United healthcare CEO assassinated, the P&E edition {This is not a gun debate/statistics thread!}

Politics & Elections
41

My sympathy here is dependent on the nature of the complaint.

A possible problem with this framing is that the U.S. is the world capital of unnecessary medical care. Figure 2 here only compares three other nations with the U.S., but gives the idea. This of course is related to American health care being the most expensive without giving the best outcomes.

Most complaints I hear about are care denials. What you will not hear about is everyone who died because the gatekeepers were not rigorous enough in stopping unnecessary surgeries.

There’s a good argument that profit-making insurers like UnitedHealthcare should be transitioned to a non-profit model. But even though I generally recommend non-profit insurers when you have a choice, those also need strong gatekeepers – generally speaking, stronger than we have now.

Every heath care system, including ones that are more highly socialized, has imperfections and aspects that anger patients. One job of health care executives – profit, or non-profit, or socialized – is to reduce that, but it also is a legitimate, socially valuable, part of their job to disincentivize unnecessary care. That inevitably angers patients who think the care would help them. I hope this isn’t seen by anyone as justifying violence.

42

Of course we feel bad for the wife. Not just because she’s a woman who’s lost a husband she should have had 30+ more years with, but because, in their world, six months from now she’ll only have 10% of the friends she thought she had last week.

And if the killer is caught alive, any heroic status he expected won’t last either. That whole 19th C. “propaganda of the deed” gag? Nobody cares about all the subjects of the Tsar worked and starved to death, Jews massacred as distractions from bad policies, millions of soldiers killed in a war that was supposed to unify the country. Nope, we watch The Crown and the tragic end to those four pretty princesses in the basement.

43

I usually read complete threads before commenting but will make an exception here.

Nah.

The individuals “in charge” are, well, fungible. They will all make the decisions to maximize profits as they are hired to do, and as their compensation is dependent upon. None would last long in their jobs if they placed bottom line at the bottom. End of day they are a cog bigger than others but still a cog.

I have little love or respect for most healthcare CEOs. But they are a symptom of the problem not the cause.

All of which is of course immaterial to the fact that terrorism (which this perhaps is best thought of as being) in usually an ineffective method of producing desired change.

44

It would have been on the shell casing, the part that holds the gunpowder and is ejected out the side. Those shouldn’t be mangled and easy enough to read.

45

I said basically the same thing over in the Ethics thread.

46

Serious question: do you apply a similar analysis to the arrest of drug cartel kingpins such as El Mayo?

Edit: I mostly agree with this:

but quibble over calling this “terrorism.” Terrorism usually involves indiscriminate targeting of civilians in a conflict. To the extent that this is a conflict, the murder victim isn’t a civilian, nor was the targeting indiscriminate. But I agree it’s unlikely to produce desired change.

47

They recovered three spent shells and three unfired bullets at the scene.

48

Assassinations only teach the oppressors that they need better security protocols. It’s not like any amount of “propaganda of the deed” ever actually intimidated them or convinced them to reform.

49

Speaking very generally, health insurance exists because there are many medical treatments that cost more than the average person can afford. As a consumer, we want insurance so that if we need those treatments, they will be paid for. In an ideal world, the cost of insurance would be the average cost of all expected health care for the population, minus the cost of administration.

“Denying claims” can mean many things. Denying claims for explicitly un-covered services is a necessary exercise- the cost of the coverage is tied to what is covered. Denying claims for covered services because of arbitrary administrative rules, or because of internal decision making around “medical necessity”, or other reasons is absolutely an immoral process. This type of claim denial is not necessary for the industry to exist. It is, however, an easy lever to push to increase profits.

Anecdotes are worth the electrons they are written with, and I don’t really want to get into the details in this thread, but I have experienced insurance processes that were clearly designed to withhold care as long as possible, and to make it as difficult and time consuming as possible for to resolve the issue, including withholding documentation and flat-out lying about resolution steps. This type of claim denial is indeed immoral, and if it’s necessary for the industry, then the industry is immoral.

@PhillyGuy , there is absolutely an issue around overuse of medical services that carries an inherent cost, and this should be addressed. However, as that paper concludes:

… it’s pretty hard to define “overuse” and “unnecessary”, and the work to audit individual care plans to ferret this out on a case-by-case level would be incredibly expensive and inaccurate.

