Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., is under fire for her statement to Joy Reid on MSNBC explaining why Luigi Mangione allegedly murdered UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Warren explained that this was a “warning ” that “you can only push people so far.” After a public outcry, Warren walked back her statement. Yet, the statement captures the growing radicalism on the left, particularly among anti-capitalist, Democratic Socialists, and other groups. It is also notable how many of the same political and media figures who were apoplectic and unrelenting over the false claim about Trump’s “fine people on both sides” statement are largely disinterested in this and other extreme comments on the left.
Reid has long been criticized for racist and extremist commentary. Warren seemed eager to play to the far-left audience after first noting that “Violence is never the answer,” but then adding the warning to others that “you can only push people so far, and then they start to take matters into their own hands.”
The senator explained that
“the visceral response from people across this country who feel cheated, ripped off, and threatened by the vile practices of their insurance companies should be a warning to everyone in the health care system.
Violence is never the answer, but people can be pushed only so far. This is a warning that if you push people hard enough, they lose faith in the ability of their government to make change, lose faith in the ability of the people who are providing the health care to make change, and start to take matters into their own hands in ways that will ultimately be a threat to everyone.”
The comments came after various pundits and citizens celebrated the killing, including the former Washington Post journalist Taylor Lorenz, who expressed “joy” over the murder (only to walk that back like Warren). Some have defended Lorenz and explained how, while they may not express joy, they understand where “she is coming from” in celebrating the murder of a healthcare executive.
Wanted posters have appeared throughout New York with the images of other CEOs (and of Thompson with a red X across his face).
It is the same moral relativism that we have long seen in higher education on the left where violent rhetoric against conservatives or capitalists is common.
As previously discussed, such statements include professors writing about “detonating white people,” abolish[ing] white people, denouncing police, calling for Republicans to suffer, strangling police officers, celebrating the death of conservatives, calling for the killing of Trump supporters, supporting the murder of conservative protesters and other outrageous statements.
We also discussed the free speech rights of University of Rhode Island professor Erik Loomis, who defended the murder of a conservative protester and said that he saw “nothing wrong” with such acts of violence. (Loomis, who has written for the New York Times, was later made Director of Graduate Studies of History at Rhode Island).
It is unclear if Mangione’s anti-capitalist views brought him into contact with known violent groups on the left, including Antifa. Just days before the murder, I wrote about how a liberal media site was selling Antifa products in celebration of the anti-free speech, violent group.
The different treatment given the statements of Trump and Warren are striking. Notably, the false claim received endless coverage and is still reported by the media despite being debunked. The Charlottesville controversy occurred at the start of Trump’s presidency and showed how the media was not interested in whether stories were true in the shift to open advocacy journalism.
What was evident to many of us listening was that Trump was referring to the debate over the removal of controversial historical statutes and noting that there were “very fine people on both sides.” As Snopes belatedly recognized years later, “while Trump did say that there were ‘very fine people on both sides,’ he also specifically noted that he was not talking about neo-Nazis and white supremacists and said they should be ‘condemned totally.'”
None of that mattered (or continues to matter to some) in the media because the narrative was better than the facts. Many in the media did not even acknowledge that Trump denied the spin given by his opponents and said that he was referring to the underlying issue of the protest. The statement was treated as demonstrably and unequivocally endorsing violence. It is the same reason why the statement of Warren and many on the left have not been given the same level of public condemnation even in the face of an actual murder. It does not fit the narrative.
Many celebrated Warren’s warning and the implied rationalization for the murder. Others praised her gutsy take.
The far-left publication The New Republic reported the Warren statement in positive terms in an article titled “Senator Elizabeth Warren had an awfully real reaction to the shooting of the UnitedHealthcare CEO.”
TNR has been one of the promulgators of this story and attacked Trump in 2024 in what it called a “new” defense over his comments despite the fact that he has always maintained that he was referring to the overall protest over the monument. TNR also attacked Snopes for its fact check and “helping Trump.”
As I discuss in my book, “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage,” politicians use rage rhetoric to ride waves of public anger and garner supporters on the extremes of our political system. The same motive has led some Democratic leaders to embrace Antifa in the past. However, these establishment figures often find that being embraced as a revolutionary today often means that you are viewed as a reactionary tomorrow by the same radical allies in these movements.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. He is the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”
“Warren explained that this was a “warning ” that “you can only push people so far.”
