Last month, pharmaceutical power player Merck & Co. agreed to pay $671 million to settle whistleblower-ignited federal claims that it overcharged the government’s Medicaid and Medicare programs for several drugs and even bribed doctors to prescribe its drugs, according to Associated Press reports.

Naturally, Merck’s spin doctors trotted out the overused and flimsy disclaimer that the settlements did not "constitute an admission of any liability or wrongdoing." A company spokesperson dismissed the settlement as a way to stuff the real issue into the Fibber McGee closet of healthcare-related scandals – both past, existing and yet-to-be-uncovered. "What we have here is a disagreement (over) the rules of the Medicaid rebate program," AP quoted the Merck spokesman as saying. "These civil settlements were the best and most appropriate way to resolve these lengthy investigations."

Merck’s defense reminds me of the old "It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is," one of the classic retorts ever to be uttered in front of a grand jury. Before you continue reading and lob those "keep your politics to yourself" fireball e-mails, indulge me with this disclaimer: I’m not being partisan but merely using this presidential quote at face value to amplify a point. This transcends simplistic conservative vs. liberal or Democratic vs. Republican labels. Perhaps a better – and safer – quote to use is Strother Martin’s as the Captain, Road Prison 36 (Paul Newman’s Luke later re-uttered the line in cocky defiance), in the 1967 film, "Cool Hand Luke:" "What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate."

AP noted that the Merck settlement represents the third-largest ever for healthcare fraud (for those of you keeping score at home). Tenet Healthcare Corp. holds onto the top spot, as tabulated by "Taxpayers Against Fraud," with $900 million, followed ironically by its larger competitor HCA at $730 million.

Certainly, Merck isn’t alone in this funny money monkey business. Nearly six years ago, Bristol-Myers Squibb was fingered for "channel-stuffing," a dubious – and illegal – supply chain and accounting practice of incentivizing distributors to buy more products earlier to meet demand under the "threat" of impending price increases. Other companies have been dinged for trying to dupe Wall Street into believing that booked sales represented actual sales. And don’t forget the feds recently rapping the wrists of the big orthopedic implant manufacturers for their creative sales and marketing techniques.

But there’s an underlying and overt theme here that may rankle some: Most, if not all, of these organizations are for-profit companies. Now before your hands return to your smoldering keyboards to fire off any anti-capitalistic e-mails, hear me out. Blame crosses political affiliation and party lines, fiscal philosophies and cultural/social leanings. The bottom line: Profit is good; greed is not (sorry Gordon Gekko). Profit is good only when it’s earned fairly and honestly. In absolute terms, honesty avoids chicanery, lying, theft – and even loopholes, which are nothing more than dishonesty cloaked in cleverly uncovered legalistic laziness or negligence. Someone messed up or didn’t go far enough, so it must be okay to capitalize on it.

That’s not to say the "green-motivated" for-profit world is the only one with dirty digits as Congressional leaders poke around the not-for-profit hospital community for smoking balance sheets and shady accounting and billing records.

What’s even more ironic is that the government – the poster child of financial and operational inefficiency – leads this crusade against publicly and privately owned organizations even as it creates the convoluted and loopy-laden policies everyone seems to be misinterpreting and exploiting. As comedian Drew Carey once said on his eponymous television show: "The great circle of crap is complete."

So what’s the point? Presidential candidates – regardless of ideology, party or religious background – as well as bloviating pundits and misguided media mopes like me quake and quibble over reforming a "broken" healthcare system with such bandages as universal insurance coverage mandates or information technology simply are missing the point. Such erstwhile and ill-defined "solutions" come with a hefty price that eats into profitability. The moralistic and humanitarian motivations require sacrifice and selflessness, which are anathema to capitalistic, free-enterprising business principles, no matter how civic-minded.

Pick your poison, so to speak, because real change only will happen when industry and society repents and suffers some pain.