patrick.net

Patrick says

All non-emergency medical bills should be presented in advance of treatment, to let people shop around. Anything not on the bill agreed to in advance should be free. That one change would fix an awful lot of problems. But doctors and hospitals like to keep all the charges hidden until it's too late to shop. That is the core of their business model, and it must stop.

And emergency bills should be set at a flat price from region to region.

"Why do you hate da Capitalism? Shop around during your stroke for the best bargain!"

Also, we need to reconsider our anti-polypoly strategy/policy outcome. I think medical care was better when there were dozens of small hospitals instead of a few big ones in each area

Finally, we need to accept the fact that 80% of lawsuits are B2B, not individuals trying to wring money out of poor State Farm. We also need some kind of "Fast Track" and Paperwork minimalization for long paying Home Insurance premium payers who have not made claims in over a decade getting the runaround when they finally DO file after a natural disaster.

Here's a really insane story about a property owner having his insurance company claim check refused by TD Bank, on grounds the insurance company might claw it back.

https://www.abcactionnews.com/news/local-news/bank-refuses-to-let-some-fl-homeowners-cash-hurricane-insurance-checks

(Original Version: I remembered it as Wells Fargo)

“I never thought I would sit across from you and say, wow, fantastic, God bless insurance companies, but it helps,” he said.

That is, until he went to TD Bank to try to cash the check, only to learn that the bank, which holds the mortgage on the property, wouldn’t endorse it.

“They informed me that they won't endorse the check because they have requirements,” he said.

Those requirements include notarized documentation detailing the need for the money and how it will be spent.

But despite providing documentation proving his damage, Razavi said the bank isn’t budging. Instead, he’s being asked to provide more paperwork, including a claim adjuster’s report which is backlogged by at least a month.

Razavi isn’t alone.

His neighbor also got an advance check from his insurance company worth $2500.

But TD Bank won’t endorse that check either.

"Cash the fucking check is a terrible regulation that would burden business!" - RINOs, probably.

Patrick says

Trying to navigate between the various doctors, hospitals, and insurers is itself a kind of torture of Byzantine complexity, something I think does not happen nearly as much anywhere else.

Well put.

As I get to be an old fart, it strikes me that shit was far more simple in the days of typewriters and triplicate forms. Computers have seemed to make it too easy for banks, insurers, medical providers, etc. to cause a lot of annoyance and delays.

https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/two-murders-tuesday-december-10-2024

Two local police officers nabbed Mangione while he was munching fries in an Altoona, Pennsylvania McDonalds. (He’s probably not MAHA.) According to unconfirmed reports, even though Mangione was wearing his blue surgical face mask, an anonymous tipster recognized his distinctive eyebrows.

Consider that for a second. Here is a link to some affordable eyebrow trimmers. Had he used them, who knows how things might have turned out. Just saying.

Officers reported that on arrest, six days after the shooting, Mangione was still carrying the murder weapon. I guess he really liked that gun. They also said that, even though he had a laptop, Mangione —who earned an honors engineering degree— had a three-page handwritten “manifesto” folded into his pocket.

Apparently, Mangione’s manifesto was an anticapitalist screed against big insurance companies, which he called “parasites.” NYPD Chief Detective Joe Kenny said, “It does seem he has some ill will toward corporate America.”

Yes, it does seem that way.

According to police descriptions of his manifesto, murderous Mangione targeted UHC only because it was one of the biggest and most profitable companies, and targeted Brian Thompson specifically only because he was UHC’s CEO.

Mangione doesn’t fit the New York Times’ preferred assassin’s profile. Maybe they were hoping for someone more diverse...

So he was 'caught' in a MacDonalds while wearing a face mask WITH the 'gun' and WITH his fake ID, after performing an anonymous shooting and well executed stealth getaway.

I guess the arresters had to the follow the signs saying 'Patsy this direction' while he was wearing a sign saying 'I'm the Patsy, stupid'.

AmericanKulak says

But boy did the Blues try to hide the Trans-shooter's manifesto

the chief of police, who works for mayor btw, probably got pressured to not release it. this is different, we will see. once investigation is done it’s public record subject to prr.

you can always request all correspondence related to it, it’s all public record.

Mangione was on Substack:

Patrick says

Sources had said the gunman in the shooting used a fake New Jersey ID with the same name "Marc Rosario" when he checked into a Manhattan hostel last month.

AmericanKulak says

As I get to be an old fart, it strikes me that shit was far more simple in the days of typewriters and triplicate forms.

