I don't understand the comments excusing the CEO of his responsibility. I work for a scale-up insurance company, and the CEOs are pretty clear with their mandate: customer service is paramount, we make money by streamlining our processes, negotiating hard with our network, and pricing properly our products. NOT by denying claims. This philosophy is enforced from the top all the way down, with Chinese walls between pricing and claims handling, proper training, and continuous NPS surveys
UHG is notorious for Medicare Advantage fraud. Ask any cardiologist, and they'll tell you that this is still happening. It's not as bad for the patient as denying claims, but it's plenty bad for taxpayers and the healthcare system as a whole. It's not going to get fixed because some of those fraudulently acquired dollars buy legislators, and nobody who wants to fix it is going to spend anywhere near as much.
How do you avoid losing money due to fraudulent claims, claims for services outside the scope of what you're insuring against, claims for ineffective resolutions to the claimed damages, etc.?
Am I supposed to know what a "scale-up insurance company" is?
Scale-up means youngish (10-12years old), mid-size in the countries we are operating, think 3 countries 600-800m revenue.
Fraudulent claims are a tiny percentage of claims, and are rejected after human review, usually involving detectives. In the countries we operate, fraudulent claims are about 6-8% of all claims, and that's usually the level we aim to detect. Being able to absorb some false negatives is usually cheaper than going for the full 100% detection rate. It is definitely more customer oriented than rejecting due to false positives.
No this is general insurance (motor, property, travel etc). It is also founder-led, which is an important factor, as the reason they started it was their personal frustration with the motor insurances.
Your experience in general insurance has nearly zero relevance to US health insurance. Their main customers are large self-funded employers and they operate under a completely different legal regime. Most of their business is no longer even "insurance" in the traditional sense.
OP's point is orthogonal to whatever legal regime is in effect. OP's point was that fraudulent claims are at a residual level. If anything, general insurance is expected to have higher rates of fraudulent claims than health insurance.
If the company is denying so much claims (32%), and they have quarterly profit around $6B on $100B revenue (and they had less profit in earlier quarters, even a loss in Q1), I think they would need to raise prices to stop denying most claims that they deny. And what then? Someone would kill the CEO because they can't afford the insurance?
When I shop for insurance my #1 priority is seeing if the company will pay a claim. Either because they have the reserves, or because of corporate policy. Premium cost is #2.
What I have observed is that starting about 8-9 years ago any retail insurer that uses a mascot in their advertising, is difficult/slow to pay a claim. Both to other insurance companies who are being forced to subrogate to make their own customers whole, but also to their own policyholders. The sarcastic part of me is saying: "If they spent less on marketing, they'd have deeper reserves"
You can look at sites like A.M.Best for ratings, but mostly it's been listening to what people say. Try using prompts like "does xxx pay claims fairly" to see what you get. There are only a few which get positive responses: Amica, American Family, The Hartford, and a few more.
Of course, much of what you hear is {dramatic}"I can't believe it's taking this long to fix my car" - which is natural. But then you hear stories about a company using a customer's photos from the accident scene to build up a repair estimate, and not sending an adjuster to look at the car once it is at the shop and on a lift. There is always going to be additional damage, commonly from the tow. But there may be damage that shows up once a bumper skin or other cover is removed.
The insurance companies are also low-balling the repair shops. An hourly rate on repairing a Mercedes is (perhaps) $200/hr. If the insurance company is only willing to pay $50/hr ("That's our standard rate") the shop is either going to turn down the work, or take shortcuts like using low-quality parts or junior technicians to make up the difference.
Denying claims generally doesn't improve health insurance company profits. It's not like auto or homeowner's insurance. Due to the minimum medical loss ratio rule, insurers can generally increase their profits by approving more claims. Their most important customers are self-funded employers.
When insurers tighten their claim approval policies it's usually due to pressure from those self-funded employers to control costs. If employers wanted it, insurers would be happy to sell custom health plans that would pay every claim with zero denials; this would be enormously profitable for insurers because they wouldn't have to do any work.
Claim approval or denial rates don't have much direct impact on consumers being able to afford insurance. Most of the cost is borne by employers, and low-income consumers who buy individual policies through the exchanges receive government subsidies. But of course that indirectly impacts all of us through lower wages and higher taxes.
> Denying claims generally doesn't improve health insurance company profits.
If this is true, why do several of the larger companies deny so many claims? I can't imagine they would do this if what you were saying were true; the board would have leadership's heads.
As I wrote above, health insurers ultimately have to answer to their customers. Those are mainly employers, especially large companies with self-funded health plans. Those employers are constantly pressing insurers to cut medical expenses, and so sometimes insurers tighten coverage rules on their standard health plans in order to close more sales.
Payers do make errors in claims processing and improperly deny some claims, but the majority of denials are due to errors on the provider side. They often fail to code claims correctly or don't obtain required prior authorization or don't follow step therapy or fail to attach enough clinical documentation to establish medical necessity. Many of those initial denials are later approved once the provider corrects the errors and resubmits the claim. But in fairness to the providers, it's hard to get everything right the first time because every payer has different rules and they're sometimes ambiguous.
That’s profit, not basic functionality. If they denied claims at the level KP does, the CEO would still be a millionaire but they’d be spending tens of billions of dollars of the money their customers are paying for healthcare on healthcare instead of diverting it to shareholders. This should be like a regulated utility, not a private equity fund: comfortable living but nobody should be getting wildly rich because they’re taking money away from medical care.
The other thing to remember is that people don’t get healthcare for recreational purposes. The American healthcare system delivers quite poor outcomes because so much money is being pulled away by various levels of middlemen. Each layer of people second guessing your doctor, processing claims, negotiating rates, etc. is a lot of professional jobs taking money away from actual medical treatment. If people actually need care, that’s a negative savings they’re simply shifting to society.
Quality of outcomes depends on what metric you look at. In some ways the US healthcare system is excellent, in other ways terrible. For example, the US is at or near the top for 5-year survival rates for most types of cancer.
The major factors driving increased morbidity and mortality for Americans are mostly outside the healthcare system. Overeating, trauma, substance abuse, sedentary lifestyles, etc.
The U.S. does well but at what cost? For example, if we’re paying considerably more than Brazil but barely edging them out on outcomes it’s not as much of an accomplishment as it sounds:
That’s also a hard comparison because incidence rates are not equal, with age and environmental factors playing a significant role. For example, is a 1% savings worth spending 2-3 times more money versus, say, reducing our fossil fuel usage which will significantly reduce our cancer incidence rates as well as saving billions of dollars?
How did we enter a world in which the only given fact that must be held true is that "the business profit will grow unceasingly for all time, no matter the consequence"
Instead of, "the human beings that we serve matter, and our duty to them comes before all else. We will profit by being the best in the market"
I think monopoly and MBAification of every leadership position at every company in at least America. Some of the curriculum is disgusting, anti human propaganda. It's absolutely not a given that shareholder profits come above everything else no matter what. The buck does not stop with fiduciary duty, the buck stops with the actual human beings you're company "serves", as we've just seen. Shareholder profits didn't order that person dead. Humans did.
It's insane that you can let your company perform so terribly, so catastrophicly evil for the public that it becomes impossible to know which of the millions of people who've has their lives damaged or destroyed would've actually decided to order your ceo dead rather than just gleefully commiserate about it at their mothers funeral. I think we get there by destroying the real market. I don't get to choose which insurance my job provides me! I don't know how that would work but all they have to do is pay more large companies to choose them and bam, locked in audience, disgusting parody of a free market, death for thousands of sick people and one CEO. Antitrust needs to block every merger for the next 10 years and obliterate any company that's powerful enough to capture over 20,000,000 customers while the vast majority of them _actively despise you_.
> How did we enter a world in which the only given fact that must be held true is that "the business profit will grow unceasingly for all time, no matter the consequence"
What do you mean enter? This was always the model of capitalistic acquisition. Early industrial revolution was not known for it's blue skies, labor friendly laws and preventing children from working in the mines.
The moment you have inflation, which you need to suppress wages of people living from wages (i.e. labor), is the moment you entered the magical roundabout of infinite growth.
The only time capitalism had to placate labor was when communism was a credible rival.
>This was always the model of capitalistic acquisition. Early industrial revolution was not known for it's blue skies, labor friendly laws and preventing children from working in the mines.
Except for "blue skies", the other things you've listed are the default state of nature. Children worked the moment they were able. Even without a capitalist boss, people worked their asses off during the planting/harvest season under the threat of starvation. The other rest of the year might be more lax, but you're still desperately praying that drought or disease won't wipe away your hard work and leave you starving regardless.
> Except for "blue skies", the other things you've listed are the default state of nature. Children worked the moment they were able.
Not sure if bait or that uneducated. But during early days of industrial revolution was well known for exploitative practices like: children dying in mine collapses, children dying of black lungs, losing their limbs in various machinery.
If you can find these all-natural looms, mines, and labor laws in nature, I'd love to see it.
> Even without a capitalist boss, people worked their asses off during the planting/harvest season
So because it was worse before, we shouldn't strive to improve the system?
>the other things you've listed are the default state of nature
That depends on what you consider to be the default. If you're talking about pre-agricultural man, the difficulty of life varied based on population density. A band of human beings that found an isolated island wouldn't have practiced child labor. They'd do a little bit of work to maintain comfortable living standards and spend most of their time on leisure activities. An area with many competing tribes, on the other hand, would see harsh and sometimes brutal social practices. Again, in a pre-industrial agricultural society, the difficulty of life also varied based on population density. Shortly after the invention of some new agricultural technique or tool, there would be abundance, peace, and easy living. Once that technique had caused a population boom, there would be scarcity, war, and hard living.
