Tuesday night, Bernie Sanders held a live-streamed town hall to discuss the prospects and potential for a single-payer Medicare for All health care system. On the panel, among physicians, nurses, students, and international health ambassadors sat a few corporate executives. Each praised the cost effectiveness of the Medicare for All system and insisted that the program made “good business sense.”

As Sanders’s legislation becomes increasingly popular, it’s likely that a few more business leaders will trumpet their support. But Medicare for All advocates should be skeptical of members of the business community, even when they purport to be on our side.

There are three big reasons that socialists and progressives should be wary of capitalist advocates for any social policy, and in particular for Medicare for All. First, focusing on cost-effectiveness for corporations is bad politics in the long term, since it reinforces the idea that businesses’s profits are as important as ordinary people’s needs. That puts the Left in a position of weakness whenever we pursue other reforms that don’t save CEOs any money, but are just as worthwhile.