Luigi Mangione

[Cannavore]

Name a single major country on planet earth that has a successful 100% free market health care system

 

[Cannavore]

targeting ceo who kills people with the stroke of a pen bad. but children are legitimate targets in Gaza!

 

[Microbeman]

As moose eater was saying , there was a reason the health insurance companies signed off on the ACA with out any resistance. I believe he referred to it as a fat goverment tit.
Since the Affordable Care Act’s passage, the top five health insurers’ annual profits have jumped 230 percent, with much of that going to UnitedHealthcare.

America’s largest health insurers have raked in more than $371 billion in profits since the passage of the Affordable Care Act, according to financial data reviewed by The Lever. More than 40 percent of that net income went to UnitedHealth Group, whose annual profits have skyrocketed by nearly 400 percent as the company now reportedly denies nearly one in three medical claims from its policyholders.

Insurers garnered these profits as the average American families’ premiums have risen to nearly $26,000 a year. In all, since the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was passed in 2010, more than $9 trillion of revenue has flowed to the country’s largest health insurance companies, which include UnitedHealth Group; Cigna; Kaiser Permanente; Elevance Health, the parent company of Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield; and CVS Health, which acquired Aetna in 2018.

The financial data comes from the companies’ annual reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and other disclosure forms.

The revenue and profits substantially increased starting in 2014, when the ACA was fully implemented. The law included a mandate for Americans to buy insurance, as well as government subsidies for such insurance policies.

Hold The Powerful Accountable

Last week’s murder of Brian Thompson, chief executive officer of UnitedHealth Group’s insurance division UnitedHealthcare, has sparked an outpouring of anger towards health insurers. New Gallup polling data shows Americans’ view of health care quality has declined to a 24-year low. The same data showed that 62 percent of Americans believe “it is the responsibility of the federal government to make sure all Americans have healthcare coverage” — a decade high.

These five insurers control over half of the commercial market share of the U.S. health insurance industry. Their revenues and profits have increased as they have become larger, both because of mergers and because the Affordable Care Act’s subsidies have helped Americans buy private insurance.

 

[Gry]

Florida woman charged for threatening health insurance company: 'Delay, deny, depose'

Briana Boston, a 42-year-old woman from Lakeland, Florida, said she was denied a medical claim with Blue Cross Blue Shield before making the alleged threats.

abcnews.go.com

A Florida woman was arrested and charged this week after police say she ended a phone call with her health insurance provider with threats that mimicked wording associated with the suspected UnitedHealthcare CEO shooter.

The incident occurred Tuesday when Briana Boston, a 42-year-old woman from Lakeland, was speaking with a representative from Blue Cross Blue Shield after she had been told that her medical claim was denied.

In an arrest affidavit obtained by ABC News, police said that near the end of the recorded conversation with the insurance provider, Boston can be heard saying, "Delay, deny, depose. You people are next."

Boston's apparent threats nearly echo the words that were engraved on the bullet shell casings that authorities recovered from the scene where UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was fatally shot earlier this month.

Those engraved words were "deny," "defend" and "depose."

Boston's words and the casings both hew closely to the title of a 2010 book: "Delay, Deny, Defend: Why Insurance Companies Don't Pay Claims and What You Can Do About It."

The book was written by legal scholar and insurance expert Jay Feinman, a professor emeritus at Rutgers Law School in New Jersey. It explores abuses of auto and homeowners insurance to "avoid paying justified claims," according to its summary.

Luigi Mangione is a suspect in the killing, which has catapulted the nation's health care industry into the spotlight. Mangione faces second-degree murder and a slew of other charges in both Pennsylvania and New York.

When Lakeland Police confronted Boston about the perceived threats, she apologized and said that she "used those words because it's what is in the news right now," according to the arrest affidavit.


Boston told authorities she does not own any guns and is not a threat, but went on to say that health care companies "deserve karma" and that they are "evil," according to the document.

"Boston further stated the health care companies played games and deserved karma from the world because they are evil," police said in the affidavit.
ABC News has reached out to Blue Cross Blue Shield for comment.
Following the investigation, Boston was charged with threats to conduct a mass shooting or act of terrorism and booked at a jail in Polk County, according to police.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/deny-defend-depose-ceo-shooting-shell-casings/story?id=116530063

 

[Captain Red Eye]

Name a single major country on planet earth that has a successful 100% free market health care system

You continually conflate crony capitalist systems with free market voluntary exchange between willing parties. They are not the same thing.

