People strike back at the "healthcare" industry

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
142

How about the real scenario since none of you philistines can come up with a decent analogy?

They took people’s money. They denied claims that shouldn’t have been denied. They denied claims that had prior authorization. They did this to delay paying (because they eventually did pay in most cases) in order to create the illusion of greater profits which also screws share holders. This CEO was under investigation not just for these shady tactics but insider trading as well. The company was also under investigation. These are not good people. Like I said, if you can’t make a profit following the law, then maybe you just aren’t that good of a businessman. There’s this:

Earlier this year, a local firefighters’ pension fund and the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, which calls itself the nation’s largest public pension fund, filed a lawsuit against UnitedHealth Group, Thompson and two other senior executives.

The suit alleged that they took part in deceitful business practices designed to artificially inflate UnitedHealth’s revenue and stock price, and then, in the case of Thompson and one other executive, sold their stock before news of a federal investigation into the company became public. The Wall Street Journal reported in February that the Justice Department had launched an antitrust probe into UnitedHealth Group.
Thompson, the suit said, sold more than 31 percent of his UnitedHealth stock for $15 million less than two weeks before the investigation became public.

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143

No. Monthly premiums, deductables, stuff like that.

They only don’t pay federal income tax, but state taxes, sales tax, and so on still take a bite out of their income.

There’s this orange “billionaire” who brags about not paying taxes - should he be denied healthcare?

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144

And then

Right. And this has been discussed. Then the lawsuits and oversight and on and on.

None of it, however, addresses the topic of exorbitant healthcare cost as the root issue.

If you want to make the case that killing people over insider trading is ok then do it but the conversation has been discussing healthcare costs.

145

If you were a doctor and an orange billionaire rolled up would you deny him? Objectively, not as a personal bend.

That’s what it really boils down to.

Trump doesn’t need insurance. Or tax payer subsidies.

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146

Hey, at least he got to enjoy it for 10 months.

147

You’re right.

Now, can we finally get on to this most pressing question?

Who else needs to be shot?

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148

Like, insurance coverage that’s been paid for can’t be denied? I agree.

The government can’t take those rights anymore than some guy with a gun on the street can. It can deny you your rights(justly or injustly). It can violate your rights.

I don’t see how that follows. That someone can’t take your life doesn’t mean that others have to do all they can to keep you alive. That someone can’t take your wallet doesn’t mean that others have to provide you a wallet.

Again, “better” is subjective.

Indeed.

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149

I love this game!

I’m going with the broad brush approach this time, so I’ll nominate “All of the motherfuckers.”.

We can finally put all of the data collection systems to work for the greater good. We’ll overlay all of the media broadcast data with voice metadata to tabulate the number of people who say “that motherfucker”, and about whom they say it.

Then according to quarterly reporting numbers, the winner gets a bullet.

There. Not gulags, driven by popular response, and for the most part unnoticed by the consumers of mass media.

150

I moved from a country with predominantly private healthcare and very little (almost zero) state healthcare to the UK.
The NHS is the closest thing the British have to a religion - they are seriously emotionally invested in it and proud of it.

But how well does it work? Mixed, I would say. Because it is entirely free to use, there is quite a bit of inefficiency in terms of inappropriate usage, and then of course it is an absolutely huge beast with a giant bureaucracy that struggles to run it effectively.

The NHS tends to have issues where it is underfunded. That underfunding comes from not wanting to make the hard choices about what it is for. It tries to do everything for everyone, and there’s just never going to be enough cash for that, no matter how much tax everyone pays.

What it does well, is acute care. If you have an emergency, you’re likely to receive good care.
What it does badly, is preventive care. (Dentistry is a good example. British people DO have bad teeth, because the NHS won’t cover things like regular check-ups and hygienist visits.)

I think the United guy got shot because he was an easily identifiable villain, with an easily identifiable motive for his evil: pure greed. (He figured he could renege on his contractual and moral obligations, and he would be too big to sue for most people.)

Whereas people who get a bad outcome from the NHS are unlikely to shoot anyone, because they recognize that are at the end of a complex and ultimately impossible political trade-off which has no right answer. They aren’t going to die because an individual or a corporation has chosen to keep their cash instead of fulfilling their obligations.

Ultimately the Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer set the NHS budget.
Budget goes up, more people live. Budget goes down… But the contract is honoured to the best of everyone’s ability, and that feels fair. And perceived fairness is ultimately why you get shot - or don’t.

As to whether a socialist or a capitalist model would produce better outcomes, it seems to me you could make that argument either way. Neither model efficiently delivers all the cash into actual healthcare. Socialist model diverts some investment through inefficiency, capitalist system diverts some to rent-seekers. Both are working off the principle of insurance - one model is everyone pays the premiums through tax, other model is individuals pay premiums (and hope United honours their contracts…)

Personally speaking, my experiences with the NHS have been very positive, and based on my sample size of one, I think its fantastic!

