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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

#281

Post by valval »

piva00 wrote: post #273
valval wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The somewhat obvious thing you seem to be missing there is that the money isn’t being extracted by force.

Not force, just the veiled threat that if you don't pay you won't have healthcare. Everyone will require healthcare at some point, and at the points where you need the most you can't go do some window shopping and price comparison. Why make it more difficult, cumbersome, expensive, and bureaucratic? Ideologues can be rather illogical.

Like any other service, you’ll just pay for it with your money.

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

#282

Post by stackedinserter »

rich_sasha wrote: post #256
WorldWideWebb wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I suppose, careful what you wish for. The NHS (UK's single payer health provider), allegedly the envy of whole wide world, is failing under the burden of insufficient funding, aging society and years of mismanagement by politicians. We're talking, properly dysfunctional, like ambulances taking hours to be dispatched to life-threatening emergencies or people dying on emergency wards due to neglect.

Same for Canadian healthcare.

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

#283

Post by tptacek »

perrygeo wrote: post #207
tptacek wrote: post #29

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 parti…

> there's no serious theory of change that begins with murdering health care industry people. You sure about that? Show me one theory of change where the oppressed somehow rise above without violence? Even the groundwork for Ghandi's peaceful protest were laid by a strong anti-colonial military force that led assassinations of British military officers. You think Britain left because Ghandi said some profound things…

Yes, I'm sure, in that it's mathematically incapable of solving the problem people have.

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

#284

Post by perrygeo »

tptacek wrote: post #283
perrygeo wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there's no serious theory of change that begins with murdering health care industry people. You sure about that? Show me one theory of change where the oppressed somehow rise above without violence? Even the groundwork for Ghandi's peaceful protest were laid by a strong anti-colonial military force that led assassinations of British military officers. You think Britain left because Ghandi said some profound things…

Yes, I'm sure, in that it's mathematically incapable of solving the problem people have.

Bullshit. Show me the proof. Given that nearly all successful revolutions against oppressive powers have been backed by violence, I'm curious what you come up with.

There is one group, the insurance companies, which have unequivocally stated that they will physically harm other people if it yields marginally higher profits. That's not up for debate, that's the stated business model. It is extra-judicial killing for profit, backed by the state. And when the state abuses their monopoly on power, history shows that people will claw it back as violently as they feel necessary.

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

#285

Post by HDThoreaun »

ghusto wrote: post #278

Genuine question: What is so difficult about healthcare in the USA? European countries solutions range from free to government subsidised (for those who can't afford it). The free ones vary in quality, but systems where you pay unless you can't work pretty well, and the quality is very high. Why is this such an issue in the USA? Is it purely a "powerful people with vested interests" thing?

The US spends over 17% of GDP on healthcare while comparable countries are around 8%. There are some ways we could reduce that but at the end of the day americans consume a lot of healthcare and americans get paid a lot to provide health care so any solution is going to have cost related problems. Because theres so much money involved there are tons of special interests which makes it politically extremely difficult to change anything. Two of the most obvious things we should do are pay less for pharmaceuticals and increase the number of doctors but the pharma lobby and AMA make that impossible.

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

#286

Post by s1artibartfast »

justinclift wrote: post #259
s1artibartfast wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the french revolution left everyone worse off than if it didnt happen, The first republic didnt address any one the underlying economic issues. The failure of populist mob governance lead to first empire, and the Napoleonic wars which killed several percent of Europe's population (~6million) in France's attempt to loot its way back to economic prosperity.

Sounds like a reasonable way to look at it. How far along the path do you reckon the US is to the same kind of thing?

No clue. However if I were to speculate on a comparison, I think the us would skip the first Republic entirely and go straight to a repressive authoritarian police state fighting domestic terrorists.

I don't think any of the revolutionary elements can get enough support for governmental change, and the majority wold rather give up their freedoms than give in to terrorists.

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

#287

Post by CamperBob2 »

shaldengeki wrote: post #263
CamperBob2 wrote: post #59

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.

Here's a 14 year-old series showing that providers are the biggest chunk of the overspending in the system: https://web.archive.org/web/20210421025041/http://theinciden...

In the United States, physician salaries were 6.5 times GDP per capita for specialists and 4.1 times GDP per capita for generalists.

(Shrug) I'm OK with the notion that doctors contribute somewhere between 4 and 7 times more value than your average schlub driving a bus, and I'm OK with paying them accordingly.

Now, how much do the administrators, insurance-company execs, and other noncontributors make?

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

#288

Post by mostlysimilar »

tptacek wrote: post #90
WorldWideWebb wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 literally every state in the country disagrees with you and so it's not going to happen.

(decades of propaganda and state capture by the insurance companies later...) oh I guess the people just don't want it! Too bad.

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

#289

Post by piva00 »

valval wrote: post #281
piva00 wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not force, just the veiled threat that if you don't pay you won't have healthcare. Everyone will require healthcare at some point, and at the points where you need the most you can't go do some window shopping and price comparison. Why make it more difficult, cumbersome, expensive, and bureaucratic? Ideologues can be rather illogical.

Like any other service, you’ll just pay for it with your money.

How do people without money get access to this essential service?

Less sick people is better in general for a society, not only socially but also economically speaking, do you agree with this statement?

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

#290

Post by giardini »

emeril wrote: post #38
tptacek wrote: post #29

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 parti…

maybe so but it's definitely cathartic and that counts for something

Likely a placebo effect.
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