The consumers categorize industries according to tastes, preferences and to some extent moral values. This behavior of consumers of liking some industries as well as demeaning others is very ethical depending on one’s perspective and beliefs. For example, a person who does not take alcoholic drinks or smoke due to factors like temperance will not equalize beer industry with other industries like fast foods and soft drinks.
I do not believe there are industries that are unfairly targeted. There must be area in the industry that consumers are not satisfied with it. For instance, health insurance industry is one of the worst industries in the American market (Forbes, 2018). This is because of their poor customer service, providing covers that do not meet client’s expectations and needs, and providing conflicting responses to policy holders. Such an industry will never be rated equal with other industries that provide the consumers with better customer service. Sometimes it is the consumers who choose to continue consuming those services due to own reasons, such as, lack of options.
The health insurance industry is among the worst industries that consumers deal with. This industry has many unethical practices in its pursuit for profit. This industry does not have any interest with the consumers of its service. One, the industry is known for cancelling insurance policy when the claims become too costly. For example, if a policy holder has cancer, companies in this industry look for the loopholes in the policy contract in order to cancel the contract. This can be done even when the client is undergoing chemotherapy.
Two, this industry categorizes consumers on discriminative factors. For example, smokers pay more premiums than non-smokers. If one quits smoking and fails to notify the insurance company, the premium is rolled over and a policy holder continues to pay more (Forbes, 2016). This makes the company to make a lot of profit while exploiting the consumers. When the industry uses the credit scores to determine the premium, it discriminates the lower income earners by refusing to provide them with health care policies (NCBI, 2018). This leads to an equality in access of health care services.
Lastly, this insurance companies collude with medics in denying consumers vital procedures. The medics are advised to skip vital and expensive procedure so that these companies can make huge profits (All Answers Ltd, 2020). This is unethical and it can result to loss of lives.
In conclusion, companies cannot balance their interests and consumer’s interests at the same time. What prevails in most cases, it is the company’s goal, that is, making profit and bringing more consumers on board. But, the interests of consumers are not taken care of. The capitalism dominates, and there is no hope that companies will ever be satisfied with making more profits. In the pursuit to make huge profit consumers interest is compromised.
