https://www.newsweek.com/luigi-mangione-brian-thompson-shooting-unitedheath-altoona-1997945
Many far left libs are looking at him as a great person for what he did. Disgusting I say that they’re condoning a murder!
Moreover, most of these same far left libs are against capital punishment making them seem inconsistent to me. He didn’t even murder anyone even if some decisions he made may have indirectly lead to deaths of insureds via denial of coverage.
Mike, what say you about this?
Thanks for the outstanding comment, Larry!
I think this case brings out a host of complicated issues.
1. One of them is our health care system which is failing many millions of,people. Interesting that this was NOT a major topic in the last presidential election. Maybe because it was broken under both Biden AND Trump. For me, this is the issue which I lean the farthest left on. it’s 2024 and we live in the richest country of the world. We spent massive amounts of money counterproductively to fund a kill fest in Ukraine based on political agenda and self enrichment of our military-industrial-political-media complex, message gatekeepers while ignoring very serious problems at home. Our leaders in politics and business have become morally bankrupt and lacking of empathy for human beings and the human condition.
Thanks for the outstanding comment, Larry!
I think this case brings out a host of complicated issues.
1. One of them is our health care system which is failing many millions of,people. Interesting that this was NOT a major topic in the last presidential election. Maybe because it was broken under both Biden AND Trump And neither candidate has a solution. For me, this is the issue which I lean the farthest left on. it’s 2024 and we live in the richest country of the world. We spent massive amounts of money counterproductively to fund a kill fest in Ukraine based on political agenda and self enrichment of our military-industrial-political-media complex, message gatekeepers while ignoring very serious problems at home. Our leaders in politics and business have become morally bankrupt and lacking of empathy for human beings and the human condition.
2. For me, I think the solution involves a system with more government guaranteedt coverage and especially negotiated prices. with the current broken system, at least have guidelines and monitoring to enforce fair treatment when people make claims and need coverage from their insurance providers…..that shouldn’t be allowed to take advantage of people. Good luck with that though. These entities have great influence by employing lobbyists that bribe politicians to keep legislation that favors their profits over Americans.
So get rid of the lobby money which is paying politicians to NOT fix healthcare.
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ADDED at 9am:
Why will that never happen? Because politicians who are massively enriched by this corrupt system are not going to make the changes to fix it and cut off their personal enrichment.
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Below is just the spending from lobbyists for 3 months!
https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/ai-and-machine-learning/top-35-healthcare-lobbying-spenders-q2
These powerful companies use this money to bribe/own our politicians. They spend it to have rules which favor THEM over Americans.
Larry,
I am also disturbed and disgusted by the folk hero status this murderer is receiving. But I would ascribe it to the populist rise in our culture. The faith in our institutions is at extreme lows. I'm with Mike on universal healthcare (which will never happen in my lifetime). But disregard for civil order may be a bigger problem at hand.
Thanks Mike and joj.
I realize there’s a major healthcare issue in the US and it needs fixing.
My previous post is specifically addressing this vigilante-like murder. Josh Shapiro said it very well in this tweet imho:
Josh Shapiro: "In America, we do not kill people in cold blood to resolve policy differences or express a viewpoint ... I have no tolerance, nor should anyone, for one man using an illegal ghost gun to murder someone because he thinks his opinion matters most ... he is no hero."
joj and I see eye to eye on universal healthcare coverage. It's insane that millions in our country are being treated like this.
3. I'm on Medicare, being 65+ and get to see the advantages of government coverage and government negotiated prices. It's a no brainer. I pay a very small, reasonable monthly fee for this coverage and only pay 20% of the negotiated price and the negotiated price is often only 30% or so of the fee the doctors/hospitals initially charged.
So I pay 20% of 30%, which is like 6% of the initial charge.
Unlike people NOT on Medicare that get a sick feeling when the bill comes or that get denied by health insurance companies, when I get the break down of the bills, honestly I have a great feeling that I'm getting an amazing deal and feel really good about my coverage NOT feeling ripped off.
Also, I look at the mega inflated price of what the doctors and hospitals are charging initially to UNINSURED PEOPLE and am blown away. They are charging WAY more to start with, so the "negotiated price" is higher for them apparently.
There are also special rates for people that pay themselves and have no insurance.
4. Get this. My wife had insurance and I have Medicare. We are both on Medicare now but the cheapest prices we got/still get for our medicines was/is by using a free card/company called GoodRX.
Neither of us pay for part D of Medicare which covers the meds because its very costly and we can get all our meds really cheap with GoodRX.
How is it that people that pay high private insurance premiums have to also pay more for their meds than everybody else that has this free card???
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There are other ones besides GoodRx that save even more which I used before, cost no money and get me rates that are LOWER than people with insurance. HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE????
https://indianadrugcard.com/about
So I just provided the backdrop to explain the extreme mindset of people that understand what health insurance companies are doing to Americans.
5. These people feel powerless because there is nothing you or me can do. It's a system that is rigged against us by corrupt politicians and health care companies that exploit rules for THEIR benefits and the people with the power to change it.........have no incentive to change it because they are benefactors of the corruption.
