Comment by jmyeet
1 year ago
I advocate for the fairer distribution of wealth in society. Not only because it's fair but because it's better for everyone. There are many reasons for this including avoiding the alienation of labor and giving people dignity. All it takes is the ultra-wealthy to have slightly less wealth.
So why is wealth concentration bad for society apart from that? Because the ultimate form of wealth distribution is war and revolution. It's way the descendants of Rockefeller, the Medicis or Caesar don't own the world. Society eventually snaps and a lot of violence ensues. Eventually you end up with the French Revolution and heads end up on pikes or separated by guillotines.
One of the messages of Fight Club is that the rich and powerful cannot insulate themselves from the people they are oppressing. Your gardener, your driver, your chef, your security guard. Any of them is capable of taking matters into their hands and they will only be pushed so far.
You saw this play out in Japan with the reaction to Shinzo Abe's assassination a couple of years ago. While world leaders were outraged, the Japanese kinda got it. You can dig deep into this with the Unification Church, its influence on Japanese politics and, if you really want, how the Unification Church is tied to the CIA.
United Healthcare is quite literally killing people for profit. Just like the Sacklers and so many others. We've become completely desensitized to this. Private health insurance is completely inefficient (look at how much the US pays per-capita for health care vs any other developed nation and then compare our coverage). We could literally save millions of lives and cut costs by getting rid of these lecherous middlemen.
So I don't condone or justify violence like this. It's simply analysis to see that this kind of thing is going to continue to happen as material conditions worsen and wealth inequality rises. In his ~3 year tenure are United Healthcare CEO, Brian Thompson quite literally killed thousands of people yet there's so little outrage over that.
I have the same thoughts especially thinking how we’re on the precipice of possible mass workforce displacement from ai and robots like waymo. What I just can’t understand is why anyone would feel satisfied being the billionaire in a bunker among miles of slums (picturing India) - even if the desperate folks are successfully oppressed.
A bunker is just a prison with amenities.
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>You keep saying killed, but there is a difference between letting people die and killing them.
Using dubious legalese to deny a life saving claim that happens to cost say $200,000 that you took premiums for is pretty close. If you pay out of pocket, it might save your life, but you're bankrupt, your children get no inheritance, and you probably lose your house. That's a pretty insidious act for profit IMO.
>Voters are widely split on healthcare reform and have no consensus beyond the fact that they want it. I want healthcare reform too, but probably dont agree with you on what that means. I don't that that justifies a consequentialist claim that the other is a killer, let alone reprisal.
I think the easiest step would be to drop the Medicaid age from 65 to 60. Drop it 5 years every 5 years or so. The lower it goes, the cheaper that bracket will be. I don't know why any politician hasn't suggested this, but I can guess.
Fun fact: the ACA originally had an opt-in to Medicare that you could pay for from age 55 but it was removed at the behest of then Senator Joe Liebermann from Connecticut. Liebermann has taken millions in contributions from insurance companies over the years and Connecticut is the home of Aetna IIRC.
Another fun fact: unexpected medical debt was the number one cause of bankruptcy in Australia prior to the introduction of Medicare in the 1980s.
You can save your house in a medical bankruptcy.
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I dont want state funded single player Medicaid for all, and would vote against it. I think my united healthcare plan is better (somewhat ironically).
Instead, I think medicaid should be offered, at cost, as a non-profit public option to all ages. This was discussed briefly during the Obama healthcare debates, but broadly rejected by left who wanted to eliminate private options. We got compulsory private healthcare instead, but I think it is still the best option. Give everyone a non-profit option with a national pool size.
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you already knew this when you made your post, but the calculus changes a little bit when there is a positive financial incentive to letting people die
> You keep saying killed, but there is a difference between letting people die and killing them.
There's also a difference between letting people die for whom you have no responsibility, and actively taking on the responsibility to prevent deaths in exchange for profit, and then letting the people whose lives you're responsible for die.
If you don't want to be held responsible when you let people die, don't take on that responsibility by becoming a health insurer.
Health insurers actually did worse than that: when other people wanted to take on the responsibility (i.e. single-payer healthcare) they actively blocked them from saving lives so they could go on profiting.
If this isn't "murder" or "killing" in your eyes, then maybe we just need a new word for the callous abdication of responsibilities that you signed up to provide for profit, when doing so results in the deaths of thousands.
> If this isn't "murder" or "killing" in your eyes, then maybe we just need a new word for the callous abdication of responsibilities that you signed up to provide for profit, when doing so results in the deaths of thousands.
We already have a word for that, it's called "capitalism".
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