Well, Warren is right about pushing people too far, that’s the entire reason her party lost in their worst defeat in 40 years. If this extreme leftist cult keeps pushing people further, there may not even be a Democrat party much longer. And if as it appears, that her twisted line of rationalization was meant to declare murder as a morally righteous response to being disappointed over lived experiences, then frankly there wouldn’t be a Democrat left at all at this point.
Tom: Uh, no. Trump “won”, inter alia, because he, once again, lied about bringing grocery prices down “precipitiously”, all without any plan. Now, he’s admitting that it may not happen. He also lied about a lot of other things, like bringing down the cost of housing precipitiously and that personal wealth would soar–all without any plan, and despite the fact that all reasonable economists say tariffs will boost inflation and that the tax cuts for the wealthiest will drive the national debt to new highs. Over 74 million Americans voted for Kamala Harris, which is more than the 62,979,879 popular votes Trump received in 2016, but MAGA media kept pumping out the lies, the misogyny, the racism, xenophobia and name-calling. A large number of people who voted for Trump did so because they believed the lies about grocery prices–something Republicans and MAGA media harped on. Now, let’s see if they deliver.
The widespread supportive comments over what Mangione did support what Warren said–and she was NOT condoning murder, and neither am I, but, realistically, a patient with a terminal condition trying to appeal the denial of coverage for surgery or some other care would not live to see success. Family members are sometimes helpless to do anything about a loved one who needs expensive care that the insurance company refuses to cover, and many are fed up.
Denial of coverage by an insurer is not denial of care. It means 2 things 1-it is possible for you to get coverage if you pay your own way or 2-a competent doctor reads denial of coverage as simply the starting point in a negotiation.
Many insurers will deny coverage out of hand knowing the some offices will not bother to contest and so they end up not paying for it. Instead you never accept the denial and simply go back to your billing office, reprint the charge with nothing new added and send it back to the insurer and a large number will be paid with no further ado. It’s a game but yes it’s a serous game. There is an art to overturning a denial. Mainly by knowing your patient and the disease process backwards and forwards. You call the insurer , get past the screening nurse to the supervisory nurse and it you get no satisfaction you demand to talk to the doctor in charge, leaving your name and number. If you know your case, I invariable got the denial overturned except for one occasion where I wanted a certain type of imaging but the insurance doctor wanted to deny it because he thought I could use a different imaging technique that would give better results so I used his advice and resubmitted our request and got the patient the necessary test. It takes a little bit of time but is it not worth the effort to get your patient proper care?
I did have an advantage I was trained in Internal Medicine, Critical Care and Pulmonary disease and that gives you a far wider level of experience in all aspect of adult medicne and surgery. I was an expert my self in Utilization Management (appropriate and efficient use of medical resources) and Quality Assurance (knowlege of appropriate treatment modalities in a wide range of disease and surgeries and knowlege of what is good care and what is not).
I also did utilization management for our own HMO, Kaiser, and Medicare and troublesome quality problems in care where referred to me by PSRO’s (for Medicare) when we had to demand answers from certain doctors about their judgments and actions.
I have the experience for all of that but any reasonably good doctor who knows his/her patients should be able to manage around a denial of coverage and get the care needed.
Denial of a claim is not even as involved as you have described it although you make very good points that apply to a relative small amount of claim denials. Primarily, a claim is denied for two reasons (based on data related to Marketplace QHPs).
(1.) The patient thought something was covered and it is not or
(2.) the provider’s staff coded the claim incorrectly.
The latter is straightened out fairly easily.
The former – what are you going to say: people have to read their policy. That’s not a claim denial; that’s a reading comprehension issue
GEB, of course, that is because you are using the human component for the process and the convoluted procedure to get a claim through. All of that takes time and money, and when there is an expedited need for care, it’s simply tossed into the machinations working against the doctor or patient. It’s not supposed to work against you or the doctor.
Besides, whatever you did in the past is now handled by AI, which lacks nuance and rationale. It only looks for as many ways to deny a claim as possible before it ends up approving it all in a few seconds. THAT is the problem. Insurers love using AI because they don’t care what your situation is. It only cares about what criteria and loopholes it can exploit for a denial first because claim denials save them money.
