"Part of the ethos that Americans have brought to the internet is the idea that speech is good, more speech is better, and we should err on the side of permitting speech."
I am not sure that "speech is good, more speech is better . . . " is actually the ethos among those who advocate for "free speech". From my perspective free speech absolutism is necessary because the alternative puts you into a state where those in power get to determine what is allowed speech and no one is ever perfectly positioned for that role. Free speech isn't perfect but all policies are trade-offs and I believe this one still carries the winning hand.
Well the guy who was saying nonsense got deleted so I didn’t get to write my takedown of “unsubstantiated conjectures and hypothetical fictional claims of harm” that underlies the worship of Brian Thompson’s murderer. Here is all I got.
>So what's a valid response to widescale actuarial murder, which any health insurance executive perpetrates daily?
One needs to substantiate that “if not for this act” this person would still live. Is it “murder” to look at the cost effectiveness of medical services and interventions, especially when there is a huge incentive for medical service providers to overcharge (and thus consume resources that could be used for medical care).
In short, so much of the vulgarity comes from a desire to allocate blame and hatred first. The justifications are sloppy, because they don’t matter. Consumers interact with insurance companies directly. Insurers are the ones performing rationing in a broken healthcare market full of rent seeking and buck passing.
You're probably correct in all this. I especially agree that prioritizing the delivery of healthcare is not in any way shape or form murder. But United HealthCare was (and probably still is) especially egregious in terms of beings sloppy and greedy. Even prior to BT's murder they had caught my attention (twice) as an example of "how not to do health insurance unless you want people to rightly hate you".
I don't know what that means legally, exactly, but I can see the argument that "sloppy and greedy business practices" that can be linked, statistically, to higher rates of death could count as something akin to manslaughter. I'm not trained in law so I have no idea if that would make sense in a courtroom, but I'm simply saying I can see the logic.
The issue is that most healthcare plans are employer funded and the healthcare provider is managing those funds. What happens is they are under immense pressure from the employer to reduce health expenditures and have to deal with doctors adding unnecessary charges, tests, and procedures to bills.
Most healthcare users don’t look through their EOB and see what doctors are claiming that has to be rejected.
Then there are super users of healthcare that take up resources because they don’t follow plans of care and/or are hypochondriacs.
I am married to a physician, have experienced Danish “socialized” healthcare, and a myriad of US healthcare systems. My old advisor is an economic historian on U.S. healthcare systems insurance. The truth is many Americans don’t want to fix the system, don’t want to pay for a better system, or accept the limitations on choice that HMOs provide (I have Kaiser at it is cheap. Got surgery for a broken bone for $150.)
"Part of the ethos that Americans have brought to the internet is the idea that speech is good, more speech is better, and we should err on the side of permitting speech."
I am not sure that "speech is good, more speech is better . . . " is actually the ethos among those who advocate for "free speech". From my perspective free speech absolutism is necessary because the alternative puts you into a state where those in power get to determine what is allowed speech and no one is ever perfectly positioned for that role. Free speech isn't perfect but all policies are trade-offs and I believe this one still carries the winning hand.
Well the guy who was saying nonsense got deleted so I didn’t get to write my takedown of “unsubstantiated conjectures and hypothetical fictional claims of harm” that underlies the worship of Brian Thompson’s murderer. Here is all I got.
>So what's a valid response to widescale actuarial murder, which any health insurance executive perpetrates daily?
One needs to substantiate that “if not for this act” this person would still live. Is it “murder” to look at the cost effectiveness of medical services and interventions, especially when there is a huge incentive for medical service providers to overcharge (and thus consume resources that could be used for medical care).
In short, so much of the vulgarity comes from a desire to allocate blame and hatred first. The justifications are sloppy, because they don’t matter. Consumers interact with insurance companies directly. Insurers are the ones performing rationing in a broken healthcare market full of rent seeking and buck passing.
You're probably correct in all this. I especially agree that prioritizing the delivery of healthcare is not in any way shape or form murder. But United HealthCare was (and probably still is) especially egregious in terms of beings sloppy and greedy. Even prior to BT's murder they had caught my attention (twice) as an example of "how not to do health insurance unless you want people to rightly hate you".
I don't know what that means legally, exactly, but I can see the argument that "sloppy and greedy business practices" that can be linked, statistically, to higher rates of death could count as something akin to manslaughter. I'm not trained in law so I have no idea if that would make sense in a courtroom, but I'm simply saying I can see the logic.
The issue is that most healthcare plans are employer funded and the healthcare provider is managing those funds. What happens is they are under immense pressure from the employer to reduce health expenditures and have to deal with doctors adding unnecessary charges, tests, and procedures to bills.
Most healthcare users don’t look through their EOB and see what doctors are claiming that has to be rejected.
Then there are super users of healthcare that take up resources because they don’t follow plans of care and/or are hypochondriacs.
I am married to a physician, have experienced Danish “socialized” healthcare, and a myriad of US healthcare systems. My old advisor is an economic historian on U.S. healthcare systems insurance. The truth is many Americans don’t want to fix the system, don’t want to pay for a better system, or accept the limitations on choice that HMOs provide (I have Kaiser at it is cheap. Got surgery for a broken bone for $150.)