U.S. News

Jim Withers, who coined the term “street medicine” decades ago and cares for homeless people in Pittsburgh, welcomed the entry of more providers given the enormous need. But he cautioned against a model with financial motives.

“I do worry about the corporatization of street medicine and capitalism invading what we’ve been building, largely as a social justice mission outside of the traditional health care system,” he said. “But nobody owns the streets, and we have to figure out how to play nice together.”

While I don't hate anything that helps people, and I'm not as anti-capitalist as some in this community, I wondered about this too. While it's great that a business was able to see a market here and can profit while doing good, I too would be a little wary. So much (ie seemingly almost all of it) of US healthcare is already driven by for-profit motives. We all know that even having health insurance, private or otherwise, can still be insanely expensive.

I don't know how Medicaid, Medicare, or California's funding and regulations work. But I'd want to make sure that the unhoused receive good care and continue to receive good care. And that profits are kept to a reasonable level. Healthcare obviously has costs; it's not cheap to provide. But I'd hate to see even more money gobbled-up and services to the unhoused decrease in quality/quantity because the profit-seeking side of the company demands more profit.