Some things are hard to contemplate but contemplate them we must. Imagine you have severe chest pain that radiates to your jaw and left shoulder and think you are having a heart attack. Most people would probably call 911, but others afraid of incurring the steep cost of an ambulance ride are reluctant to do so. The doctor they call, it turns out, is a “call center” probably in Manila, Philippines or Hyderabad, India. It is certainly not the doctor they had seen last week at the One Medical clinic, owned by Bezos’s Amazon Prime. You are in the twilight zone of corporate medicine. The voice talking to you makes no sense. A vision of your own end confronts you.

This story is far from my picture of what good medicine ought to be. A well-organized, ethical medical practice is antithetical to what an Amazon “call center” version offers. When we call a doctor in an emergency, we expect expertise or reliable information — that someone with an answer will contact us, soon.

This story illustrates the corporatization of health care where your health is of on equal footing as, your refrigerator, TV set or car engine. They all are extremely important objects in our lives; but our health is different. It is a state of being; it shouldn’t be taken lightly. In my practice, all calls were important; I answered them promptly, courteously. In answering patients’ calls we ascertain that no harm will befall them.

Two problems loom before us: profound silence of the medical profession and an encroaching, uber capitalist corporate America. Ideally members of the medical profession serve the sick where the ability to pay should never be a consideration. Our medical world is governed by high ethical standards that are regulated by hospital and state Medical Boards as well as individual physician’s conscience.

Contrast that to a corporate America that slowly bends, forces, and plows whatever it encounters on its way to more profit. There is progressive deterioration in health care results, all resulting from the combined squeeze of the ever drying health care tree.

The safeguard of the practice and integrity of medical care falls on organized medicine — namely AMA. Unfortunately, with its passive acquiescence, corporate America has chipped away at the essence of American health care. It has been painful to watch blocks of patients pilfered from individual practitioners, by doctor groups, and later HMOs and lately by Amazon, CVS and others. It is a wilderness where the individual patient is left naked. The AMA is nowhere to be found. The most important entity in healthcare used to be the patient. The patient / physician relationship was sacrosanct. You can’t have such a relationship with your doc when to call him you go through a “call center?” Today it seems, patients are no more than a way to a profit.

No sooner than for-profit-healthcare came into existence, mega medical frauds surfaced. The for profit HCA corporation that former Florida Governor Rick Scott was CEO of, ran into all sorts of troubles – from over billing Medicare, to many other malfeasances. HCA was fined $881 million in 2000 and another chunk in 2001for a total of $1.7 Billion. As recent as June 2024, 200 people — doctors, nurse practitioners and other licensed medical professionals — have been charged for $2.7 Billion healthcare fraud.

Ours is an uber capitalist society, in which the ever acquisitive entities make as much money as earthly possible; such is the capitalist ethos. But when it comes to our health do we really want to be regarded as products? Do I want a corporation viewing my well-being and that of mine as a place to make profit, by figuring what corners to cut? The American Medical Association, the aggressive medical body that waged wars against such things as establishment of Medicare and social security, has been absolutely silent. New life should be breathed into it so it can rejoin the healthcare battle — for all.

It is shameful for the leaders of medical groups to passively watch venture capital buy hospitals such as Cerberus Capital in Boston, sell anything that’s of value, and after stripping it shatter. It’s happened mostly in hospitals that serve the poor and disenfranchised. So often America forgets that all its citizens’ health and its maintenance is a constitutional right: life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.

Pius Kamau, M.D., a retired general surgeon, is president of the Aurora-based Africa America Higher Education Partnerships; co-founder of the Africa Enterprise Group and an activist for minority students’ STEM education. He is a National Public Radio commentator, a Huffington Post blogger, a past columnist for Denver dailies and is featured on the podcast, “Never Again.”