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Torrent of Hate for Health Insurance Industry Follows CEO's Killing

nytimes.com

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Re: Torrent of Hate for Health Insurance Industry Follows CEO's Killing

#21

Post by dekhn »

evanjrowley wrote: post #13
mkmk wrote: post #4

[flagged]

I'm wondering if HIPPA might be overly costly and counter productive. While I agree with the critical infrastructure designation for healthcare and associated cyber security initiatives, I don't think that there's any real value to my health information being private. Getting basic health care requires you to allow multitudes of third parties access to your health care information anyways, so is HIPPA's purpose actua…

I think your understanding of HIPAA is reversed. It's not about privacy. It's about setting rules by which health information can be shared between organizations of different types.

Re: Torrent of Hate for Health Insurance Industry Follows CEO's Killing

#22

Post by maybelsyrup »

> But that did not stop social media commenters from leaping to conclusions and from showing a blatant lack of sympathy over the death of a man who was a husband and father of two children.

The journalists' tone and choice of words here, which I've italicized, isn't helping the overall feeling many Americans have of "the people running the show have active and unceasing contempt for us", which of course is what's driving the "torrent of hate for health insurance industry" that this article sets out to document.

I'm sorry, but where do these writers get off wagging their fingers and tut-tutting people who'd prefer not to spend their neurons on sympathy for someone at the helm of an inhuman system? The point's already been made, but plenty of monsters are husbands and fathers.

Re: Torrent of Hate for Health Insurance Industry Follows CEO's Killing

#23

Post by shiroiushi »

evanjrowley wrote: post #17
vundercind wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out what drives such high costs in US healthcare, some years back. My conclusion is everything does. This conveniently makes it easy to dismiss criticism of any one part (all of which are responsible) because “well they’re just increasing it a little—go look at these other things, they’re bad too, and if you add up all of that, they’re worse!” Right, but if you keep not ad…

The list of things at the end of your comment are all basically drivers for GDP. Our economic policies seem to incentivize the construction of Kafkaesque dystopias. I just can't see how such a leviathan could ever be dismantled.

Yeah, this really makes me think that America's soaring GDP is really just BS numbers, because a lot of the "productivity" that it reflects is just BS jobs that add negative value to society. I'm wondering if, at some point, there's going to be a big correction as the rest of the world realizes that it makes no sense to value the USD as highly as it is, since much of that "value" is in stuff like Americans selling each other overpriced houses (due to artificially constricted supply) and overpriced healthcare.

Re: Torrent of Hate for Health Insurance Industry Follows CEO's Killing

#24

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

vundercind wrote: post #12
mkmk wrote: post #4

[flagged]

I spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out what drives such high costs in US healthcare, some years back. My conclusion is everything does. This conveniently makes it easy to dismiss criticism of any one part (all of which are responsible) because “well they’re just increasing it a little—go look at these other things, they’re bad too, and if you add up all of that, they’re worse!” Right, but if you keep not ad…

The thing that drives high costs is the bottom line: profit is more important than human lives.

If you stick a gun in someone's face and demand they hand over their cash, you're a criminal.

If you do the same thing with contracts, paperwork, and quarterly reports for Wall St, you're a CEO.

There is no difference between these. One is camouflaged by the abstractions of profit and bureaucracy. But both are murderously violent, and there should be no legal or moral distinction between them.

Likewise climate change and ecocide; online disinformation, media lies, and other kinds of semantic pollution; workplace violence, and other "externalities."

Invention and daring can be good things. But when all you're contributing are death, stress, illness, mass bankruptcy, declining opportunities for most of the population, and other symptoms of corporate sociopathy, you are over the line.

Re: Torrent of Hate for Health Insurance Industry Follows CEO's Killing

#25

Post by vundercind »

evanjrowley wrote: post #17
vundercind wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out what drives such high costs in US healthcare, some years back. My conclusion is everything does. This conveniently makes it easy to dismiss criticism of any one part (all of which are responsible) because “well they’re just increasing it a little—go look at these other things, they’re bad too, and if you add up all of that, they’re worse!” Right, but if you keep not ad…

The list of things at the end of your comment are all basically drivers for GDP. Our economic policies seem to incentivize the construction of Kafkaesque dystopias. I just can't see how such a leviathan could ever be dismantled.

