Can’t access it from his profile, interesting.
As for the suggestion that Thompson’s murder should be an occasion to discuss America’s supposed rage at private health insurers, it’s worth pointing out that a 2023 survey from the nonpartisan health policy research institute KFF found that 81 percent of insured adults gave their health insurance plans a rating of “excellent” or “good.” Even a majority of those who say their health is “fair” or “poor” still broadly like their health insurance. No industry is perfect — nor is any health care model — and insurance companies make terrible calls all the time in the interest of cost savings. But the idea that those companies represent a unique evil in American life is divorced from the experience of most of their customers.
I hate how the last quoted sentence phrases people as “customers” rather than people…
“Unique evil” is also ironic…we’re surrounded by unique evil in so many directions, and compared to every other civilized country, yes, this system is uniquely evil. It’s the banality of evil Hannah Arendt described.
Which is more barbaric: a lone vigilante killing 1 human or a system which kills roughly 70 people per day due to lack of care? If we had a serial killer who took 70 lives every day, would the news be trained on them?
A single death is a tragedy. Multiple deaths is “business as usual” in America. We’ve lost our humanity.
we’re surrounded by unique evil in so many directions
No, we’re not.
It’s one issue: unregulated capitalism.
And I know there are technically regulations, but they’re written by lobbyists and not even read by politicians anymore.
What’s worse is the deregulation of campaign finance law. In a similar fashion it would be illegal for me to donate $3,000 to Kamala directly.
But Elon Musk gave $275,000,000 to trump and that’s cool because it was thru a PAC.
Similarly I could have donated the max to Kamala, and then used the “victory fund” to use the max donation to each of the 50 state parties, but instead of going to them, it would first go to the DNC and that’s a literal black hole of accounting because it’s a private organization.
We don’t know how 2020 or 2024 went, but in 2016 this was the result of the victory fund:
Right around the time of the convention, the leaked emails revealed Hillary’s campaign was grabbing money from the state parties for its own purposes, leaving the states with very little to support down-ballot races. A Politico story published on May 2, 2016, described the big fund-raising vehicle she had launched through the states the summer before, quoting a vow she had made to rebuild “the party from the ground up … when our state parties are strong, we win. That’s what will happen.”
Yet the states kept less than half of 1 percent of the $82 million they had amassed from the extravagant fund-raisers Hillary’s campaign was holding, just as Gary had described to me when he and I talked in August. When the Politico story described this arrangement as “essentially … money laundering” for the Clinton campaign, Hillary’s people were outraged at being accused of doing something shady. Bernie’s people were angry for their own reasons, saying this was part of a calculated strategy to throw the nomination to Hillary.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/11/02/clinton-brazile-hacks-2016-215774/
With Jaimie Harrison resigning, I hope someone with the integrity to open the books up gets DNC chair.
A shit ton of people didn’t vote because they believe both parties are corrupt. The best way to get their votes is to root out the corruption we already know has been there since 2015.
The establishment is blind to structural violence as usual.
the news would be trained on them, for a month, maybe two. after that it’s no longer surprising or shocking, so it gets ignored, maybe they make a yearly special.
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it’s worth pointing out that a 2023 survey from the nonpartisan health policy research institute KFF found that 81 percent of insured adults gave their health insurance plans a rating of “excellent” or “good.”
That’s just a fucking lie. Someone paid for that result, or their methodology was to go to the stupidest part of trumpistan and ask people if they rate their policy good, or if they prefer socialism. There is no way that 81% of Americans think their insurance is excellent.
No, the survey results may very well be real. What the author, however, completely fails to understand is that the survey tells us nothing about what people actually think of the insurance industry since it asks the wrong question; ‘are you happy with your policy?’, not ‘are you happy with the system?’. Not to mention the fact that most of the people asked never had to use their insurance fully.
It doesn’t stop the author from making the idiotic assumption that the statistics somehow support his point, part of the reason why the article has been so ridiculed.
Oh shit right… A large enough chunk of people with bad experiences are also dead.
The implica of that question is, “are you happy with your policy (compared to other options available to you)”
Yea, did they survey people in hospitals or healthy people walking around in the street?
It’s just extremely selective to the point of being misleading. That same study said that over 60% of people had a problem with their insurance within the past year.
As for the killer, John Fetterman had the choicest words: He’s “going to die in prison,” the peerless Pennsylvania senator told HuffPost. “Congratulations if you want to celebrate that.”
Daily reminder that just because someone has a D by their name doesn’t mean they’re on the right side. Even if they wear hoodies.
“Blue no matter who” just winds up with corrupt assholes who will take bribes from anyone and actively work against the wishes of their constituents. You can’t claim to be better/smarter than republican voters and vote like that.
Their mere existence is used as a reason to not bring progressive legislation up for a vote even when the party has the numbers. Which depresses turnout nationwide.
To be fair, Fetterman literally had a stroke and his personality changed with it. It could be that this was the true him he was covering up this whole time, but it wasn’t at all the image he was displaying for voters.
We all have intrusive thoughts about doing the opposite of what we believe, but most of us control and reject those thoughts. Brain damage can give control to the intrusive thoughts.
What’s the context for that? A lot of John Fetterman’s deal is looking out for young kids and is probably genuinely worried about him, and a could be directing his ire towards people who want him to die in prison which is fucked up.
Without further context it just seems weird to take those words as you have.
The piece mentions Thompsons humble rural upbring quoting another NYT article. He somehow fails to cite this.
But during Mr. Thompson’s tenure, UnitedHealthcare and its parent company were accused by lawmakers and regulators of systematically rejecting health claims.
UnitedHealth Group was the subject of a blistering report by a Senate panel this year that documented insurers’ refusal to pay for the care of older people recovering from falls or strokes. Mr. Thompson’s company was cited for a surge in denial rates of post-acute care for people on private Medicare Advantage plans, which increased to 22.7 percent in 2022 from 10.9 percent in 2020.
Earlier this year, Mr. Thompson and two other UnitedHealth Group executives were accused of insider trading and fraud in a lawsuit filed by the Hollywood Firefighters’ Pension Fund.
The lawsuit claimed Mr. Thompson sold $15 million in personally held company stock while the Justice Department was starting an antitrust investigation into UnitedHealth Group, an inquiry that he and other executives had failed to disclose. When news of the investigation became public, the price of the company’s stock plunged, erasing nearly $25 billion in shareholder value, according to the lawsuit. On Tuesday, officials from UnitedHealth Group declined to comment on the matter.
Can’t tell if this is satire. I hope so.
Also, the fact that 81% of people like their health insurance is meaningless out of context. What percentage of those surveyed actually had a hospital stay I wonder? Was it the other 19%? I thought I liked my health insurance until I realized that they could deny a claim. I didn’t understand this because I’m young and healthy and haven’t had to deal with the nightmare myself.
The article is not satire.
I’m “happy” with my health insurance… compared to some other options. Compared to every other developed country? Very dissatisfied.
LOL. I looked up his column. It’s just one bad take after another. What a clown.
Manufactured outrage is a profitable business model for online companies.
Yeah the article is getting shared more than any Luigi article
“See, anyone can make it!” …by lying, cheating, and stealing?
What a shit article.
81% are woefully ignorant of what excellence is. Insanely high number, which I don’t believe is true.
We’ve asked everyone who we didn’t turn down and the results are amazing! No, there’s no bias, trust us.
5 years old and still so relevant