>Even without a capitalist boss, people worked their asses off during the planting/harvest season under the threat of starvation.
> How did we enter a world in which the only given fact that must be held true is that "the business profit will grow unceasingly for all time, no matter the consequence”
The Federal Reserve (or central banks in general) has a dual mandate to stabilize prices and maximize employment. The Fed uses monetary policy to manage inflation and attempt to keep a slight amount of inflation without having too much inflation or any deflation. If your profit growth is lower than the rate of inflation, you’re be making less money every year this is the case. Shareholders generally want to achieve a return that is higher than the rate of inflation, aka a ‘real return’.
Tl;dr - Central banks using monetary policy to achieve a constant low rate of inflation is why profit must keep growing forever to remain in business.
Not necessarily. You could improve efficiencies or cut other costs.
But even if it did mean prices went up... so what? That's the point of insurance. You pay in an average amount and the insurance covers you if you are on the wrong side of the cost distribution. If I am buying insurance then I want insurance. I don't want to get lower premiums by having a fun game of "maybe actually you'll not be able to get that cancer treatment" based on somebody other than my doctor deciding that I don't really need it.
Growing up in Russia in the 90s, assassinations (usually of folk associated with various organized crime groups, but also the occasional journalist or politician) were fairly common. As I recall, usually the person would get shot with some common weapon - often milsurp TT - somewhere in their daily routine where there aren't people around, e.g. on the stairs in their apartment building. But sometimes you did get more spectacular hits; there was that one time when a local crime boss was shot with a rifle while dining in a restaurant, through the window.
Yep. Grew up in the 90s Russia. Every spring when the snow melted you had bodies show up in nearby forests. It was such a common thing people started calling them snowdrops (after the first flower of spring). Everyone tried to keep cash in USD and you often got better rates from the guys selling currency in the streets. These guys were dying like flies. I've lost count how many times we'd find dismembered hand or foot while at a family outing in nature. Nobody reported any of this stuff because the cops were often bought by these criminal organizations. It was truly a wild west.
My suspicion is that this murder was organised by Russia as an attempt to normalise and encourage further vigilante actions, thereby weakening society. They chose their target well for this one, but I imagine, even after the shift it has caused in what is considered acceptable, there will be less widespread approval of future killings.
Even if this was completely accurate, doesn't it make you mad that they will spend millions of dollars and 100 times more man hours trying to hunt this guy down than 99% of all other murders?
Also they are going to track and investigate thousands upon thousands of social media normies who decided to let some schadenfreude slip for a sweet meme opportunity
I suppose everyone assumes that being high profile and earning a multi-million dollar salary involves such risks naturally so it's not shocking when it happens. Why didn't he have security? In NYC? TBH, I'm kind of shocked it doesn't happen more often in a nation with over 300 million people and insanely high inequality... Especially in terms of media exposure, not just money.
There is a reason why most humans are naturally afraid of public speaking. Introversion is a survival trait. This trait was useful to survival 100+ years ago. The fear of the public lost much of its utility, but did it lose all utility? The kind of scale and centralization of human awareness we have today is unprecedented in human history. Are populations THAT much more passive as humans compared to before? Or do people just have a bigger fuse which takes longer to pop?
I come from a small state with a small half-a-million population where there is high inequality and I have had extended family members (who were among the elites of that society) who were shot and killed. Our house would get robbed 4 to 8 times a year. It's just normal when you live in an unequal society. As a comparison, my grandparents said they would sleep with their windows open back in their day (same country, just different times). It's not just inequality BTW; it's also about expectations. High inequality is fine if those who have nothing have low demands and accept their position in society. It's a real problem when they don't. People in the street of the capital would give you a death stare if you looked privileged. This may be the reality that America is heading for if inequality continues to get worse.
> I suppose everyone assumes that being high profile and earning a multi-million dollar salary involves such risks naturally so it's not shocking when it happens. Why didn't he have security? In NYC?
Your point about income inequality is important but NYC is one of the safest cities in the country:
It gets covered a lot because it’s a massive media hub and also a tempting political target for Republicans but the average person in NYC is more likely to need to worry about getting hit by a car, especially if they’re not engaging in high-risk activities. Muggers target drunk people leaving clubs at 3am in dodgy parts of town. They’re not gunning tourists down in Manhattan because that guarantees a police response.
Brian Thompson wasn’t born rich - according to Wikipedia his father worked at a grain elevator - and he probably retained that middle class sensibility of not feeling targeted even as he got wealthy. People don’t want to think of themselves as targets, and they don’t want to give up the privacy and independence which having a security detail involves. If he wasn’t involved with one of the most hated companies in the country, that almost certainly would have been fine.
This is an interview with someone presented as some type of expert that obviously is not an expert.
1) it is not hard to get a silencer. You can make one in under an hour with cheap parts from a hardware store and a drill.
2) the CEO was at a conference. It's not surprising that this person "knew he would be there", it's interesting that this interviewee stresses this point like it is some big one to be made. The CEO of a big company in an industry will of course be at a big industry conference. You can say "how did he know he would be exiting that door" or something, but it's not like he was sneaking out the back exit. Hes probably coming out the door where the limo is parked or whatever.
I agree this was probably not a professional hit, but this was very clearly well planned out with limited knowledge. I don't think it's as simple as a disgruntled family member of a medical patient or something. It's likely this was something much more serious, but not billionaire behind the scenes business politics or something. Those kind of guys, while we like to pretend would be the last guys to know where to find professional killers, they all know where to find professional killers. I'd guess this guy was into something he shouldn't have been into with some unsavory people.
> 1) it is not hard to get a silencer. You can make one in under an hour with cheap parts from a hardware store and a drill.
As you can to construct an entire gun, if you want a crude option. But this isn’t Japan. Obtaining a commercial silencer doesn’t require someone to smuggle them through international customs, just across state lines. They’re harder to get than a handgun, but not hard enough to get that a determined and capable assassin couldn’t get.
I think the point was, they’re hard enough to get that common street criminals don’t use them. They’re not something a criminal can just have their girlfriend straw-purchase from the local sporting goods store.
When it comes to DIY suppressors, there's making your own from hardware scrap, making them from various oil and fuel filters, ordering them from an overseas vendor (Ali, Wish, etc) with the risk of customs, and now there's 3d printing.
You can print a fully workable 9mm suppressor on nearly any 3d printer in 8-10 hours or less with no post finishing necessary. No, common street criminals may not use them yet, but I don't think this shooter is a common street criminal, or a professional either.
Someone could do all of this, but it doesn't make any sense for a determined actor to do any of that in a place where it is easy (for a determined, relatively educated, and resourceful person) to get an already polished commercial option.
You have to wait at least 8 months (it varies) to get a suppressor when you buy one. You also have to submit passport photos, get finger printed by either the sheriff or police chief, and then wait. This is in addition to a regular NICS type check.
Also a $200 tax stamp for each suppressor. Again, someone COULD buy a manufactured suppressor legally and tie all their credit info and everything back but according to the news this shooter:
1. Traveled on a Greyhound bus from somewhere between Atlanta to New York in the past 5-10 days
2. Used a fake New Jersey driver's license to register at the hostel he was staying at
3. reportedly wore a mask indoors consistently while staying in the hostel
FYI these wait times are now down to about 2 weeks. The ATF decided to do the bare minimum of process improvements and had a ~10X increase in efficiency.
And you have to have a home address in a state where they are allowed... e.g. not NY. But yeah, I don't think it is incorrect to say they are "hard" to get, especially in context here.
No need for speculations, literally any theory may be a valid one and we simply don't know. Agree re that silencers, they are trivial to make if one has some basic skills and equipment, the problem is usage - you can't use them anywhere where folks may ask questions. Don't mean for hits obviously but some training with silencers is required to wield them well. But maybe in rural US nobody bats an eye, hard to say from across the pond.
But if I have to speculate (who doesn't love that) - could have been a disgruntled veteran. Most of them have some serious health issues, and imagining situation where he isn't treated anymore but feels he should have been isn't that hard for such bad public healthcare system as US has. Or hardcore NRA member with same motivation. On youtube some gunsmith videos go up to (tens of) millions of views.
> But maybe in rural US nobody bats an eye, hard to say from across the pond.
In rural US, people can just shoot in their back yard or public land away from people entirely. At a range (rural or not) where other people are around, you'll get attention if you have anything unusual.
> But if I have to speculate (who doesn't love that) - could have been a disgruntled veteran. Most of them have some serious health issues, and imagining situation where he isn't treated anymore but feels he should have been isn't that hard for such bad public healthcare system as US has.
I'm guessing you're not super familiar with the US healthcare system. The person murdered isn't responsible for the healthcare that veterans or others in the public healthcare system receive. They were the CEO of the largest private insurer, which is the health insurance many of us would rely on through any non-government job. One of the common frustrations with private health insurers is that they deny care that people feel that they need, but the insurer doesn't agree. The public opinion here (and suggested by the words written on the cartridge casings) is that this is related to this.
FYI: In a huge majority of the land in the US, there is no restriction on shooting. Private land outside of cities is fair game, much of the parkland/government owned land is legal for target practice. It really isn't uncommon to hear gunshots, or see shooters out in the country. Shooting with a handgun out in the woods is what some people do when the weather is nice.
Unlikely to be a disgruntled veteran with health issues. Their care is provided by the Veteran's Administration hospital system at no cost. While the VA doesn't have a great reputation, in recent years in has been paying for veterans to see providers outside the VA system also.
>This is not meaningfully different from another mass shooting except for the nuance and specificity of the target.