People expect to be covered after paying pretty hefty premiums for years, and when they most need the coverage, it’s pulled right under them for arbitrary reasons and ignoring their doctors’ recommendations.
The private health insurance industry often aims to deny as many claims as possible, as this approach financially benefits them. This profit motive results in a system that does not effectively serve those who need healthcare the most. In contrast, government healthcare programs are more cost-effective and efficient because they lack a profit motive and do not have excessive administrative costs that inflate prices unnecessarily.
A lot of physicians today work for a corporation, so as employees, they’re not allowed to advocate for the patient.
“I have the experience for all of that but any reasonably good doctor who knows his/her patients should be able to manage around a denial of coverage and get the care needed.”
What an overly complicated clusterfvck of a system you just described. Do you actually claim that mess to be anywhere near optimal? I suggest that (if you can) you try to read what you wrote through the eyes of a sick patient who might not be lucky enough to have the kind of doctor you describe. And if you are tempted to reply that such a patient should just go find a practitioner who handles insurance issues better, you should rethink that as well. At least where I live, changing doctors is a major challenge, at best. I recently decided to change primary physicians (albeit for reasons other than insurance coverage), and I found that the first 10 doctors on my list were flat out not accepting new patients. Fortunately #11 turned out to be satisfactory, but many, probably most, people would not pursue that process as diligently as I did. NTM that I think that ideally a patient should be able to make the quality of treatment available from a medical provider the primary, if not sole, criterion for their choice, and selection on that basis can be quite difficult in and of itself; the need to give such high priority to how well provider handles insurance issues would almost certainly detract from the ability to do that. In my view, the healthcare and healthcare insurance industries in the US are broken, and I put ~90% of the blame for that on government interference. But that leaves ~10% to allocate elsewhere…
Number6 -writing it out makes it seem complex but the patient never sees the process I deal with and resolve because I handled it. It takes minutes and not hours.
All the components of the system are to blame but the government gets the major share. The system needs to be rebuilt with minimal government involvement except at the early planning stage.
Always go for quality on your care. It’s the only thing that makes sense.
Appreciate the comments of jjc @ 8:25 am.
Must of the people writing today have no concept of healthcare, insurance coverage, medical practice, denials of coverage , utilization mangement, quality assurance, and on and on and on in running healthcare delivery.
The healthcare industry has a lot of problems some caused by it’s own greed, some by the outlandish expectations of patients, the almost complete lack of understanding of the healthcare delivery by politicians who screech about blame and management and have no clue what that even means and a media that likes to point and condemn and cannot even figure out who you should be pointing out. And doctors that have become greedy and are happy to go for the expensive surgical option when a non invasive treatment is better
Also we have very little accurate information on the killer and what his history is.
Observations
1-stories suggest the killer had a injury 7/4/2023 then possibly surgery (nebulous ) and within a year became homicidal. That is incredibly unusual. Shooting healthcare people is not new but usually is the result of a death of a family member of the killer. Such as a cardiac surgeon at Harvard being shot and killed several years ago by the relative of a patient who died under his care. 2 institutions I worked in had shootings occur, 1 in the 1970’s at Baylor in Houston and another in the 1990’s at Kaiser in Dallas (the shooters girlfriend worked at Kaiser and he shot up the office but missed everyone). The one at Baylor was an enraged and unstable patient who shot the first doctor he saw ( who was not even involved in his care) but the doctor survived.
2-the NYC shooter does not move and act like like someone with a debilitating back injury. He moves quickly and fluidly and made his get away on a bike (not something easy to do when you have a debilitating back injury)
3-the shooter had no pain pills with him to control his pain or other medicines.
4-Are we sure this individual did not have a psychotic episode since he is described as quite rational and reasonable previously. Schizophrenia has a tendency to unmask in the early 20s even with no family history.
So there are a lot of unanswered questions and I would reserve judgement until I know more.
Elizabeth Warren is a whole nother matter. She and her best bud Joe Biden have been stripping billions from the Medicare Advantage program for the last 3 years trying to kill it and yet it is the most efficient and popular Medicare delivery system. Not exactly a good response to the people who flock to Medicare Advantage (about 1/2 of Medicare patients).
Basically this is not the time to rebuild the healthcare delivery system. It needs to be done carefully by a group of people who know how to to design and operate a healthcare delivery system. Not a congressional committee of know nothings like what Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi put together back in 2009.
