At the end of the day, I think the problem is that so many people don’t identify Thompson as a killer. I think if more people saw Thompson as a killer, sympathy would be less controversial.
I don’t condone vigilante murder, but this is a case where I think the calculus that Mangione did to conclude the benefits of his action outweigh the consequences was probably correct and that there wasn’t a more reasonable way to address his grievance. And if you do something wrong and it turns out for the best, you still did something wrong, so get outta here ya little rascal and don’t let me catch you again.
What do you do when the legal system accumulates errors in its operation further and further? There’s no way, even theoretically, to fix that without breaking rules of that level.
The only difference between a vigilante and a murderer is state of mind. Luigi got it right. No dead bystanders. No redeeming qualities of his target, who is probably responsible for a far greater number of deaths. He put work into planning this and it shows, but he got really lucky, too.
If we had a bunch running around, we’d all be less safe. And a hell of a lot of them would probably target villains we don’t all agree deserve it. So I don’t condone it. But in this one case, I think it worked out.
I think the calculus that Mangione did to conclude the benefits of his action outweigh the consequences was probably correct
How so?
There are only so many ways to increase profits in a medical insurance company:
increase premiums - limited by law and competition
expand customer base - customer acquisition is expensive
reduce operating expenses - policy payouts are probably the most expensive operating cost
Any CEO sees the same options, so killing one won’t really solve anything. You get to send a very public message, yes, how likely is that to change something? Not very, especially with the incoming administration.
So to me, killing a CEO is very likely to result in either imprisonment and/or death and unlikely to directly cause change. It’ll spark some discussion on the news, but is that really worth throwing your life away?
Maybe it was the best way he saw to bring immediate attention to his cause, but I don’t think it’s the best way to actually fix anything. He’s a CS student, surely he could learn some hacking skills and access some internal communications that exposes illegal activity, no? That takes longer, but is probably more effective at actually sparking change than murder.
It was step one, not intended to be the entire end-goal. The goal is to make it obvious that profits aren’t the way healthcare should be done, as it is directly at odds with the purpose. Almost every other country in the world has removed profit from healthcare, or never added it in the first place. Even if you want to keep the rest of capitalism, it doesn’t go here.
He definitely got the conversation started. He got alot of people to say out loud that “they kind of agree with him”. And that is how change happens, when alot of people realise they were already thinking the same thing but didn’t want to be the first one to say it. He opened the flood gates.
That may be, but my point is that the current state of healthcare costs in the US isn’t “capitalism working as intended,” it’s a culmination of decades of interference resulting in a perfect storm of bad policy. For example:
patents keep prices high
tax deductions for employer sponsored insurance led to crappy employer insurance being standard
ACA covered up many of the problems for those without insurance, which increased problems for those with employer insurance
everyone having insurance increases admin costs for providers
since insurance companies all want a deal, providers need to obfuscate real prices (cash discount, network discount, etc)
care providers have to worry about lawsuits for just doing their job, so they’re more conservative with care options
And so on. A few simple changes would dramatically improve things IMO:
require employers to offer the cash value for any declined benefits
offer tax savings for all medical care, regardless of how it’s paid for (premiums outside payroll, costs of direct care, etc)
disallow discounts for care, you pay the same whether you use insurance or not
require insurance to have simple terms, understandable by the average 8th grader - no networks, no max costs, only deductible, max out of pocket, number of free preventative visits, copay, etc; insurance should compete on service, not covered procedures
reduce patent duration so generics can come out sooner
That won’t fix all of our problems, but it should solve a lot of them. Medicare should exist for the uninsurable and the poor, the rest can get private insurance.
We should also discuss public healthcare as an option as well, but the above should fix a lot of the problems we have.
Problem is it wasn’t illegal. So the law is no use here. So exposing the activities they are engaged in right in public is no use. It’s like whistleblowing on Trump colliding with Russia. He did it right in front of everybody and got away with it.
Also, ultimately profits don’t have to always increase. In fact, it’s an impossibility over the long term without diversifying, and even then growth will slow. There’s not a damn thing wrong with a business that consistently, reliably turns 1B into 1.1B (or whatever).
killing a CEO is very likely to result in either imprisonment and/or death and unlikely to directly cause change. It’ll spark some discussion on the news, but is that really worth throwing your life away?
Maybe? I mean a life lived in misery isn’t worth much. At the end of the day, only he can answer whether it was worth the cost, but the rest of us have the opportunity to build on the message he sent. Will we capitalize (lol) on that opportunity? Probably not, but Mangione was undoubtedly a spark. Eventually a spark will catch, but of course it’s never certain who will get burned.
exposing the activities they are engaged in right in public is no use
It would piss people off without pushing them to defend someone you murdered. In other words, the message is clearer.
He did it right in front of everybody and got away with it.
We don’t have receipts, so it doesn’t hit as hard. Catching someone red handed doing what everyone already assumes they’re doing is a much better call to action than just saying what we’re all thinking.
ultimately profits don’t have to always increase
They do if you want to keep your job as CEO, otherwise they’ll replace you with someone who will chase profits.
Afaict, the problem here isn’t capitalism, but protectionism.
Laws limit how insurance companies can make money, so they use the tools they have access to. Likewise, we’ve prioritized employer sponsored insurance over customer selected insurance (government insurance is a separate beast), so insurance companies only need to impress HR, not end customers, and HR likes bullet points and lower costs, and don’t care about fine print. It’s the same reason why my employer sponsored 401k is more expensive than my IRA, despite offering fewer features. Employers don’t have your interests in mind, they want to provide the cheapest benefits they can that attract the talent they need. Almost everyone would be better off if they shopped on their own, but that’s not financially prudent because you’d have to forego tax benefits and employer contributions.