It was reported in The Nation (and nowhere else that I ever found when I went looking—so, grain of salt) that Obama said that all the totally unnecessary jobs that’d be eliminated are exactly why he wouldn’t push full single payer.

It’s a regressive-tax-funded white collar makework jobs program. JFC.

Re: Torrent of Hate for Health Insurance Industry Follows CEO's Killing

#26

Post by jmoak »

cowpig wrote: post #5
mkmk wrote: post #4

[flagged]

would love some sources to learn more about how it works if you have any to recommend

While not directly related to your question, I think this will help answer many questions you may have about our spending.

This is a good start comparing america's healthcare expenditure to other countries' expenditures: https://randomcriticalanalysis.com/why-conventional-wisdom-o...

The short of it, on a national level:

Health spending is determined by income

Income predicts changes in health expenditure

The rising health share explained by rising quantities per capita (not prices!)

America spends much more because it consumes much more

The claim that US health care prices are inexplicably high was never well-evidenced!

Real health inputs (labor) increase rapidly with income levels

High overall wage rates and profit margins cannot explain much.

Physician take-home pay explains even less

The composition of the American health workforce is consistent with trends observed elsewhere.

and finally...

Diminishing returns to spending and worse lifestyle factors explain America’s mediocre health outcomes

These headline claims map to large sections of the linked content. I highly recommend chewing through it all.

Re: Torrent of Hate for Health Insurance Industry Follows CEO's Killing

#27

Post by pfannkuchen »

jbrot wrote: post #20

At first glance, this looks pretty similar to the Bob Lee murder last year. I find it interesting and a little surprising how different the reaction and coverage has been

Are you restricting the Bob Lee murder to first glance info also? I thought that one turned out to be a personal beef, not an assassination.

Re: Torrent of Hate for Health Insurance Industry Follows CEO's Killing

#28

Post by ics »

jbrot wrote: post #20

At first glance, this looks pretty similar to the Bob Lee murder last year. I find it interesting and a little surprising how different the reaction and coverage has been

What similarity does it bear other than... stretching here... the victims were both likely wealthier than the killer?

Re: Torrent of Hate for Health Insurance Industry Follows CEO's Killing

#29

Post by tptacek »

It's mostly not rational. For instance, much of the conversation over the last day has been about Anthem pushing back on anesthesiology pay on the East Coast. That's people angry about their insurers working to make surgeries cost less by employing the literal guideline Medicare uses, and yet people online were overtly suggesting Anthem's CEO be murdered over it. Incoherent.

This won't win me any points in this particular forum, where this opinion (that I strongly hold) is unpopular, but I'm reminded of what someone else said about Net Neutrality: it's a bunch of people suiting up and taking sides on behalf of one group of giant corporations against another group of giant corporations. That's the "health care debate" in the US, where medical staff are paid 2-3x more than they are in other countries, and expensive procedures are prescribed and delivered at drastically higher rates. It's my problem with "Medicare For All", which more or less absolves providers from their role in choking people out with health care costs, despite the leading role they have in this situation.

At any rate: there's no serious theory of change that begins with murdering health care industry people.

Re: Torrent of Hate for Health Insurance Industry Follows CEO's Killing

#30

Post by s1artibartfast »

maybelsyrup wrote: post #22

> But that did not stop social media commenters from leaping to conclusions and from showing a blatant lack of sympathy over the death of a man who was a husband and father of two children . The journalists' tone and choice of words here, which I've italicized, isn't helping the overall feeling many Americans have of "the people running the show have active and unceasing contempt for us", which of course is what's dr…

I dont find the "lack of sympathy" to be an issue.

What I do find disappointing is the lack of concern over people being gunned down in the street, and the not so subtle glee some people are expressing.

Murder should not be normalized or endorsed. It isn't healthy for a society and doesn't lead to progress.

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