patrick.net

gabbar says

WookieMan says

Killing a man with kids is awful.

Did the actions of this man, the company he was the CEO of and other companies in this industry harm the lives of Americans? Who committed the greater harm?

So you have no issue killing people? Eye for an eye? I don't kill people unless they mess with my kids or wife in violent manner. Killing some CEO is not justified. Don't pay the claim. Don't pay the bill. Who cares? Even with mafia it takes something more than money to kill someone. He could have just beat the shit out of him to get his jolly's. You don't kill another human unless your family or life is at risk. There are alternatives.

Are we getting this fucked as a society. Just fucking whack him with a bat 10 times. Even if you get away with it, taking another mans life is something that will trouble you the rest of your life even if you think it's justified. PTSD

RWSGFY says

"Is every claim automatically valid in your world?"

If the claim is approved by Original Medicare then it is a valid claim and
United Healthcare has no business rejecting it. Rejecting a valid claim is
an assault with a deadly weapon.

RWSGFY says

"What is the alternative? Government healthcare?"

Yes, by orders of magnitude because the existing system is frankly murderous.

zzyzzx says

I'm pretty sure it's much higher than 41%.

I also suspect it's much higher than 41%. People don't want to admit it to pollsters.

The ultimate problem is that we are controlled by an oligarchy of billionaires who hide behind voicemail trees and control Congress while pretending we have democracy.

https://www.sott.net/article/288827-No-kidding-Princeton-study-says-US-is-an-oligarchy

"When the preferences of economic elites and the stands of organized interest groups are controlled for, the preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy."

The_Deplorable says

RWSGFY says

"What is the alternative? Government healthcare?"

Yes, by orders of magnitude because the existing system is frankly murderous.

Wait, what's wrong with forcing all medical providers to state the exact costs in advance so that people can shop around and drive down prices?

You wouldn't eat at a restaurant where they don't tell you the prices until after you're on the hook for them, right?

The_Deplorable says

RWSGFY says

"What is the alternative? Government healthcare?"

Yes, by orders of magnitude because the existing system is frankly murderous.

LOL, like NHS or Canadian system doesn't deny shit.

I have a Brit co-worker who moved to the US specifically because the NHS denied fertility treatment for his wife after their meager limit of attempts has ran out. Here it was covered by employer-provided insurance and he now has 2 kids.

One of my college buddies lives in Toronto. His MIL needed a new knee but was offered only cheap one expected to last only 5 years because their "tables shown" that she won't live longer than that. Guess what - she did and had to suffer through another operation.

I have some more stories like this but so is everybody who knows Brits, Canucks or Frogs.

Denied treatment, delayed treatment, inferiour treatment, you name it.

Let the people themselves decide on how much they are willing to pay for treatments!

There would be no denial of treatment, only shopping for a better price, which itself would dramatically reduce prices.

Just make all providers publish their prices and present an exact bill in advance of every non-emergency treatment so that there is no uncertainty of cost and no opportunity to inflate prices to the moon, like we have now.

Increasingly, it's Regency Era England approach to health care; namely the Jane Eyre approach: "Don't get sick."

zzyzzx says

Misc says

41% of people say they are ok with the killing.

I'm pretty sure it's much higher than 41%.

And those 41% are retarded Leftists that have no clue about anything.

Really shocked at how many stupid people on the Right are falling for this horseshit.

What's next, Leftist terrorists killing doctors, nurses and hospital administrators?

The_Deplorable says

RWSGFY says
"What is the alternative? Government healthcare?"

Yes, by orders of magnitude because the existing system is frankly murderous.

Healthcare is finite and no one has a "human right" to the labor and services of others.

There WILL BE RATIONING.

Would you rather have a unionized and woke Government retard "Death Panel" rationing and denying your healthcare based on your skin color and economic status? You craving for DMV and DEI level service for your healthcare?

If you could point to unreasonable profits by United Healthcare you might have an argument. But insurance companies will simply go bankrupt if they have to pay for every single claim made by doctors and there is absolutely ENORMOUS fraud in government run Medicare services.

RWSGFY says

"What is the alternative? Government healthcare?"

Yes, by orders of magnitude because the existing system is frankly murderous.

RWSGFY says

"LOL, like NHS or Canadian system doesn't deny shit."