Fact - You have more in common with crony capitalsm than I do. Both you and crony capitalists want to use government force / "rules" to get the things you want even if it violates the consent of otherwise peaceful people. I do not.

Fact - I prefer human interactions, both interpersonal and business don't sanctify acts of consent violations.
You do not.

Name any single country on planet earth that isn't run by thieves and parasites.

 

[Cannavore]

Which party is going to take on the sexual gratification of someone that is unwillingly not having sex ?

Which party is going to pay for you to go on a vacation if your business of selling stolen candy dries up?

Which party is going to buy Bernie Sanders his 4th house?

Which party is going to take on the debts and bills of a dying person who peacefully refused to go along with your plans for their life and they were assaulted for failure to obey by well meaning but offensive force approving people like you?

These are all good questions.

Maybe you could organize a voluntary charitable effort to fund the things you are deeply concerned about. Maybe those who feel the same way as you can contribute to it?

Who is stopping you from doing that? Get to it, show me how it's done.

So in other words the person just dies then, right? Because no profit seeking company would pay millions of dollars of treatment for a dying person. Just say it. You keep dancing around your hypotheticals.

 

[Cannavore]

You continually conflate crony capitalist systems with free market voluntary exchange between willing parties. They are not the same thing.

Fact - You have more in common with crony capitalsm than I do. Both you and crony capitalists want to use government force / "rules" to get the things you want even if it violates the consent of otherwise peaceful people. I do not.

Fact - I prefer human interactions, both interpersonal and business don't sanctify acts of consent violations.
You do not.

Name any single country on planet earth that isn't run by thieves and parasites.

So the free market doesn't exist then, right? Since every economy is crony. lol.

Cool man. This has been a very constructive conversation, you definitely don't come across as some unhinged libertarian lol.

 

[Cannavore]

If voting for single payer health care is gang rape to the people who didn't vote for it, & the free market doesn't exist because it's all "crony capitalist" - the conclusion is those people seeking care just die.

 

[Captain Red Eye]

So the free market doesn't exist then, right? Since every economy is crony. lol.

Cool man. This has been a very constructive conversation, you definitely don't come across as some unhinged libertarian lol.

Not quite.

An actual free market has been forced into the shadows because of people like you and crony capitalists. that set up barriers to entry into given markets.

I could know where to get some healthcare that is disallowed or illegal, but that's only because of people like you and crony capitalists that force your rules onto other people that aren't doing the same to you.

Cool man. I definitely wouldn't say you're a peaceful person, since you don't mind violating the consent of people who aren't violating yours.

You love guns and using them to make people obey you. Then you whine about wars. Silly you.

 

[Captain Red Eye]

So in other words the person just dies then, right? Because no profit seeking company would pay millions of dollars of treatment for a dying person. Just say it. You keep dancing around your hypotheticals.

One of the reasons healthcare costs so much is because of the barriers to entry which reduces the potential number of service providers. If you understood supply and demand it might help.

I could, but I'm not interested in given you an economics dissertation right now. I'm preparing food for a holiday meal for hungry old people now. Nobody is forcing me to do it either. I just want to.

Also, you never answered my comment about what if a peaceful but disinterested person is assaulted by your gang for not funding your force laden idea and that person suffers expensive injuries. What then?

 

[Captain Red Eye]

If voting for single payer health care is gang rape to the people who didn't vote for it, & the free market doesn't exist because it's all "crony capitalist" - the conclusion is those people seeking care just die.

No person has a right to force other disinterested peaceful people to do anything.

You have every right to try to persuade people to your well intentioned ideas, no right to use legal or illegal means to force them. Also stop whining about wars and reflect on your warlike disposition please.

I'll see you later. baking pies now.

 

[Cannavore]

no board or shareholders of a health insurance company will willingly accept a lower ROI by keeping prices lower than competitors lol. the goal is profit.

how do you think we ended up with only a few competitors to begin with? they bought and merged with everyone else. exactly what would happen if we hit the reset button and tried a fully free market approach.

