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

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

#131

Post by vouaobrasil »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #30
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.

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

I guess the American revolution didn't lead to progress then. Or any of the other revolutions, many of which had assassinations. And murder is not being endorsed. Putting an end to it is.

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

#132

Post by adgjlsfhk1 »

tptacek wrote: post #98
jmyeet wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Insurers use the Medicare schedule as a weapon to simply reduce how much providers get paid and/or increase how much patients have to pay out-of-pocket. The Medicare schedule is generally low because of the negotiating power of the Federal government so when Anthem (or whoever) says something like "we'll pay Medicare rates" or "we'll pay 120% of the Medicare rate" they're really just cutting payments and increasing p…

You're saying "the Medicare schedule" as if it's an abstraction, but it is literally the payment process used by the largest buyer of medical services in the country. What Medicare pays matters more than what anybody else pays, because most medical services are performed for Medicare patients. So I'll ask directly: how is it unconscionable for Anthem to use those policies, but not for Medicare to use them? You are ex…

The fundamental difference between Anthem and Medicare is that when Medicare cuts reimbursement, that cost isn't passed on to patients, but when Anthem does, it is. Medicare's rates are arguably too low, but low Medicare rates are getting a good deal for the country. Low Anthem rates are passing costs onto consumers and profits onto shareholders.

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

#133

Post by tptacek »

jmyeet wrote: post #84
apsec112 wrote: post #39

Political operative here. If you're wondering why healthcare reform has been so hard to get and so piecemeal, even though most Americans want it, the big reasons are: 1) any reform has to get past the Senate, and the Senate gives a lot of extra weight to states with conservative electorates. In 2009, this meant the pivotal Senators were right-wing Blue Dogs, an independent (Lieberman), and a former Republican (Specte…

The majority of Americans believe the Federal government should provide health care [1][2]. The current Democratic Party is essentially "Republican Lite", Republican with a happy face on it. Democrats as a whole are more interested in defeating progressives and leftists than they are in defeating Republicans. [1]: https://news.gallup.com/poll/468401/majority-say-gov-ensure-... [2]: https://thehill.com/policy/healthca…

This is issue polling. There are lots of problems with issue polling, but even when delivered well, the fundamental problem is it's not concrete. Poll people to see if they'd like the option to stop paying for health insurance: you'll get Assad numbers. Now write a ballot initiative for single payer, where customers see the tax price tag, and have to worry about losing their current private health insurance: the numbers fall through the floor. This isn't supposition: it's happened over and over for the past several election cycles. People do not like this idea as a concrete thing.

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

#134

Post by tptacek »

vundercind wrote: post #123
tptacek wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you understand me. I'm not saying people are taking to fainting couches over norms violations. They're reacting to people like Taylor Lorenz literally calling for the assassination of people by name. In my case, past that, for Lorenz doing so based on a comically flawed understanding of what her target was doing.

I’m saying not-cheerleading-murder isn’t exactly a firm norm here anymore. Not even among the elites.

That's fine, but I'm going to push back on the idea that objecting to people publishing hit lists is "tut tutting".

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

#135

Post by DrillShopper »

defen wrote: post #129
DrillShopper wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do recognize a distinction as well - what this guy did was worse. Don't get my wrong, shooting someone in broad daylight is a bad thing and I will agree that we shouldn't encourage it. In this case I don't have any sympathy for the victim. There's a difference there - I recognize that the assassin is wrong but that's orthogonal to my sympathy (or in this case, lack of) for the victim. What the CEO did was worse. Wh…

The "banality of evil" was originally used to describe the bureaucrats who enabled the mass-murder of Holocaust victims (Godwin's law strikes again!). Their actual goal , the primary outcome they were trying to maximize, was murdering Jewish people and other "undesirables". I don't think this guy was trying to do anything on that level. I don't think he sat down every day and said "how do we kill more people?" Rather…

[flagged]

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

#136

Post by vundercind »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #105
vundercind wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing you don’t like is that the voters do agree they want this, though.

