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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

#491

Post by ImPostingOnHN »

MichaelZuo wrote: post #484
ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are monetarily and/or promotionally incentivized to pick a bad, cheaper option for employees. The other employees don't get rewarded for the decision.

They do get rewarded? That money has to come from somewhere, so a cheaper pick means more money available for other things like nicer employee lounges, free drinks, etc…

I'm sorry to inform you that the money does not go to those things, but rather to reward the person who made a poor choice for everyone, and also to retained earnings.

Unless you were being sarcastic in saying "yeah you're going to die sooner due to our poor healthcare choice, but hey, a free soda*!"

* remote workers get nothing

Re: UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson fatally shot in Manhattan

#492

Post by MichaelZuo »

ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #491
MichaelZuo wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do get rewarded? That money has to come from somewhere, so a cheaper pick means more money available for other things like nicer employee lounges, free drinks, etc…

I'm sorry to inform you that the money does not go to those things, but rather to reward the person who made a poor choice for everyone, and also to retained earnings. Unless you were being sarcastic in saying "yeah you're going to die sooner due to our poor healthcare choice, but hey, a free soda*!" * remote workers get nothing

Where do you think perks, facilities, etc., offered in a modern workplace in the US come from, if not via spending money somewhere?

Re: UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson fatally shot in Manhattan

#493

Post by s1artibartfast »

kerkeslager wrote: post #490
s1artibartfast wrote: post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you are wrong again! please read the article >There are few international analogues to the Medicare for all proposals, but Canada, which provides similar doctor and hospital benefits for its residents, probably comes closest. Even there, people buy private insurance for benefits that are not covered by the government program, like prescription drugs and dental care. Most other countries with single-payer systems allo…

There is nothing in what you quoted that refutes anything I said. If you have something to say, say it--I'm not going to buy a NYT subscription so that I can speculate what you are referring when you can't be bothered to explain yourself.

I provided you a link to the article. Im not asking you to buy a NYT subscription.

Re: UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson fatally shot in Manhattan

#494

Post by ImPostingOnHN »

MichaelZuo wrote: post #492
ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry to inform you that the money does not go to those things, but rather to reward the person who made a poor choice for everyone, and also to retained earnings. Unless you were being sarcastic in saying "yeah you're going to die sooner due to our poor healthcare choice, but hey, a free soda*!" * remote workers get nothing

Where do you think perks, facilities, etc., offered in a modern workplace in the US come from, if not via spending money somewhere?

Why do you think perks get better when healthcare benefits get worse? Usually they both get worse at the same time due to the same cost-cutting incentives. We'd need some data showing that savings from choosing terrible healthcare plans get redirected towards improving perks in an equal-or-more-valuable way (including for remote folks) in order to justify the former with the latter.

Besides that, most companies can afford free soda with or without terrible healthcare choices, so it seems totally orthogonal: free soda doesn't require bad healthcare choices and bad healthcare choices don't imply free soda.

Re: UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson fatally shot in Manhattan

#495

Post by delecti »

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...

It's not surprising that a law whose goal was increasing the customer base for a service also increased the profits of that industry.

Re: UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson fatally shot in Manhattan

#496

Post by kerkeslager »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #493
kerkeslager wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing in what you quoted that refutes anything I said. If you have something to say, say it--I'm not going to buy a NYT subscription so that I can speculate what you are referring when you can't be bothered to explain yourself.

I provided you a link to the article. Im not asking you to buy a NYT subscription.

Okay, I see the article now, but I still don't see anything that supports your claim that the left is/was fixated on taking away private healthcare options.

Your claim at face value is absurd: if you want to waste your money on private insurance that is more expensive and will do everything they can to not pay out, have at it. Why would anyone on the left care? I assure you we don't. We're trying to give people healthcare, not take away options.

The only coherent complaint you have actually stated seems to be a poorly-communicated complaint that you don't get to pick and choose which taxes you pay. If that's your complaint, I find it a bit surprising that you want to start by opting out of paying for healthcare instead of, say, corporate subsidies to predatory lenders, farm subsidies to corn which is turned into HFCS, or NSA violating privacy of citizens. Or, for that matter, existing healthcare subsidies which are more expensive than single-payer healthcare would be?

Re: UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson fatally shot in Manhattan

#498

Post by anigbrowl »

t-writescode wrote: post #388
xnx wrote: post #340

It will always be a challenge to allocate limited healthcare resources. It's an unsettled question why the US accepts such an expensive means (private health insurance) of doing so.

> why the US accepts Because we don't have another option. Your job dictates your insurance, not you, and most jobs explicitly search for insurance companies that don't end up costing them much (but cover enough that people still think they have coverage, maybe). There's stories going around right now about how BlueCrossBlueShield is going to be dictating the amount of time during a surgery that anesthesia will be co…

Changing the laws is an option. But it's not happening because many of our politicians are corrupt.

Re: UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson fatally shot in Manhattan

#499

Post by anigbrowl »

sbalough wrote: post #474
t-writescode wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the company you work for is the one that decides on and buys your insurance, not you, how does a particular insurance company's "non-evil-ness" factor in?

If we had more insurance companies instead of a few that dominate the market, then your employer would have more choices. More competing insurance cos would lead some to differentiate by having a reputation of honest claim handling while also not being the most expensive option. It would then at least be possible for an employer to choose better insurance companies.

Why should your employer be the buyer? It's just a way of chaining people to specific jobs. I'm constantly perplexed by people's eagerness to rationalize the structure of an obviously dysfunctional ysstem.

Re: UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson fatally shot in Manhattan

#500

Post by anigbrowl »

marky1991 wrote: post #112
ToucanLoucan wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not this commenter, but how I've often heard it expressed was we created the justice system as a better, more civilized alternative to putting people in holes just outside of town. At such a time the justice system stops working, as it increasingly seems to have RE: the rich, then we resume holes.

This entire line of thinking just seems to be essentially advocacy for a return to that exact system. "Do what we want or we'll go back to random murder". I wonder if the original commenter would have put the same comment if the article were "man shoots his wife and her lover on discovery of adultery"

I don't think you understand analogies.
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