You are changing the subject. Please stay on topic!
Again, If the claim is approved by Original Medicare then it is a valid claim and
United Healthcare has no business rejecting it. Rejecting a valid claim is
an assault with a deadly weapon.

socal2 says

The_Deplorable says

RWSGFY says
"What is the alternative? Government healthcare?"

Yes, by orders of magnitude because the existing system is frankly murderous.

Healthcare is finite and no one has a "human right" to the labor and services of others.

There WILL BE RATIONING.

Would you rather have a unionized and woke Government retard "Death Panel" rationing and denying your healthcare based on your skin color and economic status? You craving for DMV and DEI level service for your healthcare?

If you could point to unreasonable profits by United Healthcare you might have an argument. But insurance companies will simply go bankrupt if they have to pay for every single claim made by doctors and there is absolutely ENORMOUS fraud in government run Medicare services.

What you don't understand is that is a pincer movement - create toxic foods and "vaccines" and gaslight everybody to eat and do what is most unhealthy for them, then punish them with "healthcare rationing."

I'm sick and tired or blaming the brainwashed victim. Industry and Gub'ment have colluded to enrich themselves and degrade the people.

After Congress passed the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act, corporations, realizing that they couldn't poison the environment with abandon anymore, then started offloading production to China. Corporate America never wanted to play by any rules. Wake the fuck up.

The CFO of a prominent health system (health care provider group = not insurance company) said they face rising costs of around 4% annually While the amount paid by insurance (which includes taxpayer provided government insurance as well as private health insurance) increases by only 2% annually. Obviously this is not sustainable. The government and the insurance industry have colluded and are destroying America’s health care system.

It won’t be fixed until the people say enough is enough and demand change. Only I expect when they do, the government will create a single payer system, AKA socialized medicine, which just means the feds will be rationing care and denying treatment instead of United.

socal2 says

"Healthcare is finite and no one has a "human right" to the labor
and services of others."

This is an invalid argument because the US has the most expensive healthcare on
the planet (by leaps and bounds) with the lowest lifespan in the West. To put it
bluntly, healthcare in the US is a fraud.

PeopleUnited says

It won’t be fixed until the people say enough is enough and demand change.

Even if most people see the problem and demand change, the government is firmly in the hands of mega-corporations like UnitedHealth and acts solely in the interests of those corporations at all times.

Frustration with this state of affairs seems to be what motivated the shooting of that CEO.

We have a great Constitution, but it failed to anticipate the possibility of complete corporate control of Congress. Maybe one solution is to let the people directly vote on the renewal of corporate charters every five years. Extremely evil corporations like UnitedHealth and Pfizer would have their permission to be corporations revoked, resulting in personal liability for those running the companies.

Patrick says

Maybe one solution is to let the people directly vote on the renewal of corporate charters every five years.

My understanding is that corporate charters we only allowed for a finite period to address a specific project such a building a rail line or telephone infrastructure. There should be no corporate licenses that make companies more powerful than people.

Yes, exactly! Corporations were intended to be temporary groups of people acting together to accomplish a specific limited project with an end date.

Now corporations are immortal, like cancer cells.

The real problem is that Good's are divorced from the average wage due to imports and credit cards. It's a far bigger contributor to unaffordability most think.

Everything is happening exactly as Ross Perot said it would.

Dependence on imports creates debt pressure to finance the deficits. Both public AND private.

Don't worry though, China is going to have a liberal government anytime now 😂

AmericanKulak says

Dependence on imports creates debt pressure to finance the deficits.

You are confusing trade deficits vs budget deficits, it seems.

Patrick says

PeopleUnited says

It won’t be fixed until the people say enough is enough and demand change.

Even if most people see the problem and demand change, the government is firmly in the hands of mega-corporations like UnitedHealth and acts solely in the interests of those corporations at all times.

Frustration with this state of affairs seems to be what motivated the shooting of that CEO.

We have a great Constitution, but it failed to anticipate the possibility of complete corporate control of Congress. Maybe one solution is to let the people directly vote on the renewal of corporate charters every five years. Extremely evil corporations like UnitedHealth and Pfizer would have their permission to be corporations revoked, resulting in personal liability for those running the companies.

Exactly - corporations were never imagined to be immortal. Finite limits to corporate charters. This achieves two things 1) There is no benefit to psychos to control something that is guaranteed dead after 5 years. 2) It puts the onus on Federal or State legislatures to take more direct control over corporations. Yes, there can be corruption, but legislators, in the absence of vote corruption, are probably more responsible than corporate dark-triad psycho CEOs.

stereotomy says

Yes, there can be corruption, but legislators, in the absence of vote corruption, are probably more responsible than corporate dark-triad psycho CEOs.