Take the Vegas shooting as an example. The planning and prep he put into it show competence, expertise, logistical planning, etc. All because he was (likely) disgruntled about an erosion of high roller perks being given to him by the casino.
Given how controversial the American heathcare system is, the idea that someone affected by it would be the right combination of fanatical and competent enough to plan and execute a symbolic killing doesn’t surprise me at all. It seems like everyone wants there to be a plan from “the people in power”. The idea that one random person could strike such a powerful target makes people feel uncomfortable with a world so chaotic.
I really don't think most billionaires know professional killers. Where would they have met them? The idea that someone at JP Morgan introduces you to them when their company IPOs doesn't pass the smell test for me.
There's the classic strategy of being vauge-but-clear with one's orders ("Can you deal with this?" "Your Honor, I didn't tell him to kill anyone!") but, disregarding that, it doesn't seem in the employee's best interest. Where does the assistant's $200k/year come from after that? What if the blackmail attempt is rebuffed and the now-former assistant becomes a target for their former employer's new assistant?
The whole point of fixers are that you pay them a high price and they have a lot of connections and knowledge and can make things happen, and a reputation of discretion to uphold.
Reminds me of that scene in Silicon Valley where Gavin clearly wants the protestors killed and he keeps dropping less and less subtle hints at his goons who clearly aren't having it.
In the US Amazon pays their SDE1s around $100k/year,with $160k total compensation that is actually relocation bonus bundled with vested stock paid in 4 years.
Elsewhere, salaries are even lower.
So, definitely not entry level FANG engineer money.
Think of all the numerous cases of wealthy people winding up in court because they were ratted on by their underlings over things far more minor than requesting they find a hit man, and ask yourself again why what you describe is both uncommon and a bad idea.
On the other hand, if you're wealthy and already a crime figure, working with and having work for you people who know you have organized crime contacts and resources, then yes, you could find "fixers" and assistants who would do just what you describe, probably for less money too.
They'd already be part of the same world and comfortable with requests like these while also knowing that you're not just some schmuck rich guy who can't really retaliate against them if they squeal or fuck up. Your anger over a mistake would have more weight.
Even then however, many lower-rung people in organized crime are also quite stupid and reckless, and think here too of the many wealthy criminals who also wind up in court because they were ratted on by their now protected, cooperating witness underlings.
The conference started at 8am, the assassination happened at 6:45am. The assassin was only waiting there for a few minutes ahead of time. It's surprising how "on time" the assassin was. Wasn't waiting around there for an hour or anything. Seemed like he knew when the CEO would arrive.
> I had thought it was either (a) professional hit or (b) disgruntled family member.
There is also option (c) a professional hit hired by a disgruntled family member.
Still, I believe some variant of option (b) is the most likely scenario—unless the whole thing has been intentionally orchestrated to look like (b).
When I say some variant of (b), I'm also including someone who hypothetically wasn't even personally affected but felt a strong political motivation to perform the shooting in solidarity. I can absolutely imagine the profile of the kind of person who would meticulously plan this and carry it out out of sheer political motivation.
As far as I’ve read, historically speaking, most assassinations are crimes of passion. When Japan’s government was “government by assassination” in the early 1900s, most of the assassins were not hired guns but instead true believers. Ultra nationalists who were proud to “die for the cause”.
When evaluating a mystery you need to be careful not to sell yourself on the one that is more titillating, all things being equal. The story that involves unbelievable sadness and anger is usually more likely than the one the involves deception and intrigue.
I think it's just that political assassinations are better documented. Money flow control-related stuff usually goes unnoticed, and frequently there are all parts involved that would prefer it to go unnoticed.
Remember that the current narrative is an average person with nothing to lose taking down a powerful person who uses their power for greed and evil. That's a very powerful and empowering idea.
Other powerful people, who know they are just as greedy and evil, desperately want to change that narrative because they know how weak their position truly is if we collectively decide we're done with the capitalistic status quo.
Bringing in an "expert" to explain to how it's probably something else, without any evidence to support that hypothesis, and while completely ignoring the observer bias of the chosen expert, is a good example of trying to subvert the story.
> Bringing in an "expert" to explain to how it's probably something else, without any evidence to support that hypothesis [...]
Where in the article do you get that impression? All I see is the expert saying it is unlikely to have been a contract killing, as the MO doesn't fit with that of a professional hitman.
From my understanding, hitmen in general are not what you see in movies or video games. Many of them are just everyday criminals that are willing to take on the job of murdering someone for shockingly low amounts of money.
I'm sure there are higher end and higher cost options, but I don't think every hitman out there is going to be as put together as the villain from a Bond or Bourne movie.
Your typical hitman is probably an 18 year old small-time criminal riding a motorcycle in a t-shirt and without shoes. Ride up to the target, shoot in face, ride away. There's no way police could follow a motorcycle in the chaotic traffic of South America where this typically happens.
I really think we need to have a discussion around what we consider acts of violence.
It is clear that violence was used in this instance. We don't like violence.
Killing someone is an act of violence. That is easy. But how about ruining someone financially? Is this an act of violence? Could it be an act of violence under certain conditions?
How about letting someone die in order to make more money? Let's say the decision is about the price for a certain treatment and you are balancing profit expectations from investors. Is this an act of violence? I'd imagine that the outcome of deaths could probably estimated quite reliably in this instance. And you would need to justify the various salaries and profits along the way and weighing it up against the number of people suffering. Does this sound violent to you?
EDIT: And I'm particularly keen to hear from the downvoters about this. Always keen on good arguments. Thanks :)
> I really think we need to have a discussion around what we consider acts of violence.
Do we? The term "violence" centers around the idea of using physical force. If you mean that certain acts are just as morally contemptible as violence, or equally likely to cause harm, just say that directly.
Please don’t dilute the term “violence,” or we’ll have to find another word to describe intentional harm using physical force.
So assuming that you are saying that hiring a hit man isn't violent, but the hit man doing the deeds is:
We are now looking at a definition of "violence" that apparently includes the tantrum of a four year old (physical attack with the intent to do harm) but does not capture hiring killers or the actions of most dictators of the last 150 years.
To be honest this doesn't sound like a useful definition and certainly doesn't match the emotional reaction the word "violence" evokes. What is the word meant for then?
What if you are poisoning them through knowingly through by dumping toxic chemicals into the air or their water supply? That doesn’t require physical force.
Why not? Violence is a tool like any other, and our entire western society is predicated on it. We are cogs in a corporate-run state and if we don't like it, there is the police force. If we get evicted, the police is there to tell us to stop sleeping on the bench. If we don't listen, they have the guns. The underlying systemic violence of our society is rampant.
Personally, while I neither like nor dislike violence, it can be a useful tool in revolutions where the state has become incompatible with the needs of the majority.
The narrative is that we decide on rational reasons (which doesn't excludes violence as such) mixed with a moral superiority (which excludes violence).
I think saying that we don't like violence is just sharing the moral common sentiment and hoping that it leads to some understanding/highlighting of the contradictions. The reality is that people will fight for life when you push them. What is "violent" is generally defined by those who are more powerful I'd say.
> What is "violent" is generally defined by those who are more powerful I'd say.
I think the hidden war of words is over the definition of "illegitimate violence" (like premeditated murder) and "legitimate violence" (like getting tazed, kettled at a protest, or shot dead by police at a traffic stop). The latter is generally not defined as "violence" at all by those with power.
There was an interesting article that analyzed usage if the word "violent"/"violence" in mass media reporting on college campus protests in the US. Going by the reporting, when police were bashing heads, the protests were not violent, but became "violent" when protestors were fighting back against counter-protestors who got physical. Violence meted out by the government is not called that.
That is true, I'd agree. It's exactly the reason that the most successful news organizations are precisely the ones that push the prevailing narrative and focus on the immediate, physical violence and equate it to terror, whereas providing large missiles to fund wars is called "aid".
Letting somoene die to make more money is violence. But letting a hospital go bankrupt, which will eventually lead to others dying, would be no better.
We still struggle with the life and death decisions related to allocating capital do healthcare. Even single payer systems have this problem.
We can start by looking at what profit margins and administrative expenses are reasonable for health businesses. The free market generally solves these questiins, but it's notoriously deficient when it comes to healthcare.
Then we can find out how to best allocate the remaining money to maximize health outcomes while ensuring that the businesses are sustainable.
There is no sane reason to restrict violence to the immediate physical. If you destroy someone's livelihood, e.g. by forcing them into bankruptcy, they will have to leave their home and give up their assets. What if they don't? They must because there is a threat of force behind the act.
Destroying someone's livelihood is nothing else than asking someone to give up the resources they collected over time under the threat of force: if they refuse, they will have the police to talk to.
And if they do not listen to the police, the police have guns.
Sure. I'm fairly certain you can find discussions going back millennia on this. Just still feel it hasn't landed. Somehow we still disguise certain types of violence...
No, it hasn't landed because that is the intentional feature of the system. We disguise violence and call it peace, but in reality the "peace" is really control. Of course, all societies have rules and customs for peace that sometimes require the sacrifice of the individual, but one must look at the ultimate aims.
The ultimate aim for a primitive society really is relative order and safety. The ultimate aim of modern technological society is the advancement of technology and the creation of a large workforce to keep the unsustainable machine going. That is what mutates custom into violence and law into subjugation.
I think the ultimate aim of modern society is to make 20% +x growth. And the background to that is that this one guy can say that they scored more points than his rich friend.
It's an absurd point system. And yes, it is underpinned by an absurd amount of hidden violence. I'm certain that it will change, since it is absolutely unsustainable. The amount of propaganda though is insane and we need to push back against it.