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151

I think this nails it. The people who tend to celebrate murders like this see it as a just outcome because there’s an easy way to see how it leads to personal gain at someone else’s expense.

I’m pro social welfare benefits but only when combined with a sensible immigration policy and even state-to-state residency requirements, which is why MaineCare is in a similar state as the NHS, just on a smaller scale. When people can go to the ER for everything that ails them, they do. When people can show up in Maine and begin collecting an array of benefits on day 1, whether from another state or another country, they do.

What socialists can’t seem to comprehend is that policies don’t function in a vacuum, but in conjunction with other policies. Once your government decides to start bullying the population into accepting massive numbers of state dependents from distant lands, socialized healthcare ceases to have any sort of reasonableness as a long-term sustainable program.

Healthcare and benefits more broadly then transform into a sinister tool for power and control, ultimately making things much worse for many more people than anything free market greed might subject someone to. Here in Maine there is a very perverse commoditization of need that’s been achieved by Democrats, who have discovered that they can simply import new voters and empower them to illegally vote in Maine elections through a lack of process security. We’re basically in failed state territory here, with an ever-increasing number of people willing to be called “racists” to start raising concerns about the long lines of people who need translators to both register to vote and cast their votes, but Maine Dems want us to believe all passed the citizenship exam.

The governor says we need 75,000 more migrants, even while they also declared a “homelessness crisis protocol” due to the unprecedented housing shortage their social experiment has resulted in. They aren’t even really trying to hide what they’re doing anymore.

How does a place like Maine or the NHS incentivize people who can become doctors to do that instead of going into finance or whatever? Compensation is certainly one aspect of it, but what about working conditions as more gets asked from fewer and fewer people?

I actually really liked my last nurse practitioner more than most doctors I had, but talk about a strung out lady. Always working long hours, always late and always a bit flustered. She moved away. Everyone I know who works in healthcare locally is frustrated and a few nurses I know refuse to work at the hospital due to the staffing ratios they have to work under.

But hey, there’s no easily-identifiable rich guy to point the gun at, so the socialists are happy with the situation in Maine and think we need more of what’s already transformed this state in such a short time, and they still have the votes thanks to no voter ID.

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152

Not in all cases and these delays hurt people. You seem to not understand how medical care works. If a claim is denied for something urgent, it can be too late when it gets approved. I’m sure if someone owes you for a service you paid for, you would expect that service to be performed in a timely manner.

153

Yes, I’m sure that kind of talk is within the TOS of this site as well as being borderline illegal.

154

The rights they created in the first place. Are women in Saudi Arabia denied certain rights? Not according to them as those rights do not apply to women period.

155

To be fair, that’s not restricted to the left. That might be where US politics currently finds itself, but it’s not an accurate take on socialism vs free market ideologies.

I think free market capitalists would generally argue for unrestricted movement of labour whereas socialists (specifically the trade union movement) would favour protectionism.

I wonder if the tension doesn’t come from a misaligned definition of immigration? The US right thinks immigration = refugees and benefit scroungers, the US left thinks immigration = potential workers? I’m not close enough to US politics to have a view on that, but that’s about where the UK’s left/right dividing line seems to lie at the moment.

156

If it’s illegal immigration, they think potential voters.

157

Muddying up the language is part of the plan, which is why Maine Dems at least don’t ever distinguish between a legal and illegal immigrant. They are quite deliberate about that so they can cast people like me as hateful racists when we have reasonable opinions about immigration policy.

As a free market capitalist, I’m overall very pro-immigration, as long as it isn’t tied to long-term state benefits. That’s where all of the social welfare concepts completely fall apart. It is just shameful power politics at this point.

For reference, all you need to vote in Maine is to sign an affidavit without presenting any accompanying identification. The formula has been simple since 2018, get as many people here as possible, get them signed up for everything possible and explain why their vote matters to keep those benefits flowing.

I also highly, highly doubt that Democrat activists are informing all of the non-citizens they lead to the polls that they are committing a felony.

It is all quite nasty stuff.

158

Just gunna drop this here.

159

He’s a cracker so he gets a pass.

160

I’ll agree that governments have created most of women’s rights and privileges.

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161

“Cracker” has meant a little more specific than just being a white person when I grew up in the 1960’s in north Florida. The below states it about as I understood the word:

“The term cracker is a slang term used to refer to a white person. It is often used as an insult and is considered derogatory by some. The term is believed to have originated in the US during the 18th century, when it was used to describe poor whites living in the South.”

We might use the term describing a “Georgia cracker” who moved or commuted from south Georgia to work in the big city of Jacksonville (which I fondly described as the second largest city in the state of Georgia.)

Elon Musk doesn’t quite meet the understanding I have for a poor white man.