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UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson fatally shot in Manhattan

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Re: UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson fatally shot in Manhattan

#441

Post by torified »

EA-3167 wrote: post #264
toomuchtodo wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the comment that has been in my head since the news broke, and I feel like we are only at the beginning, like the pause before the first drop of a rollercoaster with the forward looking macro (political and economic tension, broadly speaking). Laws and rules only matter so long as we're all willing to believe they do.

Relevant XKCD https://xkcd.com/1958 I think people skip over this a LOT, but it's the basis for society and was long before we had the means to track down most killers and bring them to any sort of justice. Most people, even when given freedom from consequences and ample opportunities, are not murderers.

>Most people, even when given freedom from consequences and ample opportunities, are not murderers.

I don't necessarily disagree with this completely, but it's also worth noting how easily people seem to go with the status quo, eg criminal gangs, nazism, support of genocides, etc.

I think most people have a bit of killer in them, given the right circumstances.

Re: UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson fatally shot in Manhattan

#442

Post by mikeyouse »

Clubber wrote: post #401
mikeyouse wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure but many laws leave room for reasonable people to decide whether something rises to the level of crime.. I'm not sure it much matters because he was lying on the Federal background check forms which is a separate crime that the ATF was investigating and he was shipping / receiving them over state lines, another crime that's indifferent to whether his selling 150 guns was a hobby.

Yea I saw that, but in the affidavit, it claimed he broke the rule that wasn't in effect yet. "Well he did other stuff," true or not, is kinda hand wavy. They weren't wearing body cams which is required by law. They could have pulled him over, it was a sloppy raid by a sloppy agency who didn't even follow the law themselves. Apparently the lie, was that he stated on the forms was he answered yes on the question regar…

I have so much disdain for these organizations.. there's a really important debate to be had about the role of firearms and firearm laws and overzealous Federal agents, but the NRA/SAF aren't interested in honest debate, they're just fear-mongering ghouls pumping out bullshit to fundraise off of.

I looked into the Fincher case, and it's another case that SAF is basically just lying about. They can run these insane headlines and then don't follow up...

Fincher had a FFL but no store, so he'd sell primarily at gun shows. He'd buy guns from other dealers or from manufacturers with his FFL, and then sell them in "private" sales at gun shows with no background check. It looks like the Feds caught onto that and then had a CI do a controlled buy where Fincher was told the purchaser was a felon, and Fincher didn't give a shit and illegally sold him ammo anyways.

Call me crazy, but a FFL doing straw purchases for AR lowers so he can sell them under the table at gun shows is exactly the kind of thing that the ATF should be shutting down.

Fincher indictment: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.oked.35...

Fincher guilty plea (he got probation with no jail time - and the FFL who was holding all of the guns Fincher had purchased but not yet sold was ordered to sell them and give the proceeds to Fincher): https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.oked.35...

Re: UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson fatally shot in Manhattan

#443

Post by torified »

mindslight wrote: post #298
s1artibartfast wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are still the factors of exposure rate and a difference between legal reality and expectations. Fundamental to this is that people are increasingly siloed and have little idea how closely the legal system reflects the will of the majority. They just think that their opinion is the majority and anything that deviates is the product of a corrupt system and public disenfranchisement.

Sure, that gap exists. But that doesn't mean it explains away the whole topic the way it had been invoked. Furthermore I'm quite wary of hand waving arguments about the "will of the majority". "The majority" just complained about price inflation, while electing the former president that approved most of the monetary inflation they were complaining about, while he was actively promising even more inflation. And that i…

I wouldn't do it, but I actually do understand and respect the argument, "neither political side is going to materially help me, so why not vote for a wrecking ball that will surely change something?"

Re: UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson fatally shot in Manhattan

#444

Post by MaskedMan »

xnx wrote: post #412
delecti wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your job dictates your insurance, not you, and most jobs [...] This is answering the question with a very narrow focus on what any one person can do. Sure, when I filled out my job's open enrollment last month, there was no checkbox labeled "Evil Corporation Insurer (y/n)", but there's no inviolable law of nature that requires the US to be this way.

Exactly. There's a lot of talk about trade and other countries "ripping off he US", but almost no mention that the US pay significantly more for the same drugs sold in other countries.

The narrative that we're getting 'ripped off on trade' is a myth. In the real world, when someone says "I got ripped off" it means they were overcharged for something. In politics, getting 'ripped off on trade' means we're being undercharged by foreign countries, which is apparently less desirable than being overcharged by Americans. Seems like the only trade here is a fake rip-off for a real one.

I wonder how people would respond to a survey that asked: "Would you support policies that aim to increase foreign drug imports to bring down pharmaceutical prices?" and a follow-up: "If yes, what about lumber, steel, etc?" My guess is that many would say yes to question 1, but not apply the same logic to other goods.

Re: UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson fatally shot in Manhattan

#445

Post by marshaul »

bilbo0s wrote: post #128
gk1 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I doubt anyone on HN would have any interest in normalizing that practice. But almost everyone who will be wronged by these systems are going to be up in arms. I think we'll see a lot more of this sort of thing in the future. Your car killed my mother and the law said it was fine. Your insurance company denied my grandma's claim and she died in agony after paying premiums for 30 years. Let's just hope that autonomous…

Serious question, why exactly should we work so hard to insulate the ultra-rich from the consequences of their actions? They are already virtually completely insulated, whereas everybody else is held to the standard which should be reserved for those with the education to know better and the resources to do better.