Also whatever Elizabeth Warren advocates, you would be best to go into the opposite direction
GEB,
Thank you for your insights into the medical industry.
“Also whatever Elizabeth Warren advocates, you would be best to go into the opposite direction.”
Yes!
One other odd part of the shooter’s story is that his family owns health care facilities (Lorien Health Services, Senior Care services), and he volunteered there as a child. The company contributed to his family’s fortune. I’m not a shrink, can’t even begin to figure out that relationship.
https://skillednursingnews.com/2024/12/unitedhealthcare-shooting-suspect-has-family-ties-to-skilled-nursing-provider/
I also totally don’t get people donating money to his defense, or to that of the “summer of love” rioters. There are so many good causes that do good and need support. Why support people who destroy?
I agree with you — I’m not a Warren fan. She has always spoken more than she thinks. I’m also not a fan of quotas, but her use of her “American Indian Heritage” to get ahead of others more deserving was despicable.
Thank you for sharing your fascinating insights. They deserve much wider circulation.
Sen. Warren aka Pocahontas may be right by saying that “you can only push people so far.”
Why McDonald’s employee who reported Luigi Mangione might not get the $60K reward.
The FBI & NYPD are trying to wiggle out of paying a combined $60,000 reward for calling 911.
She should know about pushing people to hard! She is an extremist.
Dear Mr. Turley, Ms. Warren’s comment is extremely dangerous. If one were to take her line about “being pushed too far” this would give credence to all killing as someone who was “pushed too far” would be justified in killing a person or an entire group of people. I too had a grievance in 1982, with our insurance provider, Blue Cross and Blue Shield. We purchased a health insurance policy through them for my husband and myself in September of that year. I discovered I was expecting our first child at Thanksgiving time 1982. When we called to see if they would “cover” my pregnancy, they refused to do so. The reason? We had to be covered by them for 18 months before they would consider covering me and our unborn son. This was very upsetting, but it never crossed our minds to kill the CEO of Blue Cross and Blue Shield. Thankfully, our son was born healthy and whole and had a sister and younger brother join him as the years rolled on.
Just this morning, I saw ABC/NBC reporting attempting to show “racial disparity” against Blacks in healthcare.
(I noticed that the reporting carefully avoided the term, “racial discrimination,”–opting instead to use the word “disparity.” But to millions of Blacks –and I do not mean this in a disparaging way–the distinction is lost.)
–Not a word from media–not a scintilla of reference to whether the alleged disparate impact was due to the lack of health insurance of treated Blacks; –whereas, those persons (Black or not) who pay through the nose in monthly premiums for insurance are generally afforded wider/broader coverage in return, compared to those uninsured. It would have been MUCH MORE TRUTHFUL to ascertain whether any alleged “racial disparity” existed among SIMILARLY-SITUATED, INSURED persons (which is the real criterion for assessment). I suspect NOT……..
–(just this constant, unrelenting, provocative and one-sided “stoking” of resentment and unfairness, advanced by MEDIA)
There is a Youtube video on what is called P Hacking.
The publish or perish world of academia has driven massive efforts to publish something – whether meaningful or true.
Regardless, you are more likely to get published if you have something shocking to publish.
So what is going on is researchers are looking at some attribute – like race and then doing a study against 50 or 100 different suspected dependent variables.
Given the often small sample sizes used for these studies and the FACT that data tend to naturally clump – i.e. if the AVERAGE of something is X that means you will over a large enough population find small groups of X/100 and X*100 – put differently very very few things distribute uniformly. So if you study 100 potential dependent variables in a small enoguh group you will nearly always get ONE false correlation with a high enough P value to survive peer reveiew (often Pal Review).
This is the reason that the real test of science is NOT peer review – but reproducability.
Regardless we have a massive problem in all fields of science today in that politics – not just left right politics, but academic politics as well as shoddy methods, the reliance on peer review rather than reproduce ability has resulted in several generations of crap science.
John Say: thanks for comment. I was not familiar with the term “P hacking,” but was familiar with “data dredging” because of my experience in litigation “discovery” processes and challenges to evidence. Whether, in my cited example, the objective was for publication visibility or for “stoking” of resentment/feelings of unfairness by discreet classifications, I do not know. But clearly, the media used it for the latter….