 

[Cannavore]

 

[Eltitoguay]

In your statement as well as those made by me @Captain Red Eye chooses for some reason to overlook this aspect. Is this because he wishes to force his formula upon us? ;D

It's the same old capitalist refrain: "Private business healthcare gives you better service while spending fewer resources than a public state system."
When it is demonstrated time and again that the private sector spends up to twice as much as the public sector to provide only half of its coverage:

(France, Japan, Spain and South Korea are always in the top 10 of the best health systems in the world)
"It's because this crony capitalism is not truly pure and good capitalism..."

...Damn crony capitalism, and ("liberalism", he/she says, heh...) gun-to-the-chest socialism; that forces me to pay taxes, to pay for the health care of Z, the education of Y's children, the roads on which X's enterprise trucks circulate, W's scientific research, or the pipes that carry drinking water to V...

...And they also force me to pay an entire army and its military equipment and continuous logistical expenses!! : Total privatization of the Army now!! And Justice!? What can you tell me about Justice, still in the hands of the State, with how well any private multinational company would manage it...

 

[buzzmobile]

Pretty weird. Definitely, a lizardly vibe about him. I know nothing about him, other than the observation that he is not well liked.

 

[Captain Red Eye]

no board or shareholders of a health insurance company will willingly accept a lower ROI by keeping prices lower than competitors lol. the goal is profit.

how do you think we ended up with only a few competitors to begin with? they bought and merged with everyone else. exactly what would happen if we hit the reset button and tried a fully free market approach.

Again. You conflate crony capitalism with an actual free market. They are different animals.

You drag along the present regulatory situation and the higher prices and attendant fuckery of crony capitalism and then falsely attribute and affix that to an actual free market, which isn't allowed yet and you use it to flog any future actual free market.

I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding guiding your spurious conclusions.




Cronyism = The alliance between government and government protected businesses. That's what exists today across a wide array of services and products.

An actual free market = Mutual and consensual, unskewed and NOT ALIGNED WITH government. It's a market for peaceful trade. "Regulated" by consumer feedback and free choice. Without barriers to entry which crony capitalist like.
Actual free markets are forcibly prevented today. Actual free markets are not "crony capitalism".





Weed pricing for example...


Consider the current status of "legal" weed (prohibition light) as it is now.

Present situation
Dispensary operators practically beg government to go after "black market" pot growers, and sellers because if pot were fully unregulated , the price would drop substantially. "Free the weed for me master, but not for THEM!! "Protect my profit master!!"

Neither government or dispensary owners want an actual free market. Government wants tax money and control. Dispensary owners want protected profit. In that sense dispensary owners are "crony capitalists".

If you don't believe this is the situation, go across the street from a dispensary and start openly selling weed lower than the dispensary and see how quick they call the cops. They want government to protect their profit and reduce competition.

Past Situation
When weed was under hardcore prohibition supply was reduced. Growing weed was a felony and still is in a few places. (Fuck you New Hampshire...live free or die my ass!!) Growing weed and selling it was highly dangerous, so fewer people did it.
Prices were sky high. Why is the retail price of weed still higher in more restricted States is the question you seem to ignore when considering potential "healthcare" pricing.


Actual free market if "allowed"
People would be free to trade. grow. sell etc. without the skewing and limitations government interference creates...

...What do you think would happen to weed prices if NO government influence existed? They would drop below what they are now is what I think, because that's what the evidence tells me.

 

[buzzmobile]

An actual free market

 

[buzzmobile]

 

[Hempy McNoodle]

 

[Eltitoguay]

One of the reasons healthcare costs so much is because of the barriers to entry which reduces the potential number of service providers. If you understood supply and demand it might help.

I could, but I'm not interested in given you an economics dissertation right now.

(...)
I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding guiding your spurious conclusions.
(...)
An actual free market = Mutual and consensual, unskewed and NOT ALIGNED WITH government. It's a market for peaceful trade.. "Regulated" by consumer feedback and free choice. Without barriers to entry which crony capitalist like.

Je, je, je ...

...Well, in order to be able to give "dissertations" on economics, at a minimum you should know that you are missing nothing less than "the other 50% of the regulatory core of the (Neo) Total Free Market": THE OFFER aka SUPPLY...
Because what you cite as ""Regulated" by consumer feedback and free choice", is called THE DEMAND.
And they are both what regulate your capitalist utopia, find out how the system of your dreams works.

And I think my Capitalist Supersense tells me that the performance and added value of trying to clarify your Monopoly Economics nonsense is not worth the effort of labor and logistics: So goodbye.