Earlier quoted context omitted.
IDK if needs to be reasoned or not. I'm imagining someone making these comments to the author's face after having been read the article. The 'callous' part comes from disregarding everything in the article to go on some great tangent about the AMA and artificial scarcity of doctors. What's more, it seems that this article has triggered a reflexive anti-union stance, when it's more a hallmark of a place where capitali…
Being a business means they have to optimize for profit (to at least some non trivial degree), or die. Many hospitals are run by non profit organizations to help reduce this problem. However even they cannot run at a loss overall for long. Bankruptcy doesn’t help anyone actually provide services, after all. Gov’t has different incentives - but then care is strongly controlled and limited by public policy, for better…
Eg, businesses that cheat and get caught. Businesses that over consume and can no longer produce.Also, that optimization can have the opposite effect. Eg, optimize revenue by showing max ads, with max ads users start to flee. A hospital could optimize for patientoutcomes, and then do better because the patients stay around.
This overall though assumes that free market principles work in healthcare. Those principles tend to assume consumer choice.