The New York Times yesterday had a sad front pager detailing the demise of three for-profit diabetes prevention centres in the city, which is experiencing something of an epidemic of Type 2 diabetes.

From the story:

They did not shut down because they had failed their patients. They closed because they had failed to make money. They were victims of the byzantine world of American health care, in which the real profit is made not by controlling chronic diseases like diabetes but by treating their many complications.

Insurers, for example, will often refuse to pay $150 for a diabetic to see a podiatrist, who can help prevent foot ailments associated with the disease. Nearly all of them, though, cover amputations, which typically cost more than $30,000.

As the article goes on to show, one of the less talked-about problems with for-profit medicine is that good, effective preventive medicine is not “profitable.”

Think about that when you go and vote.

OH, AND HAVE I MENTIONED?:

Vote NDP.