“If I don’t do it, someone else will” is the kind of excuse criminals use to justify doing shitty things. It’s not a very compelling argument, particularly when the person making it is also making millions of dollars a year from doing this job. It’s a morally vacuous excuse to let them do what they wanted to do anyways.
You mean provide you with proof?
< blinks >
Three of which had the words “deny,” “depose,” and “defend” - an apparent variation on what is believed to be a Big Insurance mantra concerning ways to avoid paying out claims, “Deny, Delay, Defend.”
…no, that’s not what I mean. I mean, are you being super-silly on purpose?
Moderating:
Getting personal. You’re not in the Pit. Dial it back, please.
I am not following. In what way is a social contract that “all life is sacred” (letting the definition of the word sacred go undefined for the moment) incompatible with the principle of insurance? And what is the “social good” you feel that insurance policies meet that is incompatible with that imaginary social contract?
Yes. As a means to alter the drug trade it accomplishes nothing. Someone else will take over the cartel and if the cartel itself is eliminated another cartel will take over its share. Possibly bloodier in the aftermath.
Legal arrest (not extrajudicial execution unilaterally) is warranted as part of justice for actual crimes as agreed upon by society, but are not in such a case a deterrent. The structure creates a hole that other fluid will seep in and fill.
The rare exception is when several levels of leadership across the board of players can all be removed, and even then only in a lasting way if the circumstances on the ground change as well.
Let’s be clear. There is a huge issue with unnecessary care. Denials are sometimes appropriate. Sometimes aggressive expensive care causes more harm than good and there are guidelines that are more often than not appropriate. These must be done fairly and ahead of time. Hospitals and providers are not guiltless in failing to get approval ahead of time for non-emergencies. And insurers can be horrible to deal with
Let’s accept that United is exceptionally bad. The guilt there lies is the inadequate regulation that allows such and in the corporate culture that promotes it.
INSURANCE SALESMAN: But surely you can’t put a price on your family’s lives?
HOMER SIMPSON: I wouldn’t have thought so either, but here we are.
My apologies for the “super silly” part. If I can rephrase, asking the question in all sincerity:
@Mundane_Super_Hero, are you offering the theory that Donald Trump hired an assassin as a serious theory, or was that a joke? I’m not asking for proof–I’m just not sure how you intended that post to be taken.
OK. So judging people’s morality solely by their wealth is a thing too according to your worldview. Aren’t you full of surprises.
I mean, yes? There’s a tremendous range of wealth levels I don’t judge, but once a person is holding ten million or so dollars to themselves, yeah, morality absolutely comes into play. (And autocorrect, I really don’t appreciate your changing “morality” to “mortality” in that sentence). The act of keeping such tremendous wealth is a conscious decision, and I’m comfortable judging people for such decisions.
No? Again, I’m in pretty good company on this one.
How about these killings? Okay with them? I’m just trying to figure out the parameters of your acceptance of violence for political ends.
How about these killings? Okay with them?
It is totally reasonable to support certain acts of violence for political ends, and not other acts of violence for political ends, based on what those ends are. Assuming that someone who supports certain acts of political violence must support all acts of political violence does not strike me as reasonable.
I say this as someone who doesn’t support this act of political violence.
I wouldn’t be a medical CEO. It would not be my path to happiness. In the increasingly corporatized medical world I consistently argue that the lack of a sense of being part of something that is working towards a greater good is bad for business. Healthcare providers want to do good while doing well. Diminishing that sense results in burnout and both poorer quality and productivity.
But our contempt for those who are motivated most by being higher in the 0.1% than they already are is irrelevant to the fact that CEOs are hired to make a for profit company increase in value. Different CEOs will come to different paths of achieving that, but the job is to do that. Not to do good works.
Society by way of government and regulatory oversight needs to set the guardrails. Not hoping for CEOs who don’t care about company value and profits.
I think there are two related but slightly different discussions going on here.
One is, will heaping moral condemnation on this guy make anyone’s life better?
Another is, does this guy deserve heaps of moral condemnation?
I agree that condemning him (or assassinating him) will do little or nothing to fix systemic problems in health care. But I also agree that discussing the morality of this guy’s actions is a reasonable exercise in calibrating our moral compass.
No. Why would I support that? makes zero sense.
No. Why would morality come into play solely because of wealth? I don’t think however many millions in the bank really has any bearing on someone’s character, except maybe hard-working and very driven to be financially successful. Or not. But I agree that kind of “eat the rich” sentiment is more common than it should be, and more than a little fueled by base motives.
Because wealth involves the holding of resources for oneself and preventing their access by other people, and when a person holds egregious amounts of wealth instead of allowing others to access those resources, they cause suffering. If you’re interested in the subject beyond that one sentence, I recommend a new thread.
How do you read that quote from the Gospels? Was Jesus just jealous of the Pharisees?
If, by “base motives,” you mean “want food, shelter, and health care,” I suppose those are base motives. They certainly form the base of Maslow’s hierarchy.
Rump couldn’t order a pizza.
But it fills a lot of holes with pegs that someone in Project 2025 could have or did.
Anyone can present a theory, right? Given 1 Police Plaza, The State Police, and the FBI right now have almost nothing shouldn’t we all be allowed to present theories of what and why?
I am not entering this discussion to argue whether he was “bad” or “good” based on his occupation. I do have strong feelings about the morality of the health insurance business, biased by my own personal experience.
I’m sorry about your dad. I’m not sure how that experience relates to my comments. I don’t think medicine is clear-cut. There are often multiple options for treatment for a given patient, each carrying its own risks and possible benefits. Not every provider is going to have the same perspective on treatment, and not every patient is going to make the same choices.
My point is in fact that because medicine is not clear-cut, a claims processor at an insurance company is in no position to question the “medical necessity” of a particular course of treatment. They do not know the patient, they do not know the discussions that have been had, and they do not provide their own recommendation for care.
I absolutely think that we should be evaluating treatments of questionable effectiveness and considering whether those treatments are where we want to be spending our health care dollars. I don’t think that insurance companies are to be trusted with making the choices there that are best for us as individual patients, and I don’t believe that that mission (of moving the needle systemically on outcomes and efficiency for patients) is given more than lip service in current insurance company procedures.