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Children with cancer scammed out of millions fundraised for their treatment

bbc.com

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Re: Children with cancer scammed out of millions fundraised for their treatment

#441

Post by nobody9999 »

bko wrote: post #429
TehCorwiz wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole "anonymous bureaucrat" shtick doesn't land anymore. The purpose of having long-term non-political staff is so that operations don't change on a whim when some rogue director comes in and wants a second Ferrari. The reason government spends more AND is paradoxically more efficient is because most of the work of those bureaucrats is tracking, reporting, and reconciliation. That's the whole deal. Congress pass…

Can you name someone that is a long-term non-political person that is making these decisions? I have trouble believing empowering people who have no risk of losing their job and no one knows they exist is the best model for making decisions for other people.

>I have trouble believing empowering people who have no risk of losing their job and no one knows they exist is the best model for making decisions for other people.

You mean like the (non-medical doctors) third-parties contracted by my private insurance provider who routinely deny important care[0] and even reject pre-approvals for antibiotics for MRSA infections even after multiple interactions with several medical doctors confirming both the diagnosis (with accompanying pathology) and the appropriate course of treatment.

Yeah, you keep that rolled up newspaper handy so you can "Gub'mint bad! Bad Gub'mint!"

I hope you never have to deal with a life-threatening situation where your insurer flatly refuses to cover treatment until after you're dead or have body parts amputated.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46291740

Re: Children with cancer scammed out of millions fundraised for their treatment

#443

Post by ThrowMeAway1618 »

bko wrote: post #406
k1musab1 wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Time and time again large competing forces in the market are found to have colluded instead of directly competing with each other to drive price/cost down. What is it that still makes you believe that two (or n-number) of providers won't collude to charge an astronomical amount for a life-saving treatment?

Because if something sucks, someone comes up with something better and sells it for a profit. This is the history of pretty much every other good or service that is not heavily influenced by regulation and artificial barriers to entry

[flagged]

Re: Children with cancer scammed out of millions fundraised for their treatment

#444

Post by deanishe »

tclancy wrote: post #414
mlrtime wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really not that hard to find someone to go to check a address, redditors do this all the time. It should be expected as basic journalism, especially with high claims.

Why does every discussion have to wind up with a digression thread about how "real" or, even worse, "basic" journalism is something from a sepia-tinged golden age of muckrakers getting blitzed with Dorothy Parker? People are trying. There's lots of shıt masquerading as journalism, but this ain't it.

> Why does every discussion have to wind up with a digression thread about how "real" or, even worse, "basic" journalism

Hardly surprising given the contrast to the level of journalistic integrity on display at the Beeb recently.

Re: Children with cancer scammed out of millions fundraised for their treatment

#445

Post by EvgeniyZh »

mda wrote: post #347
EvgeniyZh wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many? What are the top 3 countries scammers flee to?

You didn't answer his question

Was I supposed to? My comments makes it quite clear that I don't have information to do that.

The author of the question appears to have some information I don't (unless he made it up of course), so I asked him to share it

Re: Children with cancer scammed out of millions fundraised for their treatment

#446

Post by impossiblefork »

wongarsu wrote: post #165
impossiblefork wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Market economy. Capitalism is a name for the bad thing-- "the accumulation of capital by some to the exclusion of others". Those who argue for a market economy usually claim that with their rule, it won't be accumulation of capital by some to the exclusion of others, with them assuring us that there will be free markets and competition. Both actual capitalism, i.e. the bad thing, and this which can plausible be argue…

Even in a pure unadulterated market economy that doesn't publicly fund healthcare you would expect to be able to protect yourself from high-impact low-likelihood events by means of an insurance. I find it hard to describe the US healthcare situation as anything other than a market failure

Probably, but that isn't really something I say anything about in what I wrote. Instead, what I wrote is basically a terminology quibble with the use capitalism instead of market economy.

I don't think your statement is true absolutely, I think it's very possible to have pure market economies that are quite well-functioning, i.e. not monopolies etc., where many people are very rich but with some people being really poor, even to the point of not being able to afford healthcare or healthcare insurance, so I don't think it's guaranteed to be true, though I think it's mostly true.

Re: Children with cancer scammed out of millions fundraised for their treatment

#447

Post by impossiblefork »

philipallstar wrote: post #242
impossiblefork wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Market economy. Capitalism is a name for the bad thing-- "the accumulation of capital by some to the exclusion of others". Those who argue for a market economy usually claim that with their rule, it won't be accumulation of capital by some to the exclusion of others, with them assuring us that there will be free markets and competition. Both actual capitalism, i.e. the bad thing, and this which can plausible be argue…

> Communist distribution principles can coexist with ill-functioning market systems such as things which have degenerated into actual capitalism, whereas the socialist distribution principle can't. You won't have to worry about distributing advanced cancer medications when they don't exist in the Communist version, because they weren't discovered. You can't fulfil a need with a drug you never risked a giant amount of…

You literally have the communist distribution principle for education at the primary level in the US, and it's a stabilizing element that allows you to stabilize your system despite having one of the harshest market economies in the world.

So I don't understand how your comment really relates to mine. My comment is basically me quibbling about terminology with the terms capitalism and market economy.

Re: Children with cancer scammed out of millions fundraised for their treatment

#448

Post by impossiblefork »

somewhereoutth wrote: post #190
impossiblefork wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Market economy. Capitalism is a name for the bad thing-- "the accumulation of capital by some to the exclusion of others". Those who argue for a market economy usually claim that with their rule, it won't be accumulation of capital by some to the exclusion of others, with them assuring us that there will be free markets and competition. Both actual capitalism, i.e. the bad thing, and this which can plausible be argue…

"the accumulation of capital by some to the exclusion of others" This allows decentralised decision making for large grained resource allocation - for example should we build a factory for shoes, or for toothbrushes? - and is a good thing, as central planning has been demonstrated to not work if applied to the whole economy. (the converse, no central planning to any of the economy, has also been demonstrated to not w…

Maybe, and you really believe that, then you do believe in capitalism as Louis Blanc defined it, even though he invented it as a way to characterize something which he regarded as bad.

But this kind of thing, i.e. capital accumulation by some to the exclusion of others, is, I think, objectively problematic in that it's not really compatible with free markets since capital ownership will be barrier to entry once capital has in fact been accumulated by some to the exclusion of others.

I agree that it is decentralized though, but sort of like how feudalism is decentralized.

Re: Children with cancer scammed out of millions fundraised for their treatment

#449

Post by pbhjpbhj »

MSFT_Edging wrote: post #355
laughingcurve wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incentives don’t remove agency. They might have incentives… but these are awful scum who deserve nothing but contempt

No but it provides a framework to begin thinking about ways we can protect the vulnerable from these contemptible but totally predictable bad actors. For example, families forced to publicly beg for money to provide their sick children with treatment. What societal structures enable this situation to occur? Who is profiting off of this structure?

You'd have to be inconscionably crass to profiteer off charities treating kids for cancer ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_J._Trump_Foundation "Granting money to charities that rented Trump Organization facilities".
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