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There are pretty much 0 people who think healthcare insurance providers should be intentionally engaging in delay, deny, defend as a means of maximizing profit.

There are pretty much 0 people who think healthcare insurance providers should be intentionally engaging in delay, deny, defend as a means of maximizing profit. Passing a law against stands essentially 0 chance of happening. If it was passed, it would intentionally have loopholes aplenty buried in a hundred page document that essentially 0 people, including those who wrote it, could understand. Modern democracy mostly just doesn't seem to work how it ought.

s1artibartfast 2y ago
Then we need to fix it. Going out and shooting whoever you dont like moves us further from this goal, not closer. People broadly agree that they dont like the status quo. They dont agree on what would be better. You cant have change without direction and detail.
- somenameforme 2y ago
  This isn't the issue. You could get easily get the overwhelming majority of society to agree 'let's criminalize unjustified denials with criminal penalties for the executives of healthcare companies who violate such' and it's simply not going to happen. A handful of corporations' "lobbying" easily trumps the opinion of society. And getting people elected is no different. Fewer and fewer people identify as either republican or democrat (with independents being the largest 'party' by far), yet lo and behold like 99.9% of politicians at all levels, high and low, are republican or democrat, with basically no independent representation because the system makes it unreasonably difficult to select an alternative. This is further confounded by an utterly worthless media system that further works to entrench the political establishment, and much more.
  - s1artibartfast 2y ago
    I dont think it is that easy to define "unjustified denials". People might agree on a vibe, but not detail. What would a bill look like? Regarding the party and representational system, I agree there is a lot of dysfunction. Same problem. Nobody can agree on alternatives. Even ranked choice, which I think is the tiniest step in the right direction is highly controversial. Ideas like expanding the house to 30,000 representatives [1], seem like a fantasy. People hate change more than the status quo. Regarding the media environment, the consumer is the problem. As long as people prefer and seek out garbage, there is no possible solution. [1] https://thirty-thousand.org/ https://thirty-thousand.org/
    - somenameforme 2y ago
      An unjustified denial is obviously a denial that should not have been denied by the terms of your agreement with the insurance company. And we should also add delays and other anti-payment 'strategies' as criminal offenses as well. And as such behaviors would now be criminal in nature, exact offenses would determined by a jury of our peers. It's obviously not people hating change. People want these things, and many others to change. It's a completely broken political system that is happy to change, but only when it benefits corporations or political, especially geopolitical, interests. Ranked choice won't do anything. Australia has one of the most dysfunctional democracies in the world, and they have both universal voting, obviously 'Australian voting', and even a proportionally elected Senate.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
      - s1artibartfast 2y ago
        Again, do you think going out and shooting anyone that pisses you off will fix this system? Politicians can be voted out of office. The process is simple and foolproof. The problem is people are divided and can't agree. If every voter next election had your claim denial law as their top priority, they could replace Congress entirely. Instead, they will fight over the same issues.
        somenameforme 2y ago
        No they couldn't. Getting ballot access is a huge ordeal, and then the media does an excellent job of divide and conquer by not even focusing on the issues, but instead focusing on hate, fear, misrepresentations, and so forth. Make people hate and fear 'the other side' enough and they won't dare "waste" their vote and will happily vote for somebody they don't even like, but dislike less than the alternative. And obviously you're straw manning things. The reason people screw over other people is because they expect there will be no consequences. Whether this is some thug mugging a guy for $20 on the street corner, or a guy in a suit developing ever more novel strategies to ultimately refuse healthcare to people - it's the exact same issue. When there are consequences, the entire calculus changes.
slg 2y ago
>Modern democracy mostly just doesn't seem to work how it ought. It is funny to say this as if every other modern democracy hasn't solved the specific problem that you have given. The issue isn't democracy, it is the American democracy (or republic if you want to be pedantic). Specifically, the combination of our expansive freedom of speech protections (which make campaign financing restrictions near impossible) and first past the post voting system make it easy for corporations and the rich to shape the government however they want.
- somenameforme 2y ago
  This is mostly grass is greener thinking. Here [1] is a relevant poll across the EU, for instance. [1] 65% of people do not think high level corruption cases are sufficiently pursued and 57% do not think efforts against corruption are effective. And everywhere except Scandiland has a majority to vast majority that think corruption is widespread in their country. The only place it seems to be really working is in Switzerland and in the Scandinavian micronations (notably Sweden is trending more towards the patterns of Europe than Scandinavia). [1] - https://europa.eu/eurobarometer/surveys/detail/3217 https://europa.eu/eurobarometer/surveys/detail/3217
  - slg 2y ago
    It is weird to claim it is simply "grass is greener thinking" and then point to opinion polls as if those polls won't suffer the same fate. But either way, that wasn't my point. The "specific problem" I was referring to was the example you gave of health insurers maximizing profit and the government's inability/unwillingness to reign that in. The way all those European countries have addressed that is via universal healthcare.
    - s1artibartfast 2y ago
      I initially thought the greener grass reference was in relation to their own link. I wonder what a more objective measure of government corruption would be. I suspect it's not possible. The closest measure I could think of it was something along the lines of governmental efficiency, w which would include corruption, incompetence and dysfunction. I wonder if someone could put together a Time series data on some benchmarks like the government cost to put up a stop sign.