John Say- Actually it should be both peer review and reproducibility. Often peer review ask the question no one else thinks of and then reproducibility comes into play as people test the theorem of the original paper or the question asked.
John Say, so what you’re saying is basically a very fancy way of describing misinformation and disinformation. According to some of your past arguments, this falls under the umbrella of free-market ideas. It’s up to the readers to decide what to make from the published information. As Turley has said in many of his columns this is just another free speech issue. This shouldn’t be a problem at all.
Warren voted for, and has been a staunch supporter of, the ACA healthcare act otherwise known as Obamacare. Obamacare corporatized health services and insurance to an extent never before seen. It’s led to a cold and calculated approach to care and to vastly increased costs . A fact she finally owned up to in recent years. But she’s just another nasty Democrat hypocrite who pretend to be “all power to the people” while consistently voting against the interests of Americans.
Warren: “you can only push people so far…”
I guess she found that out in the last election.
Young: Good one!
Oh, and another thing, what Mangione did was not really an attack on “capitalism”, per se. Because the whole health industry in this country is a racket, a criminal racket. Karl Denniger made these points often on his blog –
” Note carefully that we spend as a nation roughly double as a percentage of GDP what other developed, G20 nations spend on health care — and virtually all of those other nations have socialized medical systems.
Socialism is always less-efficient than capitalism because there is no reward for innovation in a socialist system; you cannot take market share from someone else since market share is not a function of market success or failure.
This, in turn, means we’re definitely overpaying by more than twice for medical care; we are in fact probably overpaying by as much as 80% across-the-board.
It is not hard at all to find examples of people being billed 10 or even 100x a price in another nation for a given thing. It is cheaper for me to fly to Narita, Japan, round-trip, and have an MRI done there by more than 50% than the average amount charged for the same scan here in the United States.
While you can in some cases get that scan done for a few hundred bucks here they’re all $200 or so in Japan, and most people grossly overpay here in the US. Why? Because of various practices that all amount to consumer deception, extortion, price-fixing or all of the above — all acts that are supposed to be crimes.
Let’s say you go to the ER “in-network” on your alleged health insurance. While there some doctor sees you. He isn’t in your network and you get a bill for hundreds or thousands from him. The hospital administrator should be imprisoned for allowing this along with the doctor who did it; you neither consented to such a bill nor in many cases had any ability to refuse, but the administrator could have required that said doctor be “in network” to be there or if not that he take the same reimbursement rate as if he was. He didn’t and thus they both took advantage of your “in extremis” situation to bilk you. That’s supposed to be illegal as a matter of general consumer protection yet not one person has gone to prison for it — ever — that I can find a record of.
Drug companies set prices by nation based on various things, including GDP and what they think their drug is “worth” in terms of your life or health. It’s illegal to restrain trade (15 USC, Sherman, Clayton and Robinson-Patman) yet that’s exactly what they do, with the help of the Federal Government, in that if you get on a plane and buy a suitcase full of some drug at a much cheaper price to try to bring it back and both make a profit while dropping the cost here in the United States it is you rather than they who will go to prison.
It is virtually impossible to get a binding quote on a procedure from nearly all medical facilities in advance. The notable exception are places like The Surgery Center of Oklahoma, which posts “all-in” prices. I note that said prices are typically one third to one fifth of what is charged in hospitals that don’t post prices, including hospitals in the same general area of the country. Gee, I wonder why, and then one wonders why there haven’t been thousands of criminal indictments and lawsuits alleging racketeering and extortion filed against the administrators and doctors in all the other hospitals.”
These is more at this link:
https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?singlepost=3405347
Violence[insert criminal act here] is never the answer,” but then adding the warning to others that “you can only push people so far, and then they start to take matters into their own hands.“Never” should not be followed by “but”. Rape is never the answer, but…
We are now clearly entering an Era of Blogfair.
OLLY,
Looking at the 2020 Summer of Love, Democrat DAs letting violent rioters off, Democrat politicians donating money to bail these people out. The calls to “get in their face.” All the comments about the first assassination attempt on Trump, lamenting the shot missed. Now, this normalizing of violence against people you disagree with. People donating money for this guys defense. Says a lot about a swath of our society.
Warren was not incorrect. Her argument focused on the public’s attitude, and it is clear that most people have little sympathy for what happened to the CEO. Turley doesn’t directly state that she was wrong; instead, he resorts to the typical whataboutism to criticize the left for their “violent tendencies and rhetoric,” while overlooking similar behavior from the right.