You weren't an old fart then, so how can you compare?

Here is the dude screaming about his "lived experience"!

https://twitter.com/bonchieredstate/status/1866576276015677489

Even if he was denied some claims wrt his back issues, as an Ivy grad employed in tech he absolutely not the type unable to afford to pay for his care. Some people get this idea that paying for a fancy car you probably don't need all that much is OK, but paying for a surgery you absolutely need is an outrage. I can understand being angry at a surgeoun who botched your surgery to the point of enterntaining murderous thoughts, but doing this shit over fucking money? Cheeses H. Crust!

Patrick says

The dude is 26, isn't he? How many children does he have? Should be at least 4-5 by now, judging by his views on the subject of procreation... 🤡

Eric Holder says

I can understand being angry at a surgeoun who botched your surgery to the point of enterntaining murderous thoughts, but doing this shit over fucking money?

I got the impression that the murder was his way of objecting to the whole system of legalized extortion that is our medical/insurance industry.

Patrick says

I got the impression that the murder was his way of objecting to the whole system of legalized extortion that is our medical/insurance industry.

He's an idiot then.

Isn't McDonalds licensed to hold lotteries to issue Presidential pardons since Trump got elected? Maybe he was in McDonalds buying pardon scratchers.

https://eccentrik.substack.com/p/luigi-mangione-charged

Or perhaps, as others have suggested, the whole McDonalds-employee-recognizing-him story is total bollocks, just a cover for the real way they were able to locate Luigi under the Golden Arches.

After all, the authorities can’t publicly admit the level of Orwellian surveillance tech they likely used to find him, thereby violating all kinds of laws and moral boundaries. They can’t disclose their parallel construction. That would cause an outcry, and their masters are already trying to clean up the outcry over insurance companies…

Yes, the Panoptic Surveillance State is alive and well, hiding in plain sight. ...

People have scoured his social media accounts, from Goodreads to YouTube, finding extensive evidence supporting what was claimed in his manifesto.

Users have also found, reportedly, some rather anomalous things…




... Because yet another angle here, that makes things interesting, is that of Luigi’s family.
They are a powerhouse Baltimore Italian-American family, with their tentacles in many real estate and healthcare ventures across the state.

But aside from Luigi’s economic advantages, he’s also got some political connections, as he’s cousins with Republican Maryland House of Delegates member Nino Mangione.

You know who also has a lot of power and prestige in the Baltimore area?

The D’Alesandros - the family of former Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi.

Is that the same Nancy Pelosi who would potentially be implicated in a DOJ probe? Was Brian Thompson going to spill the beans on all kinds of insider trading with top-level Democrats and Republicans?

How far will the investigation into UnitedHealth Group, the world’s largest healthcare company by revenue, really go?

https://petermcculloughmd.substack.com/p/handwritten-manifesto-cited-by-nypd

As I noted in my post this morning—Did Luigi Mangione Want to Be Caught?—six days after he allegedly murdered UHC CEO Brian Thompson, Luigi Mangione dined in a McDonald’s 280 miles from the crime scene, wearing the same clothing he apparently wore on the day of the murder, with multiple incriminating objects still in his possession, including a 9 mm pistol and a handwritten manifesto the NYPD is regarding as akin to a confession.

At the time he was arrested in McDonald’s, he was wearing the same black jacket and blue surgical mask as the young man who was photographed getting into a taxi on the Upper West Side shortly after 7:00 a.m. on the morning Thompson was shot. However, while dining in McDonald’s, Mangione was also wearing a stocking cap, but he didn’t pull it down quite low enough to conceal his conspicuously bushy eyebrows. One wonders why he didn’t wear this stocking cap (pulled all the way down over his eyebrows) when he got into the cab. If he had done so, he might have evaded capture.

To my knowledge as of this writing, the police have not shared any photographs of the manifesto with the press. So far, it appears the police have only made verbal representations to the press that they found a 262-word manifesto in Mangione’s possession. The document purportedly states that healthcare companies “continue to abuse our country for immense profit because the American public has allowed them to get away with it … I do apologise for any strife or trauma but it had to be done. These parasites had it coming.”

Did the high school valedictorian and University of Pennsylvania graduate experience some kind of mental breakdown that resulted in him committing murder without taking the most elementary steps to dispose of evidence that would incriminate him?

Stochastic Terror is Great when we do it - Taylor Lorenz and Bluiesky posters



I honestly looked through the "Ivy" tweets and part of me thinks is satire.

