This country has moved so far to corporate worship that we might as well be a theocracy. Almost everything in our country is done in the interest of making money. We are propagandized in school, on TV, and basically anywhere we look that everything done to make money is the right way, and everything else is inefficient.
Our news outlets exist to make money, and nothing sells like outrage. Also, forget about the conflict of interest inherent in news companies being owned by giant conglomerates who are also featured heavily in the news coverage.
Universities that peddle watered-down degree programs with classes taught by graduate students for ridiculously inflated tuition costs are better than government funded schools where tuition was kept in check, and that says nothing about the private "universities" that provide a worse education than the biggest failure of a high school and charge prices that put Harvard to shame, but somehow qualify their students for Government subsidized financial aid.
Hospitals are better when they charge ridiculous prices that only insurance can cover, which is passed right along to the people who pay the insurance premiums. They might have all kinds of groundbreaking new surgeries, but good luck persuading an insurance company to pay for them, let alone paying for them yourself.
Even the prison industry has been subsidized, and now if you can keep a barely functioning prison open and operating on a D- level at 1/4 of the price, your company can keep the remaining 3/4 of the funding as profit. I'm surprised they haven't started giving police a bounty for every criminal that gets sent to prison to incentive the need for more prisons.
The poor and middle class voters consistently vote against their own interests and for the interests of the rich and big business because they've been taught there is a real chance that they'll get invited to that party.