Turley’s criticism is really similar to what Sen. Nancy Mace just went through. She said she was ‘accosted’ by a guy who shook her hand so hard that she had to wear a wrist brace and ice her arm afterward. But a bunch of witnesses said it was just a regular handshake, with the guy simply asking if she would support transgender individuals. Her over-the-top reaction led to him getting arrested, showing she definitely exaggerated the whole thing. It’s like Turley is doing the same with Senator Warren’s comments, trying to stir the pot and get his MAGA fans all worked up. Honestly, the hypocrisy is pretty entertaining.
Turley suggests that the issues at hand are primarily linked to “leftists and democratic socialists.” However, he neglects to acknowledge that individuals from across the political spectrum, including Republicans and fervent MAGA supporters, are also expressing discontent with the tactics employed by insurance companies, particularly their widespread practice of denying claims. This is a crucial point, as these practices are not confined to any one political ideology.
It’s important to recognize that the mechanisms employed by artificial intelligence in claim processing do not discriminate based on political affiliations when determining whether to approve or deny a claim. The unfortunate reality is that the more claims an insurance company denies, the larger their profit margins become. In many cases, it proves to be more financially advantageous for these companies to reject claims rather than fulfill their obligations as outlined in their policies, leading to a systemic issue that affects policyholders regardless of their political beliefs.
You are a stopped clock, IMHO, but even you can be right twice a day.
Floyd, you didn’t say anything to refute my point. What exactly do you disagree with on what I said?
You do not believe AI has been used by insurance companies to maximize profits at the expense of a “few claim denials”. It’s been reported that AI’s used by insurers are denying claims almost 90% of the time in mere seconds. No human interaction is used at all.
If the Stopped Clock says that it is 8:30, and it actually is 8:30, then there is nothing to refute.
Until it becomes 8:31.
Floyd,
Just FYI, my household operates on a 24 hour clock.
“…most people have little sympathy for what happened to the CEO.”
Really? George, please cite your polling source.
Yeah, really. You haven’t been paying attention? Perhaps you should venture outside your information bubble more often.
Yep, lawfare
https://theintercept.com/2024/12/11/trump-justice-department-spied-journalists-congress/
Oops, wrong article, that was trump that spied on journalists.
Trump DOJ spied on congressmen too. The guy who whined and moaned about being spied on spied on everyone else. I though lying was bad according to MAGA supporters.
Imagine that! The very same “Trump” DoJ that was plotting with Obama malcontents from that administration about wearing a wire while meeting with Trump in hopes of recording something he could be removed from office from, the same Trump DoJ personnel that conducted the “Crossfire Hurricane” criminal investigation of Trump as an alleged Putin spy, was spying on journalists and congressmen as well!
But rando communists assure us The Intercept has evidence that Trump not only knew of and approved of his DoJ attempting to take him out with fraudulent investigations, but also approved spying on journalists and congressmen.
Trump almost certainly knew as well that Brennan and Clapper from the previous administration were spying on EVERYBODY. And the despicable Trump didn’t do anything about THAT either!
TIME magazine’s Person of the Year, Donald J. Trump!
JUST IN: ‘USA’ chants break out as President-elect Donald Trump rings the New York Stock Exchange opening bell.
Trump became the first president to ring the bell since Ronald Reagan.pic.twitter.com/vPnYNspGj8
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) December 12, 2024
MAGA, winning!!!!!
Warren was right. You push people too far, and they will take matters into their own hands. That is the underpinning of almost every revolution, well, maybe half of them. The other half are egged on by provocateurs seeking power.
Anyway, I do wonder if Warren would have been so insightful had a parent just blown away a teacher who was indoctrinating their child into the trans nonsense? Or, if someone, sick of the racism, had just popped a cap into an MSNBC talking head, or if someone sick of these mass snatch and grab jobs, had taken up an AK-47 and blown away a dozen or so black yutes hauling off racks of clothing? Or if maybe someone who just lost their home to unpaid property taxes, took a machete to the city hall in Chicago, and started in to hacking the system, so to speak? What if someone sick of stupid screeching liberal white women, and liberal women, in general, wore a suicide vest into the audience of The View? What if your thug-level black gang members figured out that the miserable conditions in their communities were caused, in large part, by white liberal Democrats, and began doing drive-bys on some of the leading white Democrats?
