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The Case for Collectivism

In last month's column, I cited opinions from other nations about our health-care system. This month, I'm going out on a limb with a saw.

By Ken Brownlee | Updated on November 04, 2009
In last month’s column, I cited opinions from other nations about our health-care system. This month, I’m going out on a limb with a saw. After recently speaking with some high school graduates who are going on to college, I found that their almost universal choice of major was either finance or computer science. The really smart ones occasionally mentioned some high-paying medical specialty — never family medicine because that doesn’t pay the college loans — or that they wanted to become lawyers. None were even slightly interested in fields like nursing, social work, or teaching. There’s no money in that. So, do J. P. Morgan, Donald Trump, and Bill Gates really need these kids to make them another billion bucks?

Not one was interested in a career in the P&C industry either, unless it was in some phase of marketing or investments. No one considered a career in claim adjusting. But then, why should they? They’ve probably never heard of it. Our end of the industry is not very big on PR, and most high school grads would probably consider handling claims as a dead-end job. Few know how exciting the claim profession can be. When you were graduating from high school, did you say, “Gosh, I can hardly wait to become an insurance adjuster”? Most of us stumbled into our careers by accident.

Last month, this column cited criticisms from British journalists who think our “capitalistic” approach to medical care is based on greed. Well, of course it is. Haven’t we all bought into Ayn Rand’s utopist ideals, where we’re all rich and famous? We’re surely not going to get there teaching high school or working for the welfare department, or as a nurse or other non-physician medical technician. Those jobs are for losers. Today’s Generation X or Y wants the big bonuses customarily paid to bankers and Wall Street investors.

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