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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

#221

Post by mlrtime »

vineyardmike wrote: post #10
mkmk wrote: post #4

[flagged]

I think this comment betrays the reality of Americans interaction with healthcare insurance. It’s not about regulatory awareness, but angst over the system - People die because of the decisions made by insurance companies. If you read or hear the things people are saying, they’re expressing frustration over the way they’re treated by insurance providers and their policies. The costs across the industry are insane, an…

>People die because of the decisions made by insurance companies.

And if we had single pay, wouldn't people still die but now there is someone else to blame? Meaning there is still a budget for care, it is not infinite. There will still be a group to decide what to accept and what not.

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

#222

Post by s1artibartfast »

hirvi74 wrote: post #194
s1artibartfast wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I staunchly disagree with this kind of utilitarianism. The ends do not justify the means.

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

#223

Post by CamperBob2 »

tptacek wrote: post #219
lantry wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't come to the conversation with "everyone else is being unreasonable" and then not cite your sources.

If what I was backing with "pie charts" was "everyone else is being unreasonable", sure, but that's not what I said. Go look it up. Zero out all insurer costs. What percentage of health care costs do we save?

There's a lot more than just "Insurer costs" and "Doctors' BMW payments" in the pie chart. Again, relatively little of it has to do with actually treating injuries and illnesses. And that's not even getting into the massive market distortions associated with forcing the concept of "insurance" into a market where virtually every single customer will eventually need to file multiple claims.

You usually come up with better arguments than this. We all have off days, I guess.

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

#224

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

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…

"The point's already been made, but plenty of monsters are husbands and fathers."

For example, the ones establishing and profiting from so-called "social media" at the expense of organisations that employ journalists.

Advertisers choose between supporting organizations that employ journalists versus supporting ones that do not, the ones profiting instead from the "torrent of hate". NYT has plenty of paying subscribers; it is not 100% dependant on ads, unlike "social media", generally.

Indeed "the people running social media have active and unceasing contempt for us". They prefer computers over people. Surveillance over sympathy.

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

#225

Post by paulryanrogers »

tptacek wrote: post #103
bdangubic wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

true but that doesn’t make it right when people are running these states are paid by the same people who benefit from the current system…

The people in those states do not want it, which is why state single payer referenda fail.

Romneycare and the ACA were a pretty big step in the single payer direction. Popular enough to overcome vetos and attempts to roll them back.

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

#226

Post by s1artibartfast »

vundercind wrote: post #198
s1artibartfast wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There are laws enacted by our elected government (Democrats under Obama) that say exactly how much overhead is acceptable for a health insurance company, and all business expenses and CEO pay comes out of that portion. If they collect too much in premiums to and their profits exceed that percent, they have to refund the insurance members.

Health insurance has a fixed profit margin on claims paid. Denying claims costs them money. Pay 10 billion in claims and they make 2 billion. Deny half the claims and they make half as much.

look up that ACA 85/15 law

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

#227

Post by justinclift »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #226
vundercind wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There are laws enacted by our elected government (Democrats under Obama) that say exactly how much overhead is acceptable for a health insurance company, and all business expenses and CEO pay comes out of that portion. If they collect too much in premiums to and their profits exceed that percent, they have to refund the insurance members. Health insurance has a fixed profit margin on claims paid. Denying claims costs…

Not sure how this is relevant?

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

#228

Post by s1artibartfast »

justinclift wrote: post #218
tptacek wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. Again: if you just hate the guy and have no compunctions about saying why after he's murdered, then whatever, that's not interesting enough to argue about. But if you're literally saying "this was good and more like this would be better" --- and some people are --- that is a notably warped proposition.

People make excuses for these CEO's using the same logic though don't they? At what point is defending their murdering of people an acceptable approach? :)

You can say that you are murdering people by posting on HN instead of working more and donating the money to charity.

>At what point is defending their murdering of people an acceptable approach? :)

We have laws that define where your responsibility starts and ends. For a random citizen, you have 0 obligation to help someone pay their healthcare bills.

For a health insurance company, they have a legal obligation to spend 85% of revenue on member healthcare, with all expenses and profit coming from the remaining 15%. This is codified by the ACA 85/15% law passed under Obama. United meets this obligation.

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

#229

Post by justinclift »

tptacek wrote: post #220
justinclift wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People make excuses for these CEO's using the same logic though don't they? At what point is defending their murdering of people an acceptable approach? :)

By that logic, every health system in the entire world is murdering people constantly. Meanwhile: I'm talking about a guy walking up to an executive and shooting him in the chest.

> By that logic, every health system in the entire world is murdering people constantly.

Not at all. The US "health care" system has the extremely bad reputation it has for a reason.

This guy seems to (for all we know) have only killed a single person (so far).

The person he shot has likely killed far more. I'm not sure why you're ok with that, or am I misunderstanding?

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

#230

Post by tptacek »

justinclift wrote: post #229
tptacek wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By that logic, every health system in the entire world is murdering people constantly. Meanwhile: I'm talking about a guy walking up to an executive and shooting him in the chest.

> By that logic, every health system in the entire world is murdering people constantly. Not at all. The US "health care" system has the extremely bad reputation it has for a reason. This guy seems to (for all we know) have only killed a single person (so far). The person he shot has likely killed far more. I'm not sure why you're ok with that, or am I misunderstanding?

That's an appeal to popular culture, but every health system makes decisions that deprive some people of necessary care. Resources are finite.
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