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> The people on the Iraqi cards are military targets in an ongoing war. The rules are different for civilians. It's violence either way, you just find it a mor
by Miner49er 2y ago
> The people on the Iraqi cards are military targets in an ongoing war. The rules are different for civilians.
It's violence either way, you just find it a more acceptable violence.
- carlosjobim 2y agoThose military targets on the cards were fully expected to do their greatest effort to kill or neutralize the card issuers and the card holders. Should I expect these CEOs to do the same thing?
- ceejayoz 2y agoStatistically, denials of medical care are highly likely to have killed more Americans than the ~2k Americans killed in Iraq by enemy fire over a ~20 year period.
- tptacek 2y agoBy that logic every health care system in the entire world has has killed countless people. Further, under the zero-sum logic you offer here, every doctor that has ever overbilled RVUs is an accomplice to murder.
- ceejayoz 2y ago> By that logic every health care system in the entire world has has killed countless people. Probably, but motive matters in “killed” versus “murder”. I’m much more inclined to be mad about profit-driven medical decisions of this nature.
- tptacek 2y agoIf motive matters, none of these people have killed anybody.
- ceejayoz 2y agoI’m… not sure we agree on that.
- tptacek 2y agoThis doesn't seem like so much a difference of opinion as of fact; when an insurer denies someone coverage, they aren't motivated to kill that person, nor is that their intent. Like health insurance administrators in every system in the world, they're required to make decisions about who gets what, and that implies that some people won't get what they want. In fact, by the logic you're using, administrators in the NHS are far more culpable than US insurers, since they issue categorical denials they know with certainty are going to result in preventable deaths; an insurer can at least tell themselves they're conditioning coverage situationally and based on effectiveness. Would you like some specific examples? I think this "health care" "murder" thing is just a really bad analogy and people should stop using it.
- ceejayoz 2y agoA hit man is motivated by profit. Not personal dislike of the person, but it’s still a murder. I have a hard time seeing “we can boost profits by fighting claims until sick people give up” as all that dissimilar. The NHS admins aren’t getting bonuses for boosting share prices.
- tptacek 2y agoA hitman is motivated to murder and has that intent. Insurers are motivated to eliminate waste, which is absolutely rife in the US health care industry; insurers are getting continually worked over by hospital chains, which take in something like 9 times as much money as insurers and have 3-5x their profit margins. I don't think the analogy is salvageable. Even if the point I just made wasn't true (it is), you'd have run aground on the distinction between wanting and intending to kill someone and not. But the flaws run much deeper than that. Respectfully, you should stop saying this.