You are right...in a sense. And I do agree with you that this sort of thing might change, but only because the capitalistic system may not remain the most efficient system for advancing technology. However, we must also be careful because a change away from the current system may just mean a change to a new system that is even more equitable for technological growth, which implies that human beings will be even more like cogs in a machine.
After all, the reason we have capitalism is because it is the most efficient system to exchange goods for technological creation. But now that we are developing AI, a new centralized control may eventually emerge as more efficient. However, we will become even more expendable and while the transition may be beneficial in the short term for some, I doubt it will be very pleasant for humanity since technological development itself is inherently unsustainable (requires mining, energy usage, habitat destruction, etc).
What is more interesting is the way people feel about this, obviously many people think the current healthcare situation is insane and malicious. But there is basically zero political will to change this situation. This maybe shows US isn’t really a democracy and more of an oligarchy at this point.
The shooter used a rare weapon with an integrated suppressor (or "Silencer" as the article indicates). A British made station six 9. I wonder if that will be the focus of investigators, since its an highly unusual weapon.
> The shooter used a rare weapon with an integrated suppressor (or "Silencer" as the article indicates). A British made station six 9.
Hilarious how bad this is.
- No, it’s not the B&T. He racks it straight back, and releases to spring pressure. The Welrod/Six is twist and pull and push. It was a compact or subcompact, with either the wrong booster or no booster in a can
- There is a puff of smoke per shot on the left side of the handgun. The Six is a locked breech gun, it doesn’t really smoke per shot at the chamber, and its chamber isn’t on the left side, it is on top. Again, this was a normal likely browning style action handgun, left side action, unlocks per shot even if it doesn’t cycle fully.
- No, the B&T Six is not British made, it is a Swiss update of the WWII British Welrod
- The original and the legal term is silencer. No quotes needed.
Stop believing the media reports on anything gun related.
The point is to speculate with things that fit vs made up nonsense that is clearly untrue.
It looks like a full-size can and a subcompact to me. And I would know, because I own all those things and have used them in that configuration.
The problem I have is that anyone would PLAN on going in to a murder with no booster. Yes, it will likely work almost every time. But sometimes it won’t, and it will stovepipe, and the only way to fix it is to drop the mag out, clear, mag back in and rack.
I’m an expert, and I wouldn’t want to rely on that path.
Last time I looked, that's not clear, actually. That he manually cycled the action could be indicative of a bolt-action pistol, OR it could be indicative of subsonic rounds or a heavy suppressor with a non-modified action. Basically adding weight to the weapon or reducing recoil makes it harder for the gas-operated action to automatically cycle, so you have to cycle manually.
Are we sure of the weapon type?
I've heard that there was live ammunition recovered at the scene, and that basically means the action was manually cycled to clear a jammed round.
At this point it's hard to rule out a janky weapon with homemade suppressor, or a rare specialized weapon as you suggest.
News is saying he used a B&T Station Six, it doesn't look like he's twisting to operate a Welrod action in the video to me. It looks like he's racking a slide. He doesn't hesitate like he discovers it's jammed after the first shot, he already goes to rack it because the subsonic cartridges he's using won't cycle the action with the (edit:) suppressor on without a Neilsen device.
That is kind of doubtful. The video clearly shows a small puff of smoke presumably above the ejection port when he fires the gun for the first time. The Welrod and its modern descendants have a bolt which is locked in position when the gun is fired and it has to be cycled manually. Thus no gas would escape the gun at the ejection port when the gun is fired.
It is more likely that this is a semi-automatic pistol which will not cycle properly for one reason or another and the shooter has to manually complete the cycle by racking the slide.
It is hilarious how bad the media is about guns, but understandable when gun people for the most part are also bad about guns.
It looks to me like a subcompact with no booster in the can. He is already dropping the gun to rack after the first shot, he knew it would need it, but it isn’t the welrod’s twist and pull.
You seem to know what you’re talking about. I have no clue or idea whatsoever about firearms. Why is he racking it each time? I’ve never seen that before in my extremely limited knowledge of guns.
Here's my understanding. Semi-automatic pistols predominantly rely on recoil to cycle the action, in one way or another.
If you are firing subsonic ammunition, to avoid the loud supersonic crack, then you typically get less recoil[1] compared to a firing supersonic ammunition due to the reduced speed of the bullet.
In some firearms you can replace parts such a recoil springs to get the weapon to cycle reliably with subsonic ammunition, but if that is not done you will need to manually operate the action[2].
A few firearms even supports disabling the semi-automatic action, as the sound of the action cycling can actually be quite loud in comparison to a suppressed subsonic shot.
It’s possible he really downloaded some 158gr+ to get it as quiet as possible. To the point it wasn’t supposed to cycle.
Typically, though, you don’t necessarily get less recoil with subs. You get different recoil.
A 115gr 9mm at 1300fps as a sharp recoil. More than enough to run the gun.
A 147 / 158 / 160+ 9mm at 1000fps, has a lot of of the same energy, and typically a slower burning powder is used. It’s also enough to run the gun, the recoil is a lot longer and pushier instead of snappy.
I don’t know. If it was me, I would have my ammunition ready to cycle the gun. Yes, it’s a little bit louder, but the chance that I need to fire more than a couple of shots in order to achieve my goal and escape, outweighs the absolute sound reduction to me.
But, there is something to say that if I filled my silencer with wire, pulling gel, it was a big can, I have some ammo that I know won’t cycle, and I didn’t think I was gonna be in a place with cameras, yeah I don’t know. Maybe it was intentionally downloaded ammo.
Your rage is misattributed: the media stories were based on what the police were saying. The reason they were at that gun shop in Connecticut is because _they_ thought it might be an unusual type of gun which would be extremely useful for narrowing down a suspect pool measured in millions.
That doesn’t mean it was a serious theory - if you have the resources of the NYPD, you might have a couple officers working on any possible angle for a case this high-profile – and it certainly wouldn’t be the first time “sources” was someone spouting off to impress a reporter.
And while never directly interacting is important, feel absolutely free to post about it on a public online forum without even a guaranteed option to delete your comment, that doesn't matter.
Even if we do accept that this executive was responsible for many deaths, you will need to find a law that lets you prosecute him or get one passed. There's a reason we don't just let people murder murderers, even if they have very good moral justification for it.
> you will need to find a law that lets you prosecute him or get one passed
When this proves impossible, and a gun is trivially easy to obtain, what do you think happens? The president-elect himself is alive today only because a bullet was off-trajectory by a centimeter or two.
> There's a reason we don't just let people murder murderers, even if they have very good moral justification for it.
It remains to be seen whether this will be allowed. The jury may be unable to agree that this person should be found guilty despite the video evidence.
I agree with you. A law/regulation should be passed to stop this behavior. I also agree that I don't want people murdering CEOs.
But, I also understand why this happened and frankly don't feel to aggrieved by the death of this CEO.
The issue with US politics is that no law is forthcoming to address anything that happened. We won't see silencers banned or gun control laws enacted. We certainly won't see regulations on health industry to stop them from bleeding leukemia patients of every cent they own.
So, I'm apathetic. If some of these CEOs are going to die as a result of their greed and the lack of justice against the wealthy, so be it.
The problem is that you can't allow certain things to be done to you, and it doesn't matter whether there is no law or if the person in question has immunity, and this means that you must do something about certain sufficient harm to you or collectively to groups in which you are part, whether that harm was inflected legally or not.
But the purpose of courts is to substitute for private vengeance. If they are not willing to do so, this doesn't mean that you have a right to just roll over and die.
If a court says they will not hear you because the person who killed or severely harmed somebody has immunity, or because it has made itself some rule that it feels prevents it from hearing your complaint, then it has made itself irrelevant.
In the last 50 years, over 1600 murderers have been murdered by the state. It's a question of authority, not justification, and I think that's a much less meaningful distinction.
The fact that there's so little sympathy for the death of a CEO who, in their view, callously discards human life tells us the authority is a much smaller dealbreaker than the justification.
> It's a question of authority, not justification, and i think that's a much less meaningful distinction.
On the contrary, it's the crucial distinction. Without process and authority we have mob violence, vengeance killing, and vigilantism. Lynching, clan blood feuds, gang violence, all proceed from this same theory that "getting back" is more important than following the rules. In that world, Brian Thompson's killer should expect to be shot by one of his children for taking away their father.
I don't know who "we" is in your comment, but the question of whether capital punishment exists or not is a totally different question from whether the rule of law exists or not. It's perfectly self-consistent to support the rule of law while believing that some of the rules are wrong (e.g. that the state shouldn't kill people as a punishment). In fact that's essential to the whole thing working, since there's no way everyone will agree on the best set of rules for society.
Based on market share and the number of annual bankruptcies due to health reasons, UHC bankrupts ~80,000 people annually. While a finite number, this is still a LOT of people to comb through especially considering it might go back multiple years.
This phrase: "responsible for so many deaths" is doing a lot of work in your post. What is your theory of responsibility? Is it legal or ethical, and if it is the latter (as I would suspect), what framework and criteria is it evaluated under?
The answer is easy for a serial killer (obviously responsible for willful murder), a little more difficult for a soldier in war (directly responsible, but perhaps defending themselves and/or under orders), even tougher for a surgeon (maybe they could have been better at their job), and very difficult indeed for an insurance executive.
You know why I don't work for a trapping and pest control company? Because structurally they kill animals. They go around with tools of destruction and end the lives of animals. Its the function of their existence.
Do you know why I don't work for a _for profit_ health insurance company, who's stated goals are explicitly to make profit by slicing out some amount of premiums that are not spent to provide healthcare in a world in which total health expenditures can be* effectively infinite? Same reason.