If Mangione does end up being a principled fighter against corporate evil, and not just a rando nut, I could see myself voting “not guilty”, were I on the jury. Justifiable homicide IMHO. People actually die because of these health insurance execs policies. While the CEOs rake in tons of excess salaries.
I could do that pretty secure in the knowledge that the particular type of violence perpetuated by Mangione is not likely to spread. Because if significant numbers of Americans were ready to resort to their sidearms to put things right, then it already would have happened. Because, Goodness Knows, there has been plenty enough gone wrong to provide fuel to that sort of fire. Now, bets are off on the violence spreading if there is a food shortage, and an increase in middle class people having to sleep in their cars to make it.
“People actually die because of these health insurance execs policies.” cite some examples of this
Quick answer:
https://www.buzzfeed.com/morgansloss1/18-stories-health-insurance-claims-being-denied
Your response is childish. Suggest you research that subject first, prove to yourself that you’re not just mouthing off for the sake of being least smatrest in the room.
I’d think that the research would involve court records which you will not have access too.
How about governemt records? That would be a relaible source. Try it, surprise yourself.
If using the media outlets, well, each would have a story ot two to sustain your ignorant response.
So cite examples where its not the execs policy?
“If Mangione does end up being a principled fighter against corporate evil, and not just a rando nut, I could see myself voting “not guilty”, were I on the jury. Justifiable homicide IMHO. People actually die because of these health insurance execs policies. While the CEOs rake in tons of excess salaries.”
Kind of like Alvin Bragg in New York found good jurors who recognized that they were deciding a verdict on charges against Virtually Hitler Trump. More jurors good and true recognized the evil in rapist Trump and voted to support E. Jean Carroll.
Hmmmm… ‘corporate evil’, ‘excess salaries’. It’s like quoting Bernie Sanders delivering a Marxist sermon on the evils of capitalism. Or at least, the same fighting words to justify what Bernie Sanders and his familiars want. The only thing missing is Joe Biden raging about “price gouging”.
One would think that in a free enterprise capitalist society, there would be other corporations that would recognize they could severely undercut existing healthcare corporations simply by offering the same or better coverage at less cost. The market and American citizens shopping for health care would rush to their corporation and the evil corporations would wither and die.
Why isn’t that corporate competition happening? Government regulation?
Clearly, Warren and Obama have been right on healthcare all along: the only answer is to eliminate all private health care in America. Ban private health care in America and extend Obamacare to cover everybody. Make it an offense NOT to be registered with Obamacare to ensure 100% coverage.
Universal Obamacare is the answer to evil corporate healthcare companies!
“One would think that in a free enterprise capitalist society, there would be other corporations that would recognize they could severely undercut existing healthcare corporations simply by offering the same or better coverage at less cost.”
No, not really. Corporations have to live in the world they live in. Insurance is always an added cost to the underlying thing being insured. For example, in Realika, a mythical country, there are house fires that cost the country $1 million per year. The people there decide to form an insurance company, to socialize the risk. Bob Co. Insurance Company is created. To be solvent, Bob Co must charge 10% on top of predicted losses to run the company. That means house fires now cost Realika an extra $100,000 per year. Or, $1.1 Million.
Now, to America. The underlying thing being insured, health care, is extremely expensive, and inflated by criminal acts, collusion, price fixing and price gouging. Any efficiency savings (less costs) that a new entry could offer, could only be in two places – in the 10% cost to administer the coverage, and by reduction of costs in the underlying product itself.
The second area of potential savings, means, for the purposes of this illustration, that the coverage must be DECREASED to achieve any additional efficiency. Hence, you get such things as AI Claims analysis.
Health insurance companies do try to lower the underlying costs, by cutting deals with doctors, clinics, labs, etc, and by trying make the purchasers healthier by offering gym memberships, etc. but it is a losing battle. A house insurer, sort of, knows what they have to deal with. A piece of roof decking is a piece of roof decking. But a person’s health is not so cut and dry.
Anonymous 10:32am
You have no idea what you are talking about. We have the system we have now because of Obamacare. It was a terrible system, that was badly designed and terribly managed . To do what you want, basically gives you the National Health Service in England. It’s cheap but it’s quality rates below the US , whereas Germany is only slightly more expensive than the Uk but with the highest quality.
