Acupuncture Is Like Noodles

"Wages without profits are fine with us, in part because we feel genuinely queasy about the idea of making a profit while practicing health care. We know that people may find us quaint for saying so, but we believe that there is a moral problem with making money off of human suffering. We need to be compensated for taking care of people, certainly, because it takes up our time and energy and prevents us from earning a living any other way -- but being compensated with a paycheck is different than setting up our business so that sick people pay more than they absolutely have to for care in order for us to accumulate money without working for it. Some acupuncturists whom we otherwise respect keep promoting the idea that everyone should charge their patients lots of money so that acupuncturists can become rich and give money away to charities who will then do good works; we find this a very weird and convoluted kind of altruism. If you want to do good, why not just do it yourself? With people you know? Right now, instead of waiting to accumulate enough money to give away to someone else to do it?"