I could not agree more. Where does the buck stop? From what I can tell United has almost double the national average for denials. They do what they do for the almighty dollar. Padding shareholder pockets has a direct effect on peoples lives and definitely results in at least some deaths.
If the highest level of executive is not held responsible then who is? The regulation and law in the US is heavily influenced by these companies lust for money and power via lobbyists. They are effectively a cartel. Do people honestly think this dude lost a wink of sleep over all the people who suffered from their wanton greed? I think not. As barbaric as it seems, he got exactly what he deserved.
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
If your definition of responsibility is so broad, wouldn't every Head of Government for every country be deserving of assassination? Even more broadly, every police chief in every large city, along with all military officers, most mayors, governors, and premiers would also be 'natural targets'. This seems a bit drastic to me, is it your view?
I think in philosophy there's something to be said for the difference between action and lack of action when it comes to culpability. Is a surgeon responsible for not being good enough to save a persons life? No, I don't think so. Is a surgeon responsible for not being sober for a planned surgery? In our society, yes. I think a lot of responsibility is determined by mens rea, and when you run a health insurance company you have good numbers for exactly how many lives you're going to effect when denying coverage.
You think this CEO had more 'mens rea' than a city police chief (or the other examples I listed)? The police chief is literally responsible for purchasing guns, distributing them to officers, and telling the latter to use the former to coerce people!
if you're saying they actively decide denial rates at management level to hit profit targets, I don't buy it.
He has much closer culpability to the CEO of the company that sells me cigarettes than the guy who murdered my grandma. The world is a fallen place.
I thought the example up thread re: not being an animal trapper was a Jonathan Swift-esque send up of the whole idea though, so I might be missing a screw or two.
> if you're saying they actively decide denial rates at management level to hit profit targets, I don't buy it.
To believe in that, first you need to believe that somehow any executive of a company has no control over the company, does not have a duty to make certain things are done a certain way, nor is accountable for how the company is managed.
> If your definition of responsibility is so broad, wouldn't every Head of Government for every country be deserving of assassination?
I don't agree to the radical formulation "every Head of Government for every country is deserving of assassination", but I do believe that the weaker statement "for most Heads of Government of most country, there exist quite some people (even among the citizens) who would like them them to be dead" is very plausible.
This is my view for sure. Every one of those examples is responsible for more deaths than an above average serial killer, they just do it through some degree of abstraction and distance that for some reason means it doesn't count. I disagree, it still counts.
I am unaware of any heads of government who are not offered salaries above a minimum wage. Further, having such connections gets you invited to the upper crust society events and networking connections.
Their direct role in the deaths of others is usually more concrete than that of any CEO.
By this same logic, you are responsible for the death of every person who could have been saved by you donating all of your income beyond basic living expenses (your personal "profit", if you will) to pay for their medical care.
You monster! How many people could you have saved! Instead you spend your money on vacations, television, computer games, music, movies, coffee, whatever.
Oh, what's that you say? _You_ (who, I presume, do not directly save any lives yourself) are morally allowed to use the profit from your labor on unnecessary things for your own pleasure, but people who actually work in healthcare must not just dedicate all of their professional energy and effort to helping people and saving lives, but also must not take any profits from it either, is that right?
Healthcare can morally only be provided by charities?
Personal income, that which sustains someones family, is vastly different then the billions made by United off the backs of those suffering. What, are you some healthcare exec or something?
United Healthcare is a publicly-traded company which makes a 6% profit margin and pays a dividend, which means that those profits ultimately benefit people's retirement accounts, pensions and middle-class investments.
The person who was killed made $10M last year, while UHC provided care to 52 million patients. So, the CEO was paid approximately $0.20 per patient treated last year.
It's functionally isomorphic to a black box where I make a deposit, every time it denies someone medical treatment I get back monetary reward and I can withdraw my deposit at any time. If we ask ourselves, "Should this black box exist?" I cannot reasonably expect people to say, "Yes." Yet, here we are.
> It's functionally isomorphic to a black box where I make a deposit, every time it denies someone medical treatment I get back monetary reward and I can withdraw my deposit at any time. If we ask ourselves, "Should this black box exist?" I cannot reasonably expect people to say, "Yes." Yet, here we are.
I am honestly extremely baffled about what your mental model here is. When UHC doesn't deny a claim, who is paying for that treatment? You can't just look at one side of the ledger when deciding whether the system is doing good or bad! They deny some claims and they pay for others! You're leaving out the whole second half!
I omitted it because it doesn't change the calculus.
If the child were brought up into the sunlight out of that vile place, if it were cleaned and fed and comforted, that would be a good thing, indeed; but if it were done, in that day and hour all the prosperity and beauty and delight of Omelas would wither and be destroyed.
According to who? It changes the calculus for me. I pay my health insurance because it covers the services I need. I could absolutely opt out if I wanted to, but I don't.
> I pay my health insurance because it covers the services I need
I think that, aside from the cost, this is probably the biggest issue most people have with health insurance in the US. UHC makes a lot of money specifically in part by not covering services you need, for example by having accountants override your doctors's orders.
If it were as simple as getting the services you need in exchange for money, I don't think as many people would hate the system as much.
How many Go Fund Me sites were brought up because of high medical costs for some accident or cancer? Is foregoing insurance an improvement over that if it isn't even possibly one of the big causes?
And that the US is the only country in the world where hospital "deathbed divorce" is a thing, to try to avoid family being saddled with ship-anchor levels of debt.
No, it isn't, which is why people want some form of insurance, whether public or private. To mitigate risk.
I was entertaining the comment about something being as "simple as getting the services you need in exchange for money". Which one certainly could do, but imposing that on everyone would also be a bad system for other reasons.
You missed the point of my comment. The "services" I was referring to was "health insurance," and the "for money" is the monthly premiums.
In too many instances, people pay the premiums and then do not get the benefits of the insurance.
An analogy in the travel industry might be if we had a system where at random, a double-digit percentage of air travelers were denied boarding and not refunded their money. No amount of legalese would make it acceptable, and in fact Congress regulates air travel such that practices like this hypothetical are not allowed.
Yes, people should get coverage under the terms of their agreement. I'd guess that the reason this is an issue with health coverage is because the sums involved are great, and usually the people on either side of the argument are either (1) unwilling or unable to effectively argue their case or (2) nonexperts who lack full understanding of the subject matter.
These aren't really an issue with airline tickets, not because we don't regulate insurance, but because the contract is exponentially more simple and understandable.
Air travelers are not expected to have a full understanding of how to operate a jet airplane, or an airline, in order to not be cheated out of their fares. Similarly, they are not expected to plead their case in order to not be cheated by airlines.
I use the colloquial "cheat" intentionally, as it is a valid descriptor.
Notably, however: most insurance delays/denials will have in common that the patient is represented by an expert (a physician) on their case, while the insurer will be represented by a person who has typically never spoken with or examined the patient and may not have ever practiced medicine. The quality of the argument and expertise of the interlocutor are red herrings.
> Air travelers are not expected to have a full understanding of how to operate a jet airplane, or an airline, in order to not be cheated out of their fares.
Correct. But it doesn't matter because the contract of carriage doesn't hinge on that. There's no confusion about what a ticket actually entails. If a ticket covers "one ride at the airport, from Cleveland to Omaha", it's pretty understandable what you are getting. If health insurance was just as simple, and covered "one ride at a hospital, from sickness to health", it would be likewise as accessible. But it isn't that way (although maybe it should be a lot closer)
> Notably, however: most insurance delays/denials will have in common that the patient is represented by an expert (a physician) on their case, while the insurer will be represented by a person who has typically never spoken with or examined the patient and may not have ever practiced medicine. The quality of the argument and expertise of the interlocutor are red herrings.
I understand but that's not what I'm talking about here. I'm talking about a broader information and accessibility disparity.
Having a physician isn't any help if your insurer is deadlocking you on coverage you legally have coverage for, you need a lawyer. That's a contract law problem, not a healthcare problem.
But if you don't actually have coverage for what you need, having a physician argue that you need it, isn't going to help you. Most people buy their health insurance policy all by themselves, without any legal or medical help.
The system wasn't designed. There were no design choices. The entire thing is a legacy result of expectations and costs that all started snowballing from the moment FDR decided wage caps were a good way to stop inflation.
We're not in the situation we're in because anyone thought it was a good idea. We got here incrementally over ~80 years.
of course the system was designed. of course there were design choices. it's a system implemented and executed by human beings at every step, constantly. every functional atom of this implementation was a conscious choice by someone. if nothing else, a choice is constantly being made to persist with the present system.
yes the design is a result of negotiation between countless people and groups of people, who all have varying power and responsibility and subjective consequence. yes all of these choices were made in context, but they were never the only choices that could have been made in that context.
this negotiation, and these innumerable choices, these designs have been a major if not primary concern of the past twenty years of american politics, economy, and millions of individual lives.
yes we have arrived at the implementation we see today, which seems ill-conceived, over-complicated, and pointlessly cruel. but at every moment that has passed and is passing now, different choices can be made, and a different system of different design can be implemented.
we are still in this system because there is infrastructure that prevents change to a more agreeable system. negotiation tactics may have just changed.
Sure, the healthcare system is "designed and perpetuated" by all of its participants, in the same way that poor labor practices in Asia are perpetuated by Walmart cashiers.
Technically all of the participants involved are a part of the system, yes, but my key point here is that none of them have the agency to change it.
The only people who can change it are voters and congress themselves.
> The only people who can change it are voters and congress themselves.
Most of the participants in the system are eligible voters, so asserting that voters can change the system is very much asserting that nearly everyone in the system has agency to change it.
