death, gun violence, healthcare
As we were riding home on my bike, my five year old said, "it's sad whenever people die."
I said, "yes, it's almost always sad when people die. Sometimes it's not sad. Sometimes it's OK."
I talked about my Grandpa dying. He hadn't been himself since his stroke. It was sad but also not. "Sometimes it's time for people to go and it's a good thing."
I also said, "and sometimes it's not sad for other reasons, and that can be sad itself."
She's not old enough for a deeper explanation of that last bit. Maybe none of us really are.
The sad thing is not that Brian Thompson died. As much as some people want to maintain decorum and all that bullshit, it's hilarious and you can't pretend it's not. The world is objectively better in the sense that his death decreased suffering immediately. There's literally proof all over of people who will live, or will live better lives, because Brian Thompson was killed.
I was listening to It Could Happen Here a while ago and they were talking about Pinochet. They went off on a tangent about evil. He was a baby once, and a child, and an adolescent. He was at one point cute and silly. He became one of the most horrifying monsters in history. Hitler is the same, as are all the other horrible people who ever were or ever will be.
My toddler is silly. She was eating little bits of salt a couple of days ago and I asked her if she wanted to try pepper. I put a little on her plate and she ate it and said, "ugh, I *hate* that." It was adorable. There are any number of little cute things that happen in life, little cute things that kids do. Brian Thompson was a toddler too. He probably did some cute shit at some point and said some cute things as a kid.
Then, over time, something turned him into a monster capable of mass murder. Something made him able to kill children, and mothers, and fathers. Something made him able to order unknown number of grandparents to be killed... For what?
The thing that's sad, and honestly frightening, is that there exists a system so horrible that it can turn normal people into these unspeakable monsters.
Imagine, for a second, we were free. Imagine we could achieve a world where everyone could do what they wanted and their needs were taken care of to the greatest degree possible. Who would fit better in that system? Brian Thompson, or the guy who shot him?
Imagine being Brian Thompson, or any "health provider" CEO, or anyone who works in private equity, and imagine having to actually face the what you've done to us all. Imagine real accountability. Imagine individually talking to each parent who lost a child, child who lost a parent or grandparent. Imagine hearing the frustration and comprehending the pettiness of the terror you inflicted on so many people, for so many years, every day, day after day. Brian Thompson was given an easy exit compared to what he should have had to face.
And this is *actually* sad. It's sad that there are people who were once human, who could have made the world better, and, by simply following a system, have committed atrocities from which they can never recover and for which they can never really be held accountable. It is sad that there are people who are, today, understanding what they've done and, instead of quitting and trying to repair the harm, they're just declaring moral bankruptcy, removing themselves from Wikipedia, and hiring more security guards.
The real tragedy is that a system that can turn humans into monsters like Brian Thompson is allowed to continue operating. We should never have let that happen in the first place and we should do everything we can to stop it from continuing to happen.
death, gun violence, healthcare
@Hex except, as much as that sort of story has been circulating, that's not what actually happened.
The CEO didn't provide healthcare. That's not how this system works. He was murdered, and a lot of people are cheering his murder for something he didn't do, which is as unjust as it could be.
He didn't commit those atrocities. Factually, that is not what happened. So here was an innocent man put to death over a sensationalized story that bears no connection with reality, that cannot bear a connection to reality, that anyone with any level of education about the real world would know to be a false story.
But here we are. The same old false stories being circulated by people who apparently don't know any better. Because I guess our education system and our media has utterly failed to inform the population.
And so an innocent man was put to death without due process.
death, gun violence, healthcare
@violetmadder everyone knows?
I come across SO MANY people every day that believe the opposite, that this guy was doling out healthcare only to some people, which is why he deserved to die.
Sounds like maybe you're shielded from an all-too-common sentiment out there today, held by people who don't know how health insurance works.
Oh you were so close.
Insurance companies get in the way? No. That's not how that works. That's not what insurance is or what it does.
If a healthcare worker wants to provide care, they should go for it. The insurance company isn't going to jump in the way of their scalpel to stop them.
You are absolutely correct that insurance companies don't provide healthcare. Unfortunately, so so many people think they do. So congratulations for not falling into that bit of misinformation.
But then you had to swerve and say insurance companies just get in the way, which, no. They don't do that either.
Insurance companies provide risk management which has only indirect application to healthcare, it neither provides healthcare nor blocks healthcare.
They just aren't part of that either way unless people insist on them being, which is their option.
Ehrlichman: “… the less care they give them, the more money they make.”
President Nixon: “Fine.” [Unclear.]
Ehrlichman: [Unclear] “… and the incentives run the right way.”
President Nixon: “Not bad.”
@volkris @violetmadder when we say insurance prevents care, we're talking about incentive models. These models were built in *at the very beginning* and *we have the receipts*.
You can't lie to us. It's right there. It could not be more clear. Who should I believe, a guy paraphrasing to Keiser to Nixon, or some random dude on the internet who is indistinguishable from a propaganda bot?
@Hex It's funny that first you go back to a mere transcript from generations ago to talk about what's happening today, and then you miss the key part and the transcript that you highlighted that talks about "they" providing care, not we provide care, emphasizing that the insurance company does not provide care.
And all that to build up this abstraction with hand waving toward models, not care, that all concludes something about incentives that are themselves not something that would block care.
Don't you see how weak your case is? Every link along the chain that arrives at your sensational story is critically flawed
And sadly enough, promotion of that nonsense is getting people killed when they believe it.
Just pointing out why your story is so ridiculous.
You're jumping through more holes than a flat earther here, and so I don't know why you believe that stuff, but what you're saying there really isn't convincing.
@volkris @violetmadder @Hex
So when you say
>' Insurance companies provide risk management which has only indirect application to healthcare, it neither provides healthcare nor blocks healthcare'
What is the risk management they provide and what indirect application to healthcare is being applied?
The fundamental concept of all insurance--no matter what's being insured--is that the insurer takes on some risk, taking it off the hands of the insured.
Instead of your gambling that you might experience a loss, the insurer ensures that you won't and accepts that they might experience your loss instead.
Meanwhile the employees of a professional insurer work to gather capital, seek reinsurance, and do whatever else they need to do to professionally manage that risk that you probably don't have time to manage anyway.
Folks don't realize that insurance is a form of economic specialization. It's a pretty valuable thing to manage risk for others!
@violetmadder @Hex
Downright incoherent.
Especially considering universal healthcare is the only approach that makes ANY kind of moral or practical sense.
What "loss" can a corporation take off the hands of anyone suffering ill health?? Unless the insurance agent is gonna personally donate actual organs, this is all meaningless bean-juggling noise.
Keep in mind that a government-run universal healthcare system simply makes that government the insurer, moving that government into the position of absorbing health related losses.
As for what loss a corporation can take off the hands of anyone suffering, that's spelled out in the agreement made between the insurer and the insured, and it's up to the individual agreement.
I know insurance doesn't make sense to a lot of people. It's a shame we don't have more financial literacy in the country, but that comes down to failings in our education system and media that SHOULD be helping people understand how to make the most out of opportunities in front of them.