Want what? I dont think the majority of Americans endorse vigilante murder of law abiding citizens. That is just a vocal and bloodthirsty segment of the online population.

Literally everyone I know IRL was like, “nice. More please.” I was actually surprised and heartened to see the initial HN thread, even, was overwhelmingly supportive.

This is top of my list for conversation topics to steer things toward when I’m around Republican relatives, so we’ll have something we can agree on.

Law-abiding doesn’t mean much when you can kill lots of people for money and remain within the bounds of the law. Killing one such person is definitely far less bad than killing a bunch of people arbitrarily. Yet only one of these cases is illegal, and it’s the better of the two.

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

#137

Post by adgjlsfhk1 »

tptacek wrote: post #86
apsec112 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Polls consistently show the public supports Democrats more than Republicans on healthcare policy, even as they trust Republicans more on other issues like inflation and immigration https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-polit...

Right, I'm a pretty engaged Democrat, but I'm asking: what reforms do you think are within the boundaries of acceptable to the median voter? Clearly single-payer is not. It couldn't even survive in Vermont.

as someone from VT, VT was way too small to do single-payer on it's own The whole point of single payer is to have a monopsony that can effectively negotiate with everyone else. For it to have a chance, they would have had to join with MA.

I think the reform that would be acceptable to the median voter is a public option for Obamacare. Just let people select Medicare as an option instead of one of the private companies (and even better, let companies provide it as an option for their employees as well).

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

#138

Post by jdietrich »

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…

Healthcare costs in the US are broadly in line with the level of consumption. Americans have a uniquely insatiable demand for tests, drugs and elective surgery. Most countries with significantly lower costs have very different cultural attitudes and/or some form of rationing, because the only way to meaningfully reduce the cost of health are is to reduce how much of it you consume.

In the US system, insurers are the only actor with any real incentive or ability to constrain costs by limiting consumption; a very large part of the bureaucracy involved in the insurance system is about trying to manage consumption. We're seeing exactly how well that's working out for them, spilled all over the sidewalk.

Talk to people in the UK or Canada or Germany or Australia. See how their media covers healthcare. They're furious about their healthcare systems too, they're talking about a mounting crisis, just for different reasons. These systems accept long waits and the flat refusal to fund less cost-effective interventions as a necessary evil.

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

#139

Post by jzb »

WorldWideWebb wrote: post #88
cs702 wrote: post #71

Health "insurance" companies in the US are not actually, primarily insurers. For the most part, they are not in the business of insuring rare events. Maybe they were primarily in the insurance business at some point in the past, but today they are mainly in the business of entrenching themselves in the middle of all interactions between patients, doctors, and hospitals, and extracting rents from all of them. Health "…

Accurate. They are literally middle men taking a cut without offering anything to the process. Switch to single payer, dump the middlemen, and have our taxes pay for essential services (keeping us alive and healthy). Seems simple enough but…

But regulatory capture ensures that can’t happen.

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

#140

Post by tptacek »

adgjlsfhk1 wrote: post #132
tptacek wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're saying "the Medicare schedule" as if it's an abstraction, but it is literally the payment process used by the largest buyer of medical services in the country. What Medicare pays matters more than what anybody else pays, because most medical services are performed for Medicare patients. So I'll ask directly: how is it unconscionable for Anthem to use those policies, but not for Medicare to use them? You are ex…

The fundamental difference between Anthem and Medicare is that when Medicare cuts reimbursement, that cost isn't passed on to patients, but when Anthem does, it is. Medicare's rates are arguably too low, but low Medicare rates are getting a good deal for the country. Low Anthem rates are passing costs onto consumers and profits onto shareholders.

That is not how any of this works. Insurers and health chains are in a continuous process of rate-sheet negotiation, and the result of that negotiation is reflected in your premium costs. Most people's out-of-pocket costs are capped, and even the most routine surgeries (like a tonsillectomy) exceed the out-of-pocket cap (I checked! This is a number people report.)

This is about the trade association for anesthesiologists deputizing angry people on Twitter to go to bat for them overcharging for their services.

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