(The fact is “voters can change it” is optimistic, because the US is not a direct democracy and, due to gerrymandering, campaign finance, and other factors, only loosely a representative one, being functionally more of a plutocracy. The people who benefit from its inefficiencies and inequities have disproportionate power over its structure.)
Look, in any system, there are going to have to be arguments where patients or doctors say some treatment is necessary, and the entity paying for the treatment says it's not.
You will of course stick to your principles here? The single-payer healthcare systems in Canada and the UK are irredeemable and it's morally repugnant to look at any good they've done for anyone?
>in that day and hour all the prosperity and beauty and delight of Omelas would wither and be destroyed.
...and nothing of positive value would be lost. For a paradise predisposed on the infliction of suffering on another is ill-gotten, and taints anyone that avails themselves of it once it's true nature is known.
Our birthright is to toil to elevate one another; no more, no less. Omelas is a blight, a perversion, deserving of being scoured from the face of the Earth no matter where it pops up.
Glad to see someone else was touched by that work. Greetings fellow wanderer.
I never thought I would be defending health insurance providers yet here we are.
Do you honestly, after reflection, think this comment is fair?
They don’t only deny healthcare to people - if that was true no-one would pay them money because having healthcare would be no different to not having healthcare. Therefore they are not functionally isomorphic to a black box that collects money when it denies medical treatment.
If you want to make a mental model and then ask questions of the model you should have the confidence to make your model robust enough to approximate the “other side” of whatever argument exists on the topic.
Private health insurance in a country that has a robust public option is an entirely different thing because that baseline level of care means that the private providers have to offer something substantial above and beyond the baseline to justify their continued existence. People with medical needs can choose to tell them all where to stick it and still live without going in to debt.
Most insured individuals in America don't choose their health insurance provider, they just get it from their employer where they might have a choice of plans. The closest thing to an actual competitive insurance market we have is that provided by the ACA, and though that act did many good things the disappointment of the marketplace has been well documented.
Your argument would be stronger if your black box mental model wasn’t so obviously exaggerated.
I live in the UK where we have universal healthcare that is free at the point of need. We also have private healthcare. In most countries in Europe both private and public healthcare exist side by side. Per capita spending on healthcare (across the private and public provision) in the UK is a tiny fraction of what it is in the US and outcomes in terms of quality adjusted life years and measured in individual life expectancy and patient outcomes for given conditions were significantly better than the US last time I checked (which is admittedly a while ago).
The US healthcare system is definitely expensive and delivers a poor outcome, but you’re not convincing when you try to make a pastiche of the system that paints it as purely bad and say that health insurance simply should not exist for pure moral reasons.
If a system constantly fails to do what it was intended to do, then we should consider that what it does in reality is its true purpose. Basically this is functional structuralism.
I understand what it means. I think it is a silly maxim, because it is unnecessarily reductive. Employer sponsored healthcare insurance wasn't ever intended to be a good system for providing healthcare to people, it was popularized as a workaround for employers to raise wages during the Stabilization Act of 1942. Everything that has changed since then has been incremental changes for differing reasons. The idea that a huge system like this even has a single "intent" is ridiculous. It is made up of thousands of different actors, each in different situations with different intents and interests.
But we aren't talking colloquially, we're talking about within the maxim. I'm trying to give you the benefit of the doubt, but it feels like you're doubling down in order to prove a point.
The maxim, applied here, is an obtuse oversimplification of the problems with the health insurance system, and the barriers to changing it.
Yes, if we could wave a wand and delete the fact that it ever happened, that would be ideal. But the problem is more difficult to solve now, because we have the problem of the health insurance system, and the problem of drastic systematic and economic change.
In my experience, choices to label opposition as either reductive or overly complex are largely rhetorical. They don't pass the validity test.
Perhaps we should ask borrow the "magic wand" that seems to exist for every other country. Maybe they can lend us theirs since that's apparently how realistic a system that does not bankrupt people is.
Sadly, it doesn't seem equally possible or realistic to build a system where CEO's aren't revenge murdered.
Isomorphic in normal use means corresponding in form[1], so functionally isomorphic means “functions the same as” whereas there are other types of isomorphisms, so for example minerals form groups which are considered isomorphic because their crystal structure is somewhat different but equivalent. They’re not functionally equivalent they are structurally similar.
[1] In mathematics the meaning is somewhat stronger. In maths, two things are isomorphic if they cannot be distinguished in terms of structure in a particular context.
The immoral part is the care not provided to paying customers. Care denied, people made to hop through needless hoops at a time when they are already in distress. Delays and denials that cause suffering, they cause deaths. This is the immoral part.
This rather ignores the role of health "insurers", third party administrators, repricing specialists and every other middle man that contributes more significantly to the price of healthcare than the actual cost of providing that care.
Managed care organizations (MCOs, health insurers), retail pharmacies, and medicine distributors at the very bottom. ~2%
Legal is also up there. Those millions and tens of millions of dollar judgments don’t come from thin air.
Go ahead and get rid of MCOs, and at best you will reduce costs by 5%. Their medical loss ratios are 85% to 90%.
They are just allocating the very limited resources among more and more demand. Someone is going to have to be the bad guy unless supply of healthcare is drastically increased and tort reform happens to bring down liability costs.
> They are just allocating the very limited resources among more and more demand.
Are you saying that the same populations are getting more and more sick and ill? Citation needed for that. Or are they costing more and more money? And if so, why?
Wouldn't be health insurers setting up middlemen of their own (PBS, etc.) to get around legal caps on their own profit margins, would it?
> Legal is also up there. Those millions and tens of millions of dollar judgments don’t come from thin air.
Malpractice payouts are by and large a boogey man. Texas has had them capped for years and shockingly, malpractice insurance costs are effectively identical to what they were before. As an aside, malpractice insurance in itself isn't typically as onerous as people believe it to be. What is onerous, and what that industry does differently to most other insurance segments is "tail insurance".
Tail insurance is the concept that major malpractice suits may appear well after your claims-made liability policy has ended. In most cases it's actually DOUBLE the premium you're paying for malpractice insurance, implying the insurer believes that your coverage is less than one-third of the claims they expect to pay. What -should- happen is that you carry "claims-made and prior acts" coverage. The challenge there is that in many cases your employer will cover claims-made as part of your compensation or part of their insurance, but don't elect prior acts coverage (and because of the way they do it, I suspect it's not as simple as "let me pay the difference").
But in general capping malpractice payouts has done nothing to offset malpractice coverage costs, let alone flow-through to end consumer costs.
> Are you saying that the same populations are getting more and more sick and ill? Citation needed for that. Or are they costing more and more money? And if so, why?
The citation is the population pyramid flattening out and turning upside down eventually. That means more and more old (and hence sick) people, and fewer and fewer care providers (young people). Also, there are a lot more treatment option, and sick people being kept alive longer.
> Wouldn't be health insurers setting up middlemen of their own (PBS, etc.) to get around legal caps on their own profit margins, would it?
No, absent enormous fraud, all revenue and expense is reflected on a company’s 10-K. UNH/Elevance/Cigna/Humana/CVS/etc all have multiple lines of business (like most other large businesses), but the final profit margin figures are what they are including all lines of business.
Thanks for the info on tail insurance, I didn’t know that.
1. Who decides what care is "needed"? Everyone is going to die eventually. I have a relative who believes they "need" ivermectin to prophylactically safeguard against contracting covid. Are insurance companies obligated to provide ivermectin to everyone who demands it, or should they apply some standard of efficacy and cost/benefit analysis?
2. Profits to shareholders and other people contributing their time and resources are also "needed", as without profits the only incentive to provide healthcare is charity, and charity has not proven to be an effective organizing principle to allocate the time and attention of millions of individuals in a complex society.
Insurance companies refusing valid, evidence-based treatments != denying unproven demands. Likewise, framing healthcare as either for-profit or purely charitable ignores successful state-driven models worldwide that operate without prioritizing shareholder returns. Such false dichotomies and misdirection don’t justify profit-driven rationing of essential medical services.
Medicine is still more art than science. We only have clear evidence-based treatment guidelines for a limited set of conditions, and even with those there are a lot of exceptions. While health insurers do occasionally make egregious errors in denying claims or prior authorization requests, most of those fall into gray areas. Like if a patient is immobilized by severe hip pain should they go straight to joint replacement surgery or try physical therapy for a few months first? Ask 10 different physicians and you'll get 10 different treatment plans.
And health insurers don't increase shareholder returns by denying claims. Due to the minimum medical loss ratio it's rather the opposite. Most of the pressure to tighten coverage rules actually comes from large self-funded employers who use those insurers not to provide insurance but rather to administer their health plans.
> Who decides what care is "needed"? Everyone is going to die eventually.
When the decision maker is accountant, RN, or AI versus physician, I know who _shouldn't_ be deciding it.
The two experiences I've seen first hand (coincidentally both UHC):
A willingness to deny vastly improved QOL for a simple surgery unless I spend an extended amount of time to determine whether somehow, a nasal spray would straighten the cartilage of a 95% deviation to the septum.
As a paramedic, the realization that UHC routinely denied paying for HEMS (air ambulance) for serious car accident patients to trauma centers because of "lack of pre-authorization".
Most people don't decide about their own medical "needs." They trust doctors, who are by and large expert and professional, yet frequently discredited by insurance companies.
Insurance companies have too much power in this dynamic, and there should be limits to what they can deny once doctors deem it needed.
On a slight tangent I’m a bit confused by Reddit type internet reaction acting like this guy is an evil mastermind of the insurance industry while he was apparently making $10M per year.