Patrick says

Two local police officers nabbed Mangione while he was munching fries in an Altoona, Pennsylvania McDonalds. (He’s probably not MAHA.) According to unconfirmed reports, even though Mangione was wearing his blue surgical face mask, an anonymous tipster recognized his distinctive eyebrows.

Even before he was spotted in the McDonalds I believe the FBI always knew exactly where he was. As I also suspected with Patty Hearst back in the day, they just want to see if they come in contact with more associates. Then some tipster just happens to turn them in. Really?
Even with the Unibomber: when LAX went buzerk about planes being bombed on the news relentlessly for a week saying he was going to attack; I said to my friends. OMG they know who the Unabomber is; they are just making sure we all are familiar with the story before they magically find an excuse to expose his whereabouts and arrest him. Same with Magione.

Patrick says

Patrick says

Sources had said the gunman in the shooting used a fake New Jersey ID with the same name "Marc Rosario" when he checked into a Manhattan hostel last month.

With 25 years of travel, I've NEVER been asked for an ID at a hotel domestically. I don't do hostels, but they're basically a yuppie hotel. They want a credit card. Foreign they need the passport at check in is one thing. Even if they did there's no chance they'd make a copy/scan of it.

I smell bull shit. Tell me I'm wrong, but I'm in a hotel about once a month on average. Never had an ID request domestically.

I've definitely been asked for ID at US hotels.

casandra says

Even before he was spotted in the McDonalds I believe the FBI always knew exactly where he was.

Welcome back, @casandra

Yes, I think that their tracking abilities are better than they let on, because if they let on, people would know how to evade them.

And there's the possibility that he was set up by the FBI, or maybe by Pelosi as yet another trading opportunity:

https://www.caclubindia.com/money/legal/nancy-pelosi-luigi-mangione/

The deep state knows where we all are - why do you think "they" were pushing Obamaphones to people too poor and too old to afford or want smartphones? With a MAC ID and a GPS location, death by SWAT or drone is a FISA rubber-stamp warrant away. Every second, your phone pings a GPS location if enabled.

The only thing that blocks cell phone and GPS signals is a 100% ferromagnetic (solid steel) enclosure. I've tried it - those mylar things don't work too well in comparison.

@stereotomy How did you test the steel vs mylar enclosures?

I suppose you could try calling the phone, or just looking at the reception level bars.

Patrick says

I've definitely been asked for ID at US hotels.

What hotel chain? Not that I stay at pinkies up hotels, but never been asked. I'm a paper guy and just come in with the reservation confirmation. An ID is not a requirement.... just like voting. They just want the CC and if the name matches they don't care. They just want to be able to charge you if there's damage.

We're also a 50/50 split with hotels and vacation rentals when traveling. With Hilton I can get into my room without talking to a human. It's awesome. My phone is the key and I check in and put my phone up to the door. Either way my point is they have a photo of this guys fake ID. Not buying it. Maybe that's a photo from the arrest, but no hotel/hostel scans your ID even if they ask for ID.

People check into hotels with false names all the time for affairs and that type of shit. They'll take your money 10 out of 10 times. Surprised you've been asked for ID. How do you book?

Patrick says

stereotomy How did you test the steel vs mylar enclosures?

I suppose you could try calling the phone, or just looking at the reception level bars.

@Patrick - yes, we just called each other's phones using different shielding until one could not get any signal whatsoever. Cell phones will boost transceiver power significantly higher under weak reception conditions. I was surprised how much shielding it took.

The whole experiment was motivated by an article I read about Faraday cages. The gist was the old assumptions about wire cages being sufficient were based on long-wave radio signals and are not appropriate for GHz frequencies like WiFi and cell frequencies.

GPS is more complicated in that the device must receive a GPS satellite or base signal to obtain its position - these signals can be more easily blocked. Once the GPS bearing is obtained, the device then sends it over the cell network, which is much harder to block.

WookieMan says

I've NEVER been asked for an ID at a hotel domestically.

I insert an ID into the kiosk to get my hotel key (card) to check in and out of various hotels. Tropicana and Harrah's Atlantic City comes to mind. For the other places there I forget. I used the MGM app to check into Borgata. Honestly forget what I did at Hard Rock / Bally's / Resorts / Ocean, but think I used an ID.

I usually always get asked for my driver’s license when I check-in at Marriotts and Hiltons at the front desk. But as I have membership acounts with both chains, if I get a digital key, no need to go to the front desk. And as my credit card is on file, they never ask to see it at the front desk when I do check in there, just ask to confirm that I want to use the car on file.