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

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191–200 of 304 posts

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

#191
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The notion that the providers are the ones sucking up all the money in the healthcare industry is certainly... novel. The majority of people in this particular industry have nothing to do with actually providing health care, just as the majority of employees at a major university have never stood in front of a blackboard.

If you look, you can find pie charts that make the point I'm making directly, so no, I don't think it's novel.

If I look, I can find pie charts demonstrating that the Moderna COVID vaccine provides 8 dB worse 5G reception than the Pfizer shot.

So, yeah, you'll have to do a little better than that.

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

#192

So, private insurance companies ripping off patients is such an injustice that we are arguing that a literal murder could be (somewhat) justified - in HN of all places, where "it's the evil billionaires" was never a popular position - as if we are in total desperation and everything is on the table. ...when it is simply a consequence of America's system and the solution (public health insurance) is implemented in eve…

The libertarian argument is that he should have employed better security to protect himself from weirdos. This is why the rich need more tax cuts -they need to be able to afford security.

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

#193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you know, our history says that at times, injustices may need to be fought with a touch of violence… killing CEOs is not the kind of violence any reasonable human being can condone, but people tragically affected by someone’s actions may not be all that reasonable

The same logic holds true for a an incel gunning down women or someone shooting up a church because they feel harmed.

that is nowhere near same logic :)

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

#194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trouble is that nothing productive was going to come of anything else, either. That’s where these reactions come from.

Yes, there is a lot of frustrations. Voters disagree on what they want. That does not justify people to start shooting people when they dont get their way.

Justifications are meaningless when the end result is all the matters.

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

#195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hold on, we can come back to this, but: which states have held a vote on nationalizing (state-izing?) healthcare?

Vermont, Colorado, Washington.

Interesting, tried Vermont but couldn’t find it (a 2015 single-payer effort, but not that), will look more later, I’d love to see what a state-level law at governments taking over hospitals and such even looks like, gotta be some weird reading and I have no idea how you’d write that such that it’d have a prayer of surviving court challenge—seize poor people’s houses to give to companies (or, on behalf of a company that then backs out, and all you got was wrecking some of your own citizens’ houses, lol) you’re all good according to the courts, but do basically the reverse? No way that’d fly. Those proposals have to be crazy reads.

I’d maybe vote against state level single payer, let alone taking over healthcare entirely, because I think it’d be a ton less efficient than doing it at the federal level—enormous amounts of money already go to various federal healthcare programs and it’d be better to pool that, and also lack of state level control over their markets is likely to cause problems. I dunno, it might depend on the law, but my gut reaction is a “no” vote on that, too.

Anyway, as for the other question, I believe that the rise of the postwar think-tank industry (a mash up of k-street and Madison Avenue, but for white papers, as it quickly became) and deliberate party and industry efforts to shift public sentiment in pro-market directions, tied up with lots of government spending on anti-Soviet messaging (were they bad? Oh, yeah. Were all the things the government tried to lump in with them and decry as un-American bad? Ehhhh… I mean atheism is among those, see the change to the pledge and to our money at the time, among other things, and I think atheism’s fine) is probably why healthcare can be this incredibly messed-up and nationalization remains not just not-popular-enough-to-pass, but entirely outside the Overton window, yes.

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

#196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

thats the option that I have always preferred, provided the opt in Medicare/medicaid option is provided at cost to the general public. If set up this way, I dont see why anyone would reject it. At worst, it would be another option amongst many. The poison pill would be if opt-in medicare was funded from taxes on the general public who were paying concurrently for their private insurance. Medicaid funding would contin…

There are two broad concerns with public-option M4A: * The resulting customer shifts will result in private insurance becoming more expensive or, worse, exiting some markets, which violates the requirement people have that, in the worst case, their current insurance remain accessible to them. * The resulting customer shifts will drastically increase the cost of Medicare, threatening the existing program with benefit…

I agree that those are the public concerns. regarding the second bullet, this is why I suggest a separate pool offered at cost.

Regarding the first, I dont think that this is a forgone conclusion, at least immediately, but admit I haven't thought through how the transition would work. With any public option gaining members, there are bound to be insures that lose them.

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

#197
post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People have built a frustrating system for themselves with a century of complicated and messy political decisions (and resulting regulations). They don't have the will or attention span required to solve the various problems via the slow moving & gridlocked political system. So, they take out their frustration on the highest profile participants in the system. Solutions? I'm worried that there aren't solutions. There…

There is really basic stuff that we're going to have to do no matter what that doesn't involve restructuring the system, like drastically increasing the number of practicing physicians, which is capped by (you guessed) Medicare, which sponsors residencies. But all we can talk about is payer structure because of a complete fixation on insurance companies as singular villains.

This could be an opportunity for me to learn something new...

I thought the American Medical Association were the ones who artificially constrain the supply of physicians. Is that not true, or is the AMA constraint transitively related to the Medicare caps in some manner?

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

#198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of those are extremely different situations, so what are you getting at?

I see them as essentially the same. All of these people are choosing their financial interests over your health. People are dying from their inaction.

I can’t begin to relate to seeing someone with a median income failing to donate to some particular go-fund-me as the same as choosing to head an organization that makes more money when people don’t get the health care they need, and overseeing operations that did that even more recklessly than the industry standard. One has taken on a business relationship already and is taking people’s money then screwing them, at a mass scale. The other just didn’t donate to a gofundme that may not even be legit and for someone they have no connection to.

Similar reaction for the other examples. I’m baffled that they look similar to anybody at all.

[edit] hold on, ok, another angle that may clear up why I’m confused: if my health insurer denies my legit claim, should I be more, less, or equally angry with the leadership of that company, or with every single person in the country who fails to donate to my resulting gofundme? I’m immediately inclined to wish horrible things on one of these groups, and to find the idea of wishing horrible things on the other confusing and repulsive.

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

#199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same logic holds true for a an incel gunning down women or someone shooting up a church because they feel harmed.

that is nowhere near same logic :)

If we throw up our hands and accept that each individual can be the judge of injustice, and execute whatever retribution they see fit, these individuals also meet that criteria.

By abandoning democratic law, you also abandon 3rd party discretion and control over which injustices are legitimate.

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

#200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is really basic stuff that we're going to have to do no matter what that doesn't involve restructuring the system, like drastically increasing the number of practicing physicians, which is capped by (you guessed) Medicare, which sponsors residencies. But all we can talk about is payer structure because of a complete fixation on insurance companies as singular villains.

This could be an opportunity for me to learn something new... I thought the American Medical Association were the ones who artificially constrain the supply of physicians. Is that not true, or is the AMA constraint transitively related to the Medicare caps in some manner?

The AMA is just a lobbying group. The actual cap on the number of new physicians is residency slots, which are funded by Medicare.
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