When you manipulate the market like this, this is what we get. Insurance is already pretty anti-consumer, and we’ve eliminated most of the little accountability insurance companies have to end customers. That’s not how capitalism should work, and the solution is to either let capitalism work (remove insurance decisions from employers, let customers change, just like auto or home insurance), or to decide that insurance should be publicly funded. The current system is the worst of both worlds (government meddling and capitalist profit maximization).
Neither is solved by killing one of the players, that just makes the player a victim.
At the end of the day, I think the problem is that so many people don’t identify Thompson as a killer. I think if more people saw Thompson as a killer, sympathy would be less controversial.
I don’t condone vigilante murder, but this is a case where I think the calculus that Mangione did to conclude the benefits of his action outweigh the consequences was probably correct and that there wasn’t a more reasonable way to address his grievance. And if you do something wrong and it turns out for the best, you still did something wrong, so get outta here ya little rascal and don’t let me catch you again.
What do you do when the legal system accumulates errors in its operation further and further? There’s no way, even theoretically, to fix that without breaking rules of that level.
The only difference between a vigilante and a murderer is state of mind. Luigi got it right. No dead bystanders. No redeeming qualities of his target, who is probably responsible for a far greater number of deaths. He put work into planning this and it shows, but he got really lucky, too.
If we had a bunch running around, we’d all be less safe. And a hell of a lot of them would probably target villains we don’t all agree deserve it. So I don’t condone it. But in this one case, I think it worked out.
How so?
There are only so many ways to increase profits in a medical insurance company:
Any CEO sees the same options, so killing one won’t really solve anything. You get to send a very public message, yes, how likely is that to change something? Not very, especially with the incoming administration.
So to me, killing a CEO is very likely to result in either imprisonment and/or death and unlikely to directly cause change. It’ll spark some discussion on the news, but is that really worth throwing your life away?
Maybe it was the best way he saw to bring immediate attention to his cause, but I don’t think it’s the best way to actually fix anything. He’s a CS student, surely he could learn some hacking skills and access some internal communications that exposes illegal activity, no? That takes longer, but is probably more effective at actually sparking change than murder.
It was step one, not intended to be the entire end-goal. The goal is to make it obvious that profits aren’t the way healthcare should be done, as it is directly at odds with the purpose. Almost every other country in the world has removed profit from healthcare, or never added it in the first place. Even if you want to keep the rest of capitalism, it doesn’t go here.
He definitely got the conversation started. He got alot of people to say out loud that “they kind of agree with him”. And that is how change happens, when alot of people realise they were already thinking the same thing but didn’t want to be the first one to say it. He opened the flood gates.
That may be, but my point is that the current state of healthcare costs in the US isn’t “capitalism working as intended,” it’s a culmination of decades of interference resulting in a perfect storm of bad policy. For example:
And so on. A few simple changes would dramatically improve things IMO:
That won’t fix all of our problems, but it should solve a lot of them. Medicare should exist for the uninsurable and the poor, the rest can get private insurance.
We should also discuss public healthcare as an option as well, but the above should fix a lot of the problems we have.
Problem is it wasn’t illegal. So the law is no use here. So exposing the activities they are engaged in right in public is no use. It’s like whistleblowing on Trump colliding with Russia. He did it right in front of everybody and got away with it.
Also, ultimately profits don’t have to always increase. In fact, it’s an impossibility over the long term without diversifying, and even then growth will slow. There’s not a damn thing wrong with a business that consistently, reliably turns 1B into 1.1B (or whatever).
Maybe? I mean a life lived in misery isn’t worth much. At the end of the day, only he can answer whether it was worth the cost, but the rest of us have the opportunity to build on the message he sent. Will we capitalize (lol) on that opportunity? Probably not, but Mangione was undoubtedly a spark. Eventually a spark will catch, but of course it’s never certain who will get burned.
It would piss people off without pushing them to defend someone you murdered. In other words, the message is clearer.
We don’t have receipts, so it doesn’t hit as hard. Catching someone red handed doing what everyone already assumes they’re doing is a much better call to action than just saying what we’re all thinking.
They do if you want to keep your job as CEO, otherwise they’ll replace you with someone who will chase profits.
I’m so unenamored with unfettered capitalism these days. This shit is unsustainable.
Afaict, the problem here isn’t capitalism, but protectionism.
Laws limit how insurance companies can make money, so they use the tools they have access to. Likewise, we’ve prioritized employer sponsored insurance over customer selected insurance (government insurance is a separate beast), so insurance companies only need to impress HR, not end customers, and HR likes bullet points and lower costs, and don’t care about fine print. It’s the same reason why my employer sponsored 401k is more expensive than my IRA, despite offering fewer features. Employers don’t have your interests in mind, they want to provide the cheapest benefits they can that attract the talent they need. Almost everyone would be better off if they shopped on their own, but that’s not financially prudent because you’d have to forego tax benefits and employer contributions.
When you manipulate the market like this, this is what we get. Insurance is already pretty anti-consumer, and we’ve eliminated most of the little accountability insurance companies have to end customers. That’s not how capitalism should work, and the solution is to either let capitalism work (remove insurance decisions from employers, let customers change, just like auto or home insurance), or to decide that insurance should be publicly funded. The current system is the worst of both worlds (government meddling and capitalist profit maximization).
Neither is solved by killing one of the players, that just makes the player a victim.