6. Of course it's never right to take the law into your own hands, regardless of the circumstances. 2 wrongs don't make a right. In this case, a person employed by a corrupted business but LEGAL business is not breaking any laws. He was following rules and laws that allow his company to rip off millions of Americans. He did not make the laws/rules. His job is to make the most money for his company that he can. In most realms, if he does this effectively, he gets promoted and this is seen as an accomplishment to be proud of. Apparently, in the health care industry millions of Americans see people like him as a criminal, instead.
7. The people that cheer this act on and see the criminal as a vigilante have broken ethical standards and/or are confused by twisted justifications in their minds. If this was a person in their family or their next door neighbor or they knew him personally, they would not treat him as a predator that is intentionally hurting people for self enrichment. If that was the standard, then we should off almost every politician that got legally elected because most of them use their political office for self enrichment and agenda that puts THEMSELVES first. They are actually the ones that created the broken system and really bad rules by which the assassinated gentlemen was playing legally by.
8. The targets of our rage should be the ones responsible for the rules. Since those are the ones that are the real gatekeepers, they also control the messaging. So people don't connect them and blame them..........instead WE ELECT THEM AND RE ELECT THEM. With both parties participating, its rare that we get a candidate that speaks candidly about how their profession is screwing us over.
WE'VE PUT THE FOX IN CHARGE OF THE HEALTHCARE HEN HOUSE!
Thanks much, Larry.
Sorry for the long winded version but its important to understand the source of the rage as well as the intensity to understand the entire picture.
Again, not to justify it but to understand how millions would acquire this vigilante type mindset. They conflate this act with justice, partly because they are confused about who the REAL sources are that they should be targeting (not with violence) and blaming.
Their only option that would provide positive changes would be to change the system and the rules under which this guy was operating legally. Politicians are in cahoots with the corrupt sources that continually get a free pass.
After this assassination, how many articles have we read about this really bad system being caused by our politicians?
Its really good to discuss how wrong this was(and we should do that even more) but then, tens of millions of Americans are extremely outraged. Blaming it all on their outrage and totally wrong way to vent that is letting the REAL culprits/source cause of their outrage off the hook.
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We should use this shocking incident as a wake up call. Turn lemons into lemonade. judging people's ethical standards for offensive displays of support for an assassination (which is REALLY sad) does tell us something about people but it's not doing anything to fix their justified outrage over the broken healthcare system.
We can't change confused people's lack of empathy for the target that was just part of a dysfunctional legal healthcare system and doing his job well.
We can change the system for the better and REDUCE THEIR OUTRAGE.
Bernie has the exact right idea!!!
I like Josh Shapiro's unequivocal condemnation of the cold blooded murder. Thanks Larry.
I also agree with that too!
In watching CNN much of the evening, apparently this guy was displaying numerous symptoms of a person with a mental breakdown with pathological thinking and actions consistent with mental illness.
Not excusing him at all just reporting views from a couple of their experts.
He had a severe back injury and pain, along with being denied by his health care provider which started this.
it apparently evolved into a pathological, obsessive blame seeking mission to hold this particular guy accountable.
His defense attorney, I will bet is going to argue that he was not of a sound mind and his trial is likely going to feature some OJ Simpson or even better, Menendez brothers similarities, with the media turning it into a big ratings circus bonanza.
Insurance companies and their employees were among the top political donors to state commissioner candidates during the past decade in at least six of the 11 states that elect the regulators. The Center for Public Integrity found a pattern of coziness between the insurance industry and the state commissioners who regulate them.
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I just got my last family doctor regular check up bill in the mail. It included a flu shot, initial cost $95, administration cost of flu shot of $54 that I got for free on Medicare coverage.
The total original cost for my visit was $505.
Insurance adjustment was -$154.92
Insurance paid(Medicare) -$301.64
My payment amount due $24.22
For this particular bill I paid less than 5% of the bloated cost and got a wonderful deal BECAUSE OF MEDICARE!
My wife is having a colonoscopy and esophagus stretch done next Monday(hopefully no problem from the Winter Storm).
She's on Medicare insurance too. She had to PRE pay part of her portion of the bill. I guess they don't want to get stiffed!
We just found out that Medicare started imposing a $250 yearly deductible for the first time.
With 68 million people enrolled in Medicare X 68,000,000 = $250 =$17,000,000,000
Last Friday, I had Deb cancel the colonoscopy/esophagus stretch because of the weather coming up 3 days ahead.
The hospital was not thrilled with this. She offered to connect them to her husband, the meteorologist but they declined.
For those that have had this procedure, you know that drinking a nasty prep at least 1 day before hand is required. This completely cleans you out, after causing severe cramping and abdominal pain with long lived diarrhea.
As it turns out, we couldn't get out of our subdivision(still can't) because the guy who plows had his snowplow breakdown.
She would have gone thru this very unpleasant experience ($50 for the prep) FOR NOTHING!!!
She was extremely happy about cancelling which prevented it from happening.
She's rescheduled for March.
https://www.newsweek.com/biden-blocks-medical-debt-credit-reports-2010916
Unpaid medical bills showing on credit reports can block people from mortgages, car loans or small business loans.
The new rule will remove $49 billion in medical debt from the credit reports of more than 15 million Americans, according to The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).
This means lenders will no longer be able to take medical debts into consideration when deciding to issue a loan.
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Yes!
And there's much more to change!