Profit imposes discipline on consumption of the product. River water is classically treated as "free" which leads to great waste in agriculture and horitculture.
Requiring a resource to be sold at a profit ensures it goes to where it is most needed, and that it is used efficiently.
But your priors are different. The US is a very solipsistic society, which means that the quality of care that an individual can achieve always trumps the median health of the entire population: everyone is conditioned to believe that they will be the ones to achieve the highest rung, and those who don't manage it deserve their lower quality of life.
If you're trying to say that a power station run purely for profit would mean the ultra-wealthy in society would have good power while everyone else can suffer with the crummy leftovers..... I think it's time you gave up.
Requiring a resource to be sold at a profit ensures it goes to where it is most needed, and that it is used efficiently.