s1artibartfast 2y ago

Then we need to fix it. Going out and shooting whoever you dont like moves us further from this goal, not closer. People broadly agree that they dont like the status quo. They dont agree on what would be better. You cant have change without direction and detail.

somenameforme 2y ago
This isn't the issue. You could get easily get the overwhelming majority of society to agree 'let's criminalize unjustified denials with criminal penalties for the executives of healthcare companies who violate such' and it's simply not going to happen. A handful of corporations' "lobbying" easily trumps the opinion of society. And getting people elected is no different. Fewer and fewer people identify as either republican or democrat (with independents being the largest 'party' by far), yet lo and behold like 99.9% of politicians at all levels, high and low, are republican or democrat, with basically no independent representation because the system makes it unreasonably difficult to select an alternative. This is further confounded by an utterly worthless media system that further works to entrench the political establishment, and much more.
- s1artibartfast 2y ago
  I dont think it is that easy to define "unjustified denials". People might agree on a vibe, but not detail. What would a bill look like? Regarding the party and representational system, I agree there is a lot of dysfunction. Same problem. Nobody can agree on alternatives. Even ranked choice, which I think is the tiniest step in the right direction is highly controversial. Ideas like expanding the house to 30,000 representatives [1], seem like a fantasy. People hate change more than the status quo. Regarding the media environment, the consumer is the problem. As long as people prefer and seek out garbage, there is no possible solution. [1] https://thirty-thousand.org/ https://thirty-thousand.org/
  - somenameforme 2y ago
    An unjustified denial is obviously a denial that should not have been denied by the terms of your agreement with the insurance company. And we should also add delays and other anti-payment 'strategies' as criminal offenses as well. And as such behaviors would now be criminal in nature, exact offenses would determined by a jury of our peers. It's obviously not people hating change. People want these things, and many others to change. It's a completely broken political system that is happy to change, but only when it benefits corporations or political, especially geopolitical, interests. Ranked choice won't do anything. Australia has one of the most dysfunctional democracies in the world, and they have both universal voting, obviously 'Australian voting', and even a proportionally elected Senate.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - s1artibartfast 2y ago
      Again, do you think going out and shooting anyone that pisses you off will fix this system? Politicians can be voted out of office. The process is simple and foolproof. The problem is people are divided and can't agree. If every voter next election had your claim denial law as their top priority, they could replace Congress entirely. Instead, they will fight over the same issues.
      - somenameforme 2y ago
        No they couldn't. Getting ballot access is a huge ordeal, and then the media does an excellent job of divide and conquer by not even focusing on the issues, but instead focusing on hate, fear, misrepresentations, and so forth. Make people hate and fear 'the other side' enough and they won't dare "waste" their vote and will happily vote for somebody they don't even like, but dislike less than the alternative. And obviously you're straw manning things. The reason people screw over other people is because they expect there will be no consequences. Whether this is some thug mugging a guy for $20 on the street corner, or a guy in a suit developing ever more novel strategies to ultimately refuse healthcare to people - it's the exact same issue. When there are consequences, the entire calculus changes.

slg 2y ago

>Modern democracy mostly just doesn't seem to work how it ought. It is funny to say this as if every other modern democracy hasn't solved the specific problem that you have given. The issue isn't democracy, it is the American democracy (or republic if you want to be pedantic). Specifically, the combination of our expansive freedom of speech protections (which make campaign financing restrictions near impossible) and first past the post voting system make it easy for corporations and the rich to shape the government however they want.

somenameforme 2y ago
This is mostly grass is greener thinking. Here [1] is a relevant poll across the EU, for instance. [1] 65% of people do not think high level corruption cases are sufficiently pursued and 57% do not think efforts against corruption are effective. And everywhere except Scandiland has a majority to vast majority that think corruption is widespread in their country. The only place it seems to be really working is in Switzerland and in the Scandinavian micronations (notably Sweden is trending more towards the patterns of Europe than Scandinavia). [1] - https://europa.eu/eurobarometer/surveys/detail/3217 https://europa.eu/eurobarometer/surveys/detail/3217
- slg 2y ago
  It is weird to claim it is simply "grass is greener thinking" and then point to opinion polls as if those polls won't suffer the same fate. But either way, that wasn't my point. The "specific problem" I was referring to was the example you gave of health insurers maximizing profit and the government's inability/unwillingness to reign that in. The way all those European countries have addressed that is via universal healthcare.
  - s1artibartfast 2y ago
    I initially thought the greener grass reference was in relation to their own link. I wonder what a more objective measure of government corruption would be. I suspect it's not possible. The closest measure I could think of it was something along the lines of governmental efficiency, w which would include corruption, incompetence and dysfunction. I wonder if someone could put together a Time series data on some benchmarks like the government cost to put up a stop sign.