Cue the Violins! - from D.

D. sent us  this article  on beleaguered insurance executives in The New York Times. 

'“I believe we’re getting the pushback because we are standing up for what we believe in,” said Cheryl Tidwell, 45, Humana’s director of commercial sales training.'

"For what we believe in"?     

I personally never had to wonder, in the midst of changing the diapers of elderly patients, or cleaning out a patient's abscesses, what I believed in.  I always knew my job was grubby, but necessary.  But I'm having great difficulty understanding the necessity of for-profit health insurance companies, such as CIGNA and Humana, Inc. 

Like so many other Americans, I've been through job re-training more than once, so I find it ludicrous to suggest that the insurance industry needs to be propped up simply because the loss of the industry would result in the temporary displacement of its workers. 

It's worth noting that ours is the only country that allows "for-profit" insurance companies. In Germany, for example, all the private insurance companies are strictly regulated, and strictly non-profit.