this post was submitted on 25 Feb 2025
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For profit industries are required to put out projections for growth. Those projections are what intices investors to buy their stock raising demand/value. If you do not hit those growths the company will be seen as failing and investments will slow. There are a couple ways insurance companies can increase revenue, one is raising premiums which will often price users out of purchasing coverage and therefore they would potentially lose revenue to other companies or simply by more of the population not having insurance. The other way is to insure people at the same rate, but limit their plans coverages and slowly take out bits and pieces upping copays here, lower maximum coverages, but standardly they want to avoid raising the deductible as it will turn away people from signing up. Kind of like shrinkflation if you will, but for insurance. Then they "had" to get more competitive, and they found that they can just deny coverage on situations and users often can't afford to fight these denials, so they make more money off denying them then they do fighting court cases against the few that can, also they can just give in settle and pay for those who do try to take them to court. Paperwork paperwork paperwork, 6 months later it didn't get approved still. Since they are a for profit company, they are held accountable by their shareholders. Which means they can actually be sued by their own shareholders if they don't show they are doing everything they can to make the bottom line go up. Does Charlie need the $65,000 treatment vs the $14,000 treatment, shareholders say $14,000. He has higher odds of survival on the $65,000 treatment, and will have a better quality of life, no thank you. Line needs to go up. So Charlie dies on the table because that $41,000 was needed to be thrown into our $16 billion profit for the year. Or you know, maybe Charlie died because he had to wait those 6 months for approval for the treatment and by that time his issues had progressed to a point that made his chances much lower.
For profit healthcare is not for the health of the people.
That's an interesting little fantasy that's brings us nicely back to the question you dodged, since you're clinging again to this $16B number:
And how much did they take in from premiums in 2024? How much of what they took in did they pay out to claimants?
Not a fantasy, it happens all the time. As for how much they "paid out" is irrelevant. It doesn't matter how much Apple pays for their products. The point is simple. For Profit healthcare is just that, for Profit. Not for Health. Anyone with a moral compass would want a For Health, healthcare system. Profits should never be put above lives. The reason why Americans pay more than twice what Canadians pay and have to do so out of pocket while having a lower ranked healthcare system on many metrics is because of that for Profit system.
Your question is to put simply, How much of the people's money did they give back to the people when they needed it? And the answer is always, less than the people paid in. If the number is less than what people paid in, there should never have been a single denial or wait period.
Source?
Huh? It's extremely relevant... The claim is that people are paying their premiums and then having their claims denied while the insurance company pockets the difference...
And all of that is cute, but you've still failed to map your comparison to murder with a gun to prove that it was morally justified to murder Brian Thompson. Are you gonna get to that part ever?
Profit (or loss) is the difference between the total revenues of a business and the total costs of a business. And although this is a somewhat simplified view of the facts, the profit in this scenario is directly representative of the amount of money people paid into premiums that was pocketed by the healthcare corporation rather than being paid out in medical coverage.
It is impossible to be objective when it comes to ethical dilemmas (an inherently subjective matter), but let me leave you with a couple questions: How bad does a person’s actions have to be to deserve death? How many people do they have to let die for personal (or corporate) gains?
The blame for the numerous unnecessary deaths United Healthcare played a part in can obviously not be ascribed to one person, but Brian Thompson was at least complicit in all of those deaths. He was the one with a lot of the decision-making power in all of those individual situations, and chose to strengthen a system that causes so much suffering when we have plenty of examples of a better way to handle these problems.
I'll give you a hint, they paid out 80% of what they took in. Whether that's 1B or 16B, they paid out 80% of that.
Certainly worse than "participation in a system that profits from people paying for healthcare". I'm asking you to provide a morally sound justification for this specific murder.
So was the desk worker in accounting. Are you saying it's good to murder them too?
80% paid out means 20% stolen.
I'm curious how you think a "free" healthcare system somehow operates without a budget...
They can't refuse to carry out work that contributes to these unjust acts? Shouldn't it be their duty to commit fraud against the company in favour of the client?
I think you may have missed the point, there are obviously costs associated with managing money (e.g. reasonable employee salaries), but “profit” should not come into play. As profit in this scenario is directly related to premiums paid to the provider that were not used to provide healthcare — the service those premiums were paid for.
That is a flaw in all “for profit” healthcare providers; however, policies enacted by Brian Thompson in particular as the Chief Executive Officer of United Healthcare made it one of the worst offenders.
Ethics are a very subjective measure, and I am not some kind of god that can say exactly what moral consequences resulted from the death of Brian Thompson, but the case for a justified murder here is very good under almost any philosophy most ascribe to.
As for your accountant, it may be possible to ascribe some of the blame of some deaths to them, but more likely than not, they are just a person trying to make it through the day at work, following orders from higher up. That obviously does not completely excuse them from their duties to their fellow man, but from what we know or can guess about this hypothetical person, they were not the ones making the decision to make the system actively worse for a majority of the people that they served. Brian Thompson did make those decisions, and from my point of view, got what he deserved.
So the CTO and CDO -- you'd like them to be murdered yeah? Since they would have been in charge of the infamous AI.
Who else in the C-suite would you like to be murdered?
What about presidents? VPs? Directors? Maybe just a light stabbing?
Punishment for abuse of power should be proportional to the power abused, these people had influence, but not as much as the CEO. Murder, or more aptly “assassination” is not something that should be taken lightly.
Does no one deserve death in your view? Or do only those that kill violently deserve death?
How bad does a leader have to be considered violent in your eyes? Would they have to command an army to kill innocent lives? Or do you think they would have to wield a gun themselves?
So the CTO and CDO? Murder, or no?
I don’t know much about them, and I am not for meaningless murder, so I would not support their deaths. I believe that you have missed a few questions of my own in your response, however.
Do you believe there are circumstances where someone can deserve death? And if so, what are those circumstances?
And you knew more about Brian Thompson before he was murdered? I don't buy it.
Didn't miss them, just not moving on from mine first.
Of course.
Not sure it's possible to give an exhaustive list. One example would be that someone has a gun pointed at me with clear intent to kill me. I would be justified in killing them before they can pull the trigger.
No, obviously not before he was murdered. When did I say that? With the facts we have now, it seems to me like he deserved the fate that was brought to him: death.
Is self defense a necessary component of killing then? Or do you think it is justified to kill to save another? A family member for example?
The CTO and CDO are just a quick Google search away -- like I said, they would be at the top of the chain of command for all the tech systems they're using to maximise profit. What more do you need to know to make the call?
Yup, sure.