Now that’s definitely a lot of money, but as far as industry masterminds go it’s not indicative of being top tier at all. Second or maybe third tier really.
Is it the sort of situation where the company has 10 people all labeled “CEO” of different functions? Or was the $10M salary alone?
It has 52 million clients, but how much care was provided to clients is the open question that could be debated. It's certainly one of the big thoughts going around that the company denies payment for service unjustifiably and causes suffering for some number of these 52 million. Whether or not that's true is one of the questions for consideration in these debates.
This is a ridiculous reduction. It's clear that the numbers matter here, and that one family's decisions are nothing compared to the harm this CEO can create or prevent.
> By this same logic, you are responsible for the death of every person who could have been saved by you donating (...)
A healthcare provider makes a very important but simple offer: you pay us,and in exchange you grant you access to the medical treatments you need when you need it. They commit to provide that service.
If you meet your end of the deal without any flaw and, in the very moment you need them to comply with their own offer, they deny you the service they promised you that you would have, do you agree the are responsible for you not having access to that treatment?
Let's put it another way. Let's say you want to travel to some other place in your town to attend a meeting. You look up a taxi company advertisement, and you call them to arrange a ride. They say sure, you just need to pay us and you'll be taken from point A to B. You arrange your payment and wait for the cab. The cab arrives, but the driver tells you "well, I was looking at the travel plan and I decided I don't feel like driving you there", and drives off with your money. Is that taxi company responsible for you failing to attend the meeting?
A healthcare provider has a special responsibility because of the nature of their work. By definition, their role involves providing essential care to those in need. Their professional mission and the ethical codes guiding them (e.g., the Hippocratic Oath for physicians) emphasize patient welfare above all. An average person, while still morally capable of altruism, does not have a professional, codified duty to care for others’ health as a primary function of their life. They are not the designated or societally recognized gatekeepers of life-saving services.
In short, it’s not just about the availability of money; it’s about the nature and structure of the activity. Healthcare isn’t merely a commodity; it’s a critical social good. The moral expectations for an industry entrusted with people’s lives are and should be different from those applied to random private individuals.
Healthcare providers, especially large corporations, control access to life-saving goods and services. When such entities profit substantially, they do so from a position of gatekeeping essential health resources. They often have significant market power and can influence prices, accessibility, and quality of care. This is categorically different from an individual’s personal discretionary spending, which does not impose direct barriers between people in need and the care required to save their lives. The moral outrage about profit in healthcare often centers on the idea that unnecessary suffering or death occurs not because of a lack of resources in general, but because of a deliberate choice to prioritize profit margins over patient well-being. When an individual chooses to keep their discretionary income rather than donate it, that is not typically a case of withholding a life-saving resource they directly control. It’s a missed opportunity for altruism, yes—but it’s not a systematic withholding of lifesaving treatment from a dependent patient population.
The more direct your ability to help and the more acute the need, the stronger the moral obligation. A hospital that can provide a life-saving drug at a lower price but chooses not to, in order to maximize profit, is directly and immediately impacting patients’ lives. In contrast, an ordinary person’s failure to donate their personal entertainment budget to global health charities is morally less direct and involves a much more diffuse causal chain. The responsibility is mitigated by lack of proximity, lack of direct obligation, and lack of any professional or social contract stating that their role is to provide healthcare.
Your argument tries to equate personal, optional altruism with the professional moral obligations of healthcare providers, but these are not parallel situations. The ethical landscape is more nuanced: Institutions and professionals whose entire function is to safeguard and restore health must be held to a standard consistent with that mission. This does not require expecting every individual to donate all surplus income, nor does it demand that healthcare only be provided by charities. It simply recognizes that the context and nature of healthcare services place a different and higher ethical obligation on those who profit from them.
> The more direct your ability to help and the more acute the need, the stronger the moral obligation. A hospital that can provide a life-saving drug at a lower price but chooses not to, in order to maximize profit, is directly and immediately impacting patients’ lives. In contrast, an ordinary person’s failure to donate their personal entertainment budget to global health charities is morally less direct and involves a much more diffuse causal chain. The responsibility is mitigated by lack of proximity, lack of direct obligation, and lack of any professional or social contract stating that their role is to provide healthcare.
"Proximity". What evasion. Apparently healthcare workers are responsible for dedicating their entire lives to saving others, profit be damned, but you aren't culpable for depositing money into your savings account becuase you went into software. Hahaha, how absurd. At least the EA people/Peter Singer are consistent.
We have moral concepts to figure this stuff out and to avoid worrying about a "diffuse causal chain". Concepts like an "action" or "intent". When you apply these concepts to this situation, it becomses clear that neither insurance companies nor healthcare providers are going around murdering people. But the guy waiting outside a conference with a gun did.
So you are subject to a looser standard of ethics and morality since you didn't go into healthcare, but you are entitled to demand that the people who did go into healthcare practice a higher standard of ethics than you would hold yourself to?
In that case, I don't care about your opinion very much.
Food is even more essential than healthcare. It's a critical social good. Do farmers and grocers therefore have a special responsibility because of the nature of their work?
Do you remember a couple of years ago when grocers were still operating when everything else was shut down because they were considered critical workers during a global pandemic?
I mean come on, it wasn't even that long ago did you forget?
> By this same logic, you are responsible for the death of every person who could have been saved by you donating all of your income beyond basic living expenses (your personal "profit", if you will) to pay for their medical care.
To a degree yes, absolutely. If moral actions “improve the valence of conscious experience” in some utilitarian sense, most people take a lot of immoral actions every day. When you think of morality as more of a direction rather than an absolute “you either are or are not a sinner,” you can view the average person, and yourself, as deeply immoral, yet still get value from the understanding because you know the correct direction to move in if you want to improve yourself or society.
With this definition, it’s easy to compare the morality of two people. To what degree did each exercise agency in order to either neglect a responsibility to do good, or to actively do harm? The person who deliberately did more harm could be said to be worse in their moral character.
Now imagine a person chooses to become the head of a health insurance company in order to make large amounts of money, while aware of the fact that their industry produces profit by minimizing the coverage they pay out and that this will inevitably deny some people who ought to get coverage coverage; and, furthermore, that this wrongly denied proportion is much higher than it needs to be in order for their company to exist and pay its costs.
Now imagine that, in response, this person actively uses their agency to worsen their company’s contribution to this situation for the gain of themselves and other relatively wealthy higher-ups at their company instead of taking any action within their means to better the situation. We can reason that this person is, when you sum up the raw quantity of harm they’ve deliberately caused, morally worse than the average person, who will likely have done vastly less deliberate harm over their life. Is an extrajudicial murder the solution? Probably not, in that it won’t directly produce the needed changes to move society in a marginally more moral direction. That being said, I sure won’t be shedding any tears, and I’ll shed much less than I would for an absolutely morally mediocre Joe Schmoe.
They both do and don't simultaneously. Schrödinger's Responsibility. When the company makes money or does something good, it's because of the CEO's leadership...they are responsible because they are in charge. When the company loses money or does evil/bad, then the CEO has nothing to do with it, and instead it's either the fault of government, lone wolf low-level employees, customers, external factors, "economic trends", anything but themselves
I used to work for a company that wrote software for health insurers to run their businesses, from determining financial responsibilities and amounts, all the way through cutting checks to providers, handling repricing, everything.
I wish I could say I got out of there for ethical reasons (there were good reasons, but if that was the only...)
We did a LOT to be ethical. The amount of requests we turned down from our customers - "If we have a database of familial relationships (who knows what, or from where, be it public records or 23andme), how can we mine the database with that information to determine people's predisposition to certain conditions based on familial diagnoses?"
"You can't."
"Why not, it's in the database?"
"Yes. But that is federally illegal for you to do. And if it's illegal for you to do, we are not going to facilitate it either."
But the writing was on the wall, I'm sure at some point there would be more and more "grey areas".
The assumption by insurance commissioners (elected officials) is that private insurance will result in better outcomes in the long term, and profit margins are regulated and this is the will of the voters.
... Now that doesn't mean it is true, and health insurance in the US is completely broken, but it is not at all obvious who is at fault here.
He was the CEO of the company and ultimately the buck stops with him on company policies. The company he lead has the highest number of insurance denials (double most other insurance agencies). That has almost certainly lead to death as people not being able to afford treatment is a great way to die. Consider, for example, if someone has cancer and insurance denies coverage of chemo medications that they are supposed to cover. Well, now the covered person is in a battle with the insurance company to pay for the medications (which they say they cover) that works as a ticking timebomb against them. They could pony up the bill while they wait for coverage, but that's not going to be within the means of many people.
> what framework and criteria is it evaluated under?
One of responsibility. Surely the CEO of a company must know that the policy the company he runs and owns has lead to industry leading denial rates. That's exactly the sort of statistic CEOs track and have influence over.
And when dealing with health, the outcome is simply obvious. By increasing the amount of denials you know you are harming legitimate claimants.
This is not a soldier or a serial killer. It's worse than both. It's an uncaring individual optimizing profit over people. Unlike a soldier who likely can't avoid killing or a surgeon who makes mistakes, this is more akin to a general positioning wounded soldiers on the frontlines so the army doesn't have to pay their salaries or feed them. Not for pleasure or psychosis in the case of a serial killer, just for simple banal resource optimization.
> He was the CEO of the company and ultimately the buck stops with him on company policies
No, it didn’t. He had the title of CEO due to title inflation, but UNH’s real CEO is Andrew Witty. The buck stops with Witty (and the board that votes for Witty).
> This is not a soldier or a serial killer. It's worse than both.
How can you be so morally clueless?