The insurance company is not my care provider. I do not go to the insurance company to diagnose my issues, or to consult in my treatment. If they believe my doctor is not qualified or is defrauding the insurance company by over-diagnosing/prescribing, they should take it up with the doctor.

50

If not all life is sacred, I’d like to register my vote for putting health insurance CEOs in the “disposable” bucket.

51

People cheered when billionaires died accidentally in a submarine. Now people are cheering when a health insurance CEO is mowed down in cold blood on the street. Next step is cheering at their executions. It’s time for the elite to take a look around, this is where we are headed.

52

I would like to go on record to say that not only am I 100% behind killings like this, I also think this is the only thing that is ever going to result in change. Some people deserve to live in constant fear.

53

I’m not here to defend the health insurance industry and I’m sure it is possible to find many examples of morally questionable or outright illegal practices.

The point still stands that there is no such thing as a social contract that all life is sacred. That imaginary contract is fundamentally incompatible with the principle and practice of insurance policies, which are sound and a net social good.

54

Even worse, if you are a chronically ill person who makes lots of claims, it is in their best interest for you to get so frustrated with the claims process that you drop them and go elsewhere.

I can’t think of any other commercial enterprise where losing your most active customers is a win.

55

Okay.

56

And yet managers in every health system have to do it. In socialized systems, with much lower national healthcare budgets than in the U.S., they have to do it more.

Life and medicine is often not that clear-cut. My father died, at age 93, from surgery he tried to decline but was argued into agreeing to by all other family members except me. I showed an article explaining why it would not have been done, for a frail man of that age, in the Netherlands. But the sample size in the related study, for people as aged as he, was tiny (just 3, all killed by surgery) because of it being an unusual situation. And the doctor, although he is not a famed leader in his field, was qualified. And my Dad really did have a problem the doc was trained to fix, and that it would have been more than appropriate to fix at a younger age. AFAIK, the doc did not have trouble getting an insurance pre-cert. Or, at least, he did get it.

While the publicity given to this one murder, due to the victim being a CEO, is excessive, there is no good excuse for generalizing about men with his occupation being bad people.

57

OK… let us begin. There is a stairmaster before us; let us get our steps in:

Step 1) It’s random. Umm… no.

Step 2) Its an ex-employee with a grudge. Nope, too professional.

Step 3) Its someone banging his wife daughter or son. Nope, too professional.

Step 4) It’s someone whose wife/son daughter he’s banging. Nope, he’d be in Rump’s cabinet.

Step 5) Owes big bucks gambling or for drug use. Nope, no sign of drug use. Also, you can’t get money out of a corpse.

Step 6) Somebody blocked a promotion or somebody wants his corner office. Nope, this hit team were Pros… the Real Thing. It might take five years of this guys salary to afford this. These kind of Pros are national level.

Step 7) Somebody wanted United Health Care to do something or to stop doing something customer wide. I think we’re getting closer.

So, what is United Heath Care… what does it do? It sells millions and millions of policies to companies to offer to employed individuals in every (almost every?) state.
Health care coverage for the employees, spouses of employees, significant others of employees, dependants of employees.

What could that coverage entail? Possible full womens healthcare including birth control and abortion. Possibly coverage for Trans healthcare. There may be big deductibles, but there’s a good chance it’s there.

Now, what Asshats want to limit all women’s healthcare and/or eliminate all Trans community care? ( Golly, have you ever noticed how very hard it is to rhyme something with the word “orange”? ) I mention this because even in states where women’s healthcare and Trans healthcare is fully legal and protected… without any insurance coverage it’s expensive as hell.

Picture for your imagination a CEO who says, “No, we’re making good money off of providing that service. Get lost you greasy orange small-handed basketball.”

Now, imagine that some greasy small-handed vulgarian doesn’t like being told No.

He then asks someone to do him a favor: Squid Pro Quo.

58

Insurance is a scam and rich people are evil. Got it.

59

Sarcasm is hard to read on the Internet --can you clarify whether you’re serious here?

60

“Rich people are evil” isn’t exactly a fringe belief. I mean, Jesus Christ, dude.