Try to find Cancer Survival Rates in the Uk as compared to the US. It’s almost impossible because they are terrible and hidden but on occasion a study slips through the cracks that shows the real results.
You can get better results in the US by thoughtful legislation with more reasonable rules, stricter guideline for doctors salaries and executive reimbursement, allowable overhead percentages , making all health plans not for profit, eliminating the ability of every major company having it’s own health plan and allowing people to choose their own health plans from those available in their area and not being constrained by their employers preference.
You also have to be able to change easily because managing health insurance is very much like game theory. It’s dynamic and changes as the rules changes. Sort of like point-counterpoint
GEB,
Again, thank you for your insight into the medical industry.
OT but related, we need Make America Healthy Again.
GOP governor calls on incoming Trump officials to ban junk food in food stamps: ‘Make America Healthy Again’
“Arkansas Gov Sarah Huckabee Sanders says she is requesting a SNAP waiver to prohibit junk food from the program in her state”
I was not sure that I believed you about Obamacare, and then I saw this chart today –
https://mishtalk.com/economics/understanding-the-anger-over-healthcare-in-one-picture/
Whew!
Floyd-And they all knew this would happen in 2010 when they passed the law.
Harvard School of Public Health knew it would not save money and freely said it. What do you expect, it was drawn up by Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi and their minions.
“One would think that in a free enterprise capitalist society, there would be other corporations that would recognize they could severely undercut existing healthcare corporations simply by offering the same or better coverage at less cost. ”
If we HAD such a society you would have a valid argument. We do not, by a long shot, and imo healthcare lags the mean in that regard.
How much mainstream/legacy media coverage is dedicated to quotes from public figures who speak out against the “rationalization” and excuse-making for heinous crime???
— Instead, we have beaucoup coverage of Elizabeth Warren and “Wanted” display signs throughout NYC getting the attention, –in addition to numerous articles citing the thousands of Mangione’s followers/admirers/idolizers.
We can change Elizabeth’s words to say this:
“…the visceral response from people across this country who feel cheated, ripped off, and threatened by the vile practices of [media/ legacy pundits] should be a warning to everyone[‘s job] in [mass communications]…
“Violence is never the answer, but people can be pushed only so far. This is a warning that if you push people hard enough, they lose faith in the ability of their government to make change, lose faith in the ability of the [partisan/biased] people who are providing [information to the public]…, and start to take matters into their own hands in ways that will ultimately be a threat to [advocacy journalism in national mainstream media].”
LIn, the murder was wrong and it is being prosecuted. Everyone agrees with that. But what it did was far more significant and perhaps exposed what needed to be exposed in the most extreme way possible. Nearly everyone knew the moment it happned why it did. The reaction was nearly universal. “He had it coming” why should we feel sorry him?
Perhaps this will spur a new look into their practices and push new regulation. Clearly, a majority of people are not sympathetic to what happened to the CEO.
“a majority of people???????” Who/what are you quoting as your source for that?
The correct word in this situation is uninterested (showing no interest) not disinterested (showing no bias). Clearly Warren is not disinterested!
The ‘Disenfranchised’ are ‘disinterested’ in how Wall Street Mega Corporations are ‘uninterested’ in their Consumer affairs, as they are only searching for more and more profits.
(Hows that Patty?)
Let the hyena disgorge her bowels for all to see. It only reaffirms Trumps win over the lunacy of the left.
Sadly, our world has become very amoral and sick. We cannot live like this. All I can say is God help us all, and quickly.
I read this morning that over a thousand people had sent money to support the legal defense of this man despite the fact he comes from a very wealthy family. A family that can afford to buy the services of the very best lawyers in the world if they choose to. So, the ONLY reason to send him money is to signal support for his actions. That you support hunting down, stalking, ambushing, and intentionally killing a man by shooting him in the back as he walks peacefully down the street.
I suspect many of the same people who support this calculated, well planned, premeditated murder also support the terrorist attack that killed a thousand innocent Israelis on October 7. And support killing over a million innocent preborn children every year and calling it “reproductive health”.
Evil is winning.
Murder is the logical, ultimate conclusion for cancel culture.
It seems that Ms. Warren would have a more sympathetic understanding of the Capitol rioting on Jan. 6.