole, or you can rise up and fight back. The truth is out there, but it needs you to spread it, to demand that those responsible face real consequences. Every second of hesitation is another life lost to greed and neglect. Your silence empowers this system. Speak out, join the revolution, and refuse to be complicit in this ongoing tragedy. The time for action is now—don’t let another moment pass in quiet surrender. Attend an FPC meeting to know how to join the fight!
This is the crossroads. You can allow this system to continue its relentless devouring of lives, or you can step into the fight. Don’t stand on the sidelines while others suffer. Raise your voice, share the truth, and hold those in power accountable. If you remain silent, you’re not just a bystander—your part of the problem. Every minute you wait, the system grows stronger, feeding on the weak. It’s time to act. Time to demand change, to take your stand. This moment defines whether you’re complicit in the destruction or part of the revolution.
This is the line in the sand. You have the power to choose: will you watch this system continue its predatory cycle, or will you step up and become part of the change? Spread the truth, call for accountability, and join those who refuse to let profit take precedence over human lives. Silence isn’t just passive—it’s an endorsement of the system’s cruelty. Every second of inaction allows the machine to claim another victim. Your choice is simple: stand with the revolution or stand by as another life is taken.
You should find and back innovators who want to use their inventions to help first rip down then improve healthcare. Innovators in policy making like the FPC members, those intent to provide lower cost and higher quality personalized healthcare and longevity, and those providing innovation in eco-friendly sanitation and cleanliness.
This is THE critical moment. You can either stand by and let this machine continue to grind down human lives for profit, or you can rise and fight back. The truth is out there, but it needs to be amplified. Every second of silence is a second where more people suffer under a system that sees them as dollar signs. Your silence isn’t neutral—it’s a contribution to the problem. Every moment you stay silent, another life is lost. This is your chance to act, to demand accountability, and to help dismantle this broken system.

Stay tuned for the release of the FPC White Paper on Healthcare this September and join us in this fight for justice and transformation. Visit the Financial Policy Council for updates and more information. Together, we can make this revolution a reality.

Questions to Ponder:

Will healthcare providers organize to take back medical care from non-clinical charlatans?

Can you be a healthcare provider and maintain your soul, or do you have to sell it to keep your job?

Will I get taken away in a clown van for posting this blog?

Bibliography:

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/2813379

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/01/business/acadia-psychiatric-patients-trapped.html

Disclaimer: This article discusses certain companies and their products or services as potential solutions. These mentions are for illustrative purposes only and should not be interpreted as endorsements or investment recommendations. All investment strategies carry inherent risks, and it is imperative that readers conduct their own independent research and seek advice from qualified investment professionals tailored to their specific financial circumstances before making any investment decisions.

The content provided here does not constitute personalized investment advice. Decisions to invest or engage with any securities or financial products mentioned in this article should only be made after consulting with a qualified financial advisor, considering your investment objectives and risk tolerance. The author assumes no responsibility for any financial losses or other consequences resulting directly or indirectly from the use of the content of this article.

As with any financial decision, thorough investigation and caution are advised before making investment decisions.