{"id":19863,"date":"2026-05-17T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-17T18:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gemstatepatriot.com\/blog\/?p=19863"},"modified":"2026-05-17T17:18:26","modified_gmt":"2026-05-17T23:18:26","slug":"misplaced-compassion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gemstatepatriot.com\/blog\/misplaced-compassion\/","title":{"rendered":"Misplaced Compassion"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I recently read a Substack article by Dutch Rojas titled,\u00a0\u201dThe Language of Compassion Is Doing the Work.\u201d<\/a><\/em>\u00a0The title is close to the truth\u2014but not quite. My concern is not with the logic of his argument, which is largely sound, but with the linguistic distortion that underlies many progressive approaches to modern social problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Compassion, properly understood, requires action. It is not merely a feeling, like empathy or sympathy. It demands personal sacrifice directed toward another individual. By definition, compassion is an individual moral act. Governments cannot be compassionate. Institutions cannot be compassionate. Only people can be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This distinction matters. When public officials appropriate the language of compassion, they often obscure the nature of what is actually taking place. Consider Nancy Pelosi\u2019s remark during a CNN interview with Wolf Blitzer: \u201cWe feed them,\u201d she said, referring to government programs. This was not compassion. It was redistribution. Whatever one thinks of redistribution as policy, it is not an act of personal sacrifice on the part of the policymaker. The funds being distributed belong to others, not to those allocating them. The moral vocabulary of compassion is thus applied where it does not properly belong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is not accidental. It is a deliberate linguistic shift\u2014one that substitutes the appearance of moral virtue for its substance. Language is not merely describing reality; it is reshaping it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rojas highlights how this linguistic distortion operates within the health care system, where what he terms a \u201ccartel\u201d relies on euphemism to maintain both profit and public legitimacy. Over time, these phrases become normalized, even when they obscure the truth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Opacity becomes morality. The chargemaster is not a real price, and negotiated rates remain hidden. Patients cannot know the cost of care until after it is delivered. This is defended as protection from \u201csticker shock,\u201d but in practice it protects incumbents from competition. A market without transparent prices is not a market\u2014it is a system of tribute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coordination becomes concentration. Insurers, pharmacy benefit managers, and physician groups vertically integrate and describe the result as seamless care. Patients are told they benefit from convenience. In reality, consolidation limits choice and entrenches control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Facility fees become sophistication. The same procedure, performed by the same physician in the same room, suddenly costs more because a hospital owns the facility. This is justified as necessary to support institutional capacity. In effect, it is a rent charged by ownership, not on care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Consolidation becomes quality. Health systems defend mergers as improving outcomes through scale and standardization. Yet the empirical record often shows rising costs and reduced competition, with little improvement in patient outcomes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Certificates of need become community protection. In many states, new medical facilities must secure approval from existing competitors. The stated goal is to prevent overcapacity and preserve rural care. The practical effect is to block competition under the guise of protecting the \u201ccommunity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nonprofit status becomes public benefit. Tax-exempt health systems receive significant financial advantages in exchange for serving their communities. Yet many operate with margins comparable to or exceeding for-profit entities while devoting relatively little to charity care. The label suggests charity; the function often reflects market dominance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Broker commissions become advice. Employers rely on brokers to navigate health insurance options, yet those brokers are frequently compensated by the insurers whose products they recommend. Advice that flows from a conflicted incentive structure is not neutral guidance\u2014it is distribution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prior authorization becomes false stewardship. Insurers frame pre-approval requirements as a safeguard against unnecessary care. In practice, these mechanisms often delay treatment, deny physician judgment, and prioritize cost containment over patient welfare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In each case, language does the work. Terms with positive moral connotations are borrowed to justify practices that would be far less defensible if described plainly. As Rojas observes, the gap between what is said and what is true is where extraction occurs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two generations of well-meaning people have come to equate opacity with morality. Secrecy appears protective. Consolidation appears caring. Tax advantage appears charitable. But these are illusions sustained by language.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A humane health care system should subsidize need, not incumbency. It should serve patients, not protect entrenched interests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This has implications beyond policy design. It reaches into the integrity of our political system. Legislators who accept contributions from the health care lobby while claiming to act in the name of compassion participate\u2014knowingly or not\u2014in this distortion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I would urge candidates for public office to reject such contributions altogether. If a politician is truly compassionate, they should be able to defend to whom they are directing such compassion and divorce themselves from any financial support of those who benefit from a lack of transparency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For my part, I will withhold campaign contributions from any legislator who accepts funding from entities that profit from this system of linguistic and economic obfuscation. Executives earning millions annually do not require public subsidy, however it is labeled. Patients do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Compassion is not a word to be deployed. It is a virtue to be practiced. When language is used to disguise self-interest as moral action, both truth and trust are eroded. Restoring clarity\u2014both linguistic and ethical\u2014is the first step toward meaningful reform.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I recently read a Substack article by Dutch Rojas titled,\u00a0\u201dThe Language of Compassion Is Doing the Work.\u201d\u00a0The title is close to the truth\u2014but not quite. My concern is not with the logic of his argument, which is largely sound, but with the linguistic distortion that underlies many progressive approaches to modern social problems. Compassion, properly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":19864,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1051],"tags":[1000],"class_list":["post-19863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-john-livingston","tag-compassion","cat-1051-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gemstatepatriot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gemstatepatriot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gemstatepatriot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gemstatepatriot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gemstatepatriot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19863"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gemstatepatriot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19863\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19865,"href":"https:\/\/gemstatepatriot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19863\/revisions\/19865"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gemstatepatriot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gemstatepatriot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gemstatepatriot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gemstatepatriot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}