I’d actually go a little farther, although I must stress that who the dumb fuck works for is very much a secondary issue here. But as someone for whom “health care” means “single payer”, to me the very concept of actuarial calculations as a mainstream activity in health care coverage is both bizarre and repugnant. By the very nature of what they do it’s hard to see any health care actuary as anything other than a tool of the health insurance industry, regardless of who they work for. And if the companies they consult for operate self-insured or partially self-insured plans, they ARE health insurers. Earlier I quoted the Society of Actuaries as saying that in the event the US moved to a national health care program, “our whole foundation [of the actuarial business] could get blasted away”.
I certainly don’t fault companies that necessarily and rightfully provide health insurance to their employees in the absence of the basic human decency of public health care coverage. The issue I’m addressing on this subtopic is that anyone whose livelihood depends on this sordid system is not likely to be unbiased in their assessments of an alternative in which they are not needed, although a few are. I believe we have posters here who do have business associations with health insurers who manage to be both knowledgeable about health care and have the integrity to not be biased by their own pecuniary relationships. Fotheringay-Phipps is not one of them. As amply noted here, F-P is spectacularly uninformed, outrageously biased, and an egregiously dishonest debater.
I will say, one of the most enjoyable aspects of the Mueller investigation of the past month has been seeing F-P reduced to carping about how other posters are reporting the news.
I don’t see why that’s relevant. By dint of my occupation, I also have a vested interest in the continued operation of our (shitty) private health insurance market, but that doesn’t mean I’m reflexively a cheerleader for status quo. Quite the opposite.
I think it very much depends on how deeply vested one is, which is largely a function of how transferable one’s skills are. I believe you’re in the law profession, which means that similar skills might apply to any kind of health care system, or could be transferable to some related area of legal practice, or maybe it just means that you have a conscience.
How would you feel about advocates of government-run community-rated single-payer UHC if you were, say, running the actuarial department of a major health insurer and your lifelong specialty was figuring out how much some poor sods should be ripped off for various grades of health insurance – the different “plans” commercialized, packaged, priced, and marketed like salad spinners and Ginsu knives – i.e.- if your entire skill set would be absolutely 100% useless under a rationally constituted universal health care system? That seems to be more or less F-P’s situation, as evidenced by the fact that he lacks even the most rudimentary knowledge about how rational, humane public health care systems actually work, and understands health care only from the perspective of a conman huckster.
There once was a man from Japan
Whose limericks didn’t quite scan
When he was asked why
He said it’s 'cause I
Try to squeeze as many words into the last line as I possibly can.
I will say, one of the most enjoyable aspects of the Mueller investigation of the past months has been re-reading F-P’s old posts on the subject and realizing that he has certainly set a record for self-ownage, not just for the SDMB but, possibly, in the history of the internet.
JohnT in the Mueller threads is like a coprophage living in a house without a toilet. Wallowing in a ever-growing pile of his own crap, but loving every minute of it …
Normally, being witness to an exchange of witty insults summons the image of pulling up a lawn chair. In this case, a more appropriate choice would a yawn chair.