Re: UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson fatally shot in Manhattan

#446

Post by MaskedMan »

vundercind wrote: post #227
busterarm wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who lived in NYC all the way from the early 80s up until 2 years ago and still has to travel there regularly for business, NYC is a lot closer to how it was in the mid-80s than any other point during that period. Especially post-9/11 up until COVID it was practically Disneyland. You had little chance of being a victim of random crime in the vast majority of city neighborhoods or on the subway. That's certa…

I think to some degree the problem is a combo of some overestimating among part of the population (driven in part by recall of actual historical crime rates, and by anti-"blue"-city news media) of how dangerous big cities are, but also a huge failure to appreciate how dangerous lots of non-big-city places in the US are. It's not entirely that big US cities are necessarily super-safe (they're largely not, if you compa…

I'm still waiting for someone to name me a major American city that isn't a blue city. If every major city is blue, then there isn't anything to compare it to. At least NY has had a couple of Republican mayors this century, but I doubt the same could be said of San Francisco, Chicago, Philadelphia or Boston.

Big cities will naturally have more crime than little villages, but as someone else mentioned, per capita stats are key.

Re: UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson fatally shot in Manhattan

#447

Post by kerkeslager »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #375
kerkeslager wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This was discussed briefly during the Obama healthcare debates, but broadly rejected by left who wanted to eliminate private options. As someone who voluteered in this field during that time, this is just a repetition of right wing propaganda. There was no serious movement to eliminate private options. Every country with a single-payer system that I'm aware of has private options as well, they just aren't popular b…

Single payer literally meant that all citizens are subscribed to the same government operated health insurance. If the entire "single payer" program was completely optional and offered at cost, they totally missed the messaging on that one, because I was paying attention and that wasnt my take away.

> Single payer literally meant that all citizens are subscribed to the same government operated health insurance.

Correct, but that's a pretty big change from the propaganda you repeated in your previous comment. What you said was, "This was discussed briefly during the Obama healthcare debates, but broadly rejected by left who wanted to eliminate private options." In another now-deleted comment, you also said, "the left was too fixated On preventing people from buying better care".

Nothing about having single payer healthcare prevents people from also purchasing private healthcare. Single payer does not require the elimination of private options--when you said that was what the left wanted, you were repeating a lie. People can and do purchase private healthcare in countries with single-payer systems--it's just not common because generally the private healthcare options aren't worth it.

> If the entire "single payer" program was completely optional and offered at cost, they totally missed the messaging on that one, because I was paying attention and that wasnt my take away.

Single-payer is optional in the same sense that current subsidies to insurance companies are optional, it just costs less and results in less death and human suffering.

Your insistence that it has to be "offered at cost" is basically an insistence that people who can't afford that cost but need life saving care can just die. So no, it wasn't "offered at cost"--that's the entire point. I want Americans to be able to receive life-saving medical care when they need it, even if they are poor. That's just basic empathy for our fellow humans.

Re: UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson fatally shot in Manhattan

#448

Post by sbalough »

Teever wrote: post #367
LightHugger wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who are so sick often can't do very much, it's truly evil to scam people in that position. Maybe relatives though.

But enough people are given a terminal diagnosis from relatively minor symptoms that will lead to their death in 6 months. I think it's a really good open question as to why more unhinged Americans do school shootings than healthcare insurance executive shootings. I'd love to read a sociology paper on it.

CEOs of largest companies don’t tend to spend much time near poor folks communities that suffer from violent mental health episodes. Executives even way further down forbs 500 have security staff.

Re: UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson fatally shot in Manhattan

#449

Post by sbalough »

Clubber wrote: post #426
t-writescode wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree! There's no inviolable law. What there _is_, is too much pain and too many spoons that each and every person needs to manage every day, and most (nearly all) people are unable/unwilling to let even more important things drop. We also have crab mentality in the US, where if one person hopes for, or even gets, something better, they're pulled back down. And we have an efficient, powerful propaganda machine that…

>I love ACA, but I hate Obamacare To be fair, ACA passed, and here we are. Healthcare companies are making more than they ever did. Have you considered that powerful propaganda machine works both ways? https://www.axios.com/2024/08/08/insurer-profits-health-care...

I think a main root cause of high insurance costs is failure of govt to break up health company monopolies and other impediments to a competitive marketplace like no individual mandate which should make it hard for smaller players to take on risk that they can afford to manage.

Re: UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson fatally shot in Manhattan

#450

Post by sbalough »

Teever wrote: post #429
Clubber wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I love ACA, but I hate Obamacare To be fair, ACA passed, and here we are. Healthcare companies are making more than they ever did. Have you considered that powerful propaganda machine works both ways? https://www.axios.com/2024/08/08/insurer-profits-health-care...

Maybe that's because profit obsessed entities who are run by evil people are like the Borg in that they adapt and find ways around obstacles.

Think this is a failure of govt to use capitalism as an effective tool. More competition in the insurer space means non-evil players can afford to manage risk
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