When an insurance company denies coverage, it isn't killing someone. It didn't make anyone sick. Rather, it didn't pick up the bill for their treatment. That may have been wrong, it may have been an evasion of responsibility, but it is not comparable to someone who goes around killing people.
I have to understand comments like this (there are a lot of them) as some kind of morbid performance art. Either that or severe mental illness.
If I withhold water from someone dying of thirst, who I promised to give water to, who paid me for that water, I've killed them when they die. I may not have plunged a knife into their heart but they'll be dead all the same directly from my actions.
If an insurance company does not pay for the medicine and treatments they say they cover, that they payed to cover, and people die from that, they are responsible for those deaths.
A serial killer kills less than the medical health industry does. That doesn't make them moral, it highlights how immoral the current healthcare system is in the US.
Every healthcare system (even single-payer) denies some care to some people; they do this because of limited resources, fraud risk, etc.
Do government healthcare ministers and other administrators responsible for single-payer systems deserve to die too? What about legislators who limit healthcare budgets to below 100% of GDP (which is to say all of them); should they be summarily executed?
> Do government healthcare ministers and other administrators responsible for single-payer systems deserve to die too?
No, because as you point out there are legitimate reasons to deny coverage.
However, when your competitors are denying at a rate of something like 10->15% and you are denying at 36%, that goes beyond just managing resources or fraud prevention.
Your question is a false dichotomy.
> What about legislators who limit healthcare budgets to below 100% of GDP (which is to say all of them); should they be summarily executed?
Again, false dichotomy. Primarily because it's not even provable that 100% of GDP going to healthcare would actually save more lives than 99% or 50%. Further, unless you have a very expansive definition of what healthcare means (food? housing? etc?) then putting 100% of the budget towards it would ultimately starve out necessary industries for life thus causing death.
The real question to ask is "Can an insurance company be moral if it denies legitimate claims" my answer to that is no. Pragmatically, I can excuse some of it to human error as that'll happen. People will die from accidents and that's just a part of life. However, let's not pretend that there isn't a massive incentive for these large companies to deny as many claims as possible with no market forces and few regulations to impede them.
A government denying a liver transplant to a 90 year old is quiet different from a health insurance agency blanket denying cancer treatment because it costs them too much money.
How can you simultaneously contend that United’s denials of coverage are responsible for killing people, and also contend that increasing healthcare spending wouldn’t save people?
I can contend that United's denials are responsible for killing people because they are denying at 2x the industry average. To prove me wrong, you'd have to show that actually the rest of the industry isn't denying enough and that United has somehow stumbled upon the real rate of spurious insurance claims.
And for the 100% of money to healthcare that makes the assumption that we have that much healthcare need to spend that much money on. There are limits to needs which is why the argument you make is flawed.
Why is the burden of proof on me? You’re the one justifying a murder!
Also, I wouldn’t have to prove than increasing healthcare spending to 100% of GDP would be optimal, just proving that there is some incremental gain by spending a tiny bit more than is currently spent by a single-payer would justify the murder of one or more legislators (by your logic).
And with that I think this conversation is done. If you won't engage with any point I've made and instead are just here to insult me there's no point in continuing further.
By my cursory Google search, the successful appeal rate for claims denials is somewhere between 30 and 60 percent.
With the caveat that this isn't a representative sample (people appealing likely have the denials most likely to be overturned), 30% at the low end still feels too high.
This rate is even higher for prior authorization denials. Those get overturned on appeal more than half the time.
Probably safe to assume that if your denial rate is 2x competitors, those numbers would be even worse.
Compare this to someone who controls the only available lifeboat while others are drowning. The person in control may not have pushed anyone overboard, but if they refuse to help—especially after taking on the explicit role of “we’re here to help if something goes wrong”—they carry moral responsibility for the resulting harm. Insurance companies are not random bystanders; they are paid entities agreeing to intervene financially on behalf of the patient. Their explicit role makes their refusal to pay not merely passive, but an active withholding of assistance they were entrusted (and compensated) to provide. An insurance company knows full well that refusing to cover a critical treatment will likely result in the patient’s deterioration or death.
Remember Asimov's rules? A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. They are one and the same.
If you are to apply it the way health insurance works, the skipper is asking the drowning victims to give them all their money and then is deciding on who they rescue, mostly leaving the people far away to drown because that will have added fuel costs and they'd rather save that to go fishing on tuesday.
I think you don't understand the games they play. They will cause a surgery to be delayed the day of the surgery by last minute denial tactics, losing patients precious time in things like cancer treatments. In that case, you didn't have the time to even collect the money and get a loan, if that's really your angle.
It's not performance art, just empathy.
I have a friend who they tried to kill this year. His doctor recommended going in and removing an area they thought some skin cancer had spread to. They performed the surgery, biopsy confirmed their suspicions.
After all that, the insurance company (too late thankfully) came in and said they didn't think the cancer had spread, so no need for surgery.
I hope you never have to deal with this, but if you live long enough you or a friend / family member probably will.
There's countless amounts of blood on their hands. It's not about bills coming in and getting uncovered, it's about life saving surgeries being delayed till the patient dies in hopes that they can avoid covering something they're supposed, or avoiding paying for a medication in the hopes that the patient dies before they can litigate.
I don't really care how you want to spin things, that's murder, and thankfully most folks agree with me.
It is clear that violence was used in this instance. We don't like violence.
Killing someone is an act of violence. That is easy. But how about ruining someone financially? Is this an act of violence? Could it be an act of violence under certain conditions?
How about letting someone die in order to make more money? Let's say the decision is about the price for a certain treatment and you are balancing profit expectations from investors. Is this an act of violence? I'd imagine that the outcome of deaths could probably estimated quite reliably in this instance. And you would need to justify the various salaries and profits along the way and weighing it up against number of people suffering. Does this sound violent to you?
> This phrase: "responsible for so many deaths" is doing a lot of work in your post. What is your theory of responsibility?
You can look up the definition of the word "responsibility" to clarify what it means.
You can complement that understanding with the understanding of what are the most basic responsibilities of a CEO, and all the reports about how this specific insurance company implemented official policies to automatically reject access to medical treatment that those who trusted their healthcare provider would desperately need.
Let's not forget that UnitedHealth Group has spent $5,860,000 lobbying in 2024. So not only do they bankrupt and kill thousands of people per year, they also aggressively lobby to sustain their role as profiteer in this fucked up system.
>> Because he ran an insurance company, you would look at everything from individuals who have been turned down for insurance coverage and lost their spouse as a result of it. That would be one thing the police would look for.
> So I would think more likely it was somebody with a particular grudge that had access to inside information to know where to be and when to be there.
it's usually somebody close to you.
Need to look at the wife, they had recently separated, and she likely had access to the curious information about where he was and would be at specific times (wouldn't you expect him to stay in the hotel where the meeting was to be held? this plot was based on that not being the case.)
She stated to the press there were threats against him. When asked for specifics, she was suddenly too busy caring for her family to answer.
They lived in CT and for a time it seemed the gun had come from CT, despite the killer arriving from Atlanta; but I saw an item that said the CT gun had been accounted for, but I'm not sure the status of that.
The bizarre messages on the bullets? to throw investigators off the scent.
That wouldn't work. There are many people who hate anyone famous and think they are responsible for bad things. They would all use that defense. This includes people who seem obviously good to you.
"Anyone famous" in the vast, vast majority of cases is completely detached to the cause of anyone's death or further suffering as a health insurance CEO would be.
Yes but now you’re already bringing in a judicial review of the specific people and circumstances involved. You might as well have a regular homicide investigation.
I saw a great comment on Reddit that conveyed this idea in a very approachable and succinct way:
"it's important to lead your life in such a way that when you're gunned down in public by an anonymous hitman on a New York City street the country at large doesn't react like the Ewoks watching the second Death Star explode."
Please, before you do such feigned outrage at the erosion of norms and call to anchor that overton window, please suggest how one would balance such a broken system as the American insurance regime and the immense pain and avoidable death it causes.
Because all I'm saying is that unbalanced systems are untenable and will seek to right themselves. The classic soap box, ballot box, jury box, cartridge box applies. People losing faith in the courts was a bad thing and its only gonna get worse from here. Deleting that observation helps no one.
> The flaw in your position is that the position necessitates the devaluing of life.
That does seem like the beginning of a slippery slope. Life is precious. Its a fair point.
My ask is does a society that allows for-profit health insurance companies to lobby our leaders, deny coverage in a game style system, directly depriving thousands of people of life... not also devalue life?
Personally I'm not actually a big moral crusader, but I do find ecosystems respond with a certain conservation of energy. When one person becomes in charge of such a large cog in a system that steadily devalues life, when they have implicitly promoted such a time of contempt, it seems immensely predictable that they themselves perish in that same ecosystem.
Hitler lost the war because he made certain key mistakes -- chasing his country's best scientists out, invading Russia at the wrong time, spending a fortune on gimmicks to murder civilians instead of combat weapons.
It's possible that killing Hitler would have paved the way for a more competent, saner leader to emerge.
Okay. So we should assassinate all the CEOs. Presumably the president, anyone with significant power in the national security apparatus. Then what? The people rise up? We put you in charge so you can cull all the undesirables?
Zuckerberg is a bad example IMHO, various sources reported on this but Facebook created a space that tolerated and spread incitement to violence that led to thousands of rapes and murders. They saw engagement on hate speech, and promoted the hate speech.
That puts Facebook as the cause and not the people who committed the violence. It provided a technological meeting place, as there are many now, but what did it promote that lead to violence?
the hitman refered to was very sloppy and very obvious, this is not the way pros do it. a pro job doesnt look like murder; a proxy may be arrested, but later sprung by an agent.