Both the Republican National Committee and the Democratic National Committee are private corporations and each have complete control over the business and activities of their organizations. Source: https://www.drmikekatz.com/the_dnc_and_rnc_are_private_corporations

Patrick says

Even if most people see the problem and demand change, the government is firmly in the hands of mega-corporations like UnitedHealth and acts solely in the interests of those corporations at all times.

I think its the other way around; corporation balls are in the hands of the government; if the corporations don't do the government department head bidding, he/she will squeeze the corporation balls one way or the other. At best, they are 69ing.

@gabbar You're right that corporations which do not obey the CIA and State Department get "investigated" for imaginary crimes.

Facebook found itself threatened by the government when it hesitated to completely censor the vast number of serious injuries and deaths caused by the mRNA injections, for example. Elon Musk's companies are now being "investigated" in a similar way.

Google, however, is itself an arm of the CIA at this point, a way for them to efficiently spy on all the Gmail and search habits of America.

So I agree that they're 69ing. And they do this partly to prevent the free market from working. If, say, a new company displaced Google, then the ability of the government to spy on all of us would be greatly reduced. Therefore, no such new company will be allowed to grow - unless they agree to give all their user info to the CIA.

Marc Andreessen just remarked on this - how he was explicitly told not to bother founding any AI companies, but only the three or so now in existence will be allowed, because the government can control them. No competing AI companies will be allowed to gain any substantial market share. Lol, I see that you yourself commented on this:

https://patrick.net/post/1382778/2024-12-03-marc-andreessen-at-joe-rogan-podcast?start=1#comment-2123357

stereotomy says

corporations were never imagined to be immortal.

That was the way it started out with corporations. They had a limited defined purpose with a beginning, a middle and a defined end.

The foreign occupied foreign city state of Washington DC is a corporate zombie, since the foreign corporations are completely dead bankrupt, but Congress keeps them lurching on by fiat legislation because they are the source of all the corrupt bounties.

DOGEWontAmountToShit says

You are confusing trade deficits vs budget deficits, it seems.

No, I'm conflating them on purpose. Trade deficits inevitably lead to budget deficits.

AmericanKulak says

Trade deficits inevitably lead to budget deficits.

No, they don't.

Patrick says

Google, however, is itself an arm of the CIA at this point, a way for them to efficiently spy on all the Gmail and search habits of America.

UnitedHealth Care may be the Google in health insurance industry.

gabbar says

Patrick says

Google, however, is itself an arm of the CIA at this point, a way for them to efficiently spy on all the Gmail and search habits of America.

UnitedHealth Care may be the Google in health insurance industry.

While true likely, you don't just go killing people because you don't like their company. 2-3 body guards at $100-150k/yr a piece is nothing sauce. $20k on a security system at home. Fencing. Bullet proof windows. Oh goodness I spent X amount of dollars AND EXPENSE it to the company.

I guess it creates jobs, but now CEO's are likely getting security detail. Guess what? They just pass that onto the costumer and your rates go up.

First you just don't kill other humans. I don't care how much disdain you have. Regardless of not allowing a claim or whatever, there are alternative that don't involve killing. The CEO never even made a decision on a claim. That's 3-4 levels down. Are they good people, no, but there are a ton more bad people out there that are worse.

gabbar says

WookieMan says

Killing a man with kids is awful.

Did the actions of this man, the company he was the CEO of and other companies in this industry harm the lives of Americans? Who committed the greater harm, Luigi or Brian?

The only way to fight bad practices is stop buying from them. Everyone should stop buying health insurance for 5 years. Everyone should stop borrowing for 5 years etc etc.

Patrick says

Marc Andreessen just remarked on this - how he was explicitly told not to bother founding any AI companies, but only the three or so now in existence will be allowed, because the government can control them.

Do you know which 3 companies?

GNL says

Patrick says

Marc Andreessen just remarked on this - how he was explicitly told not to bother founding any AI companies, but only the three or so now in existence will be allowed, because the government can control them.

Do you know which 3 companies?

I read all this AI hype. I just don't give a shit as I'm anecdotal. If I didn't see it I don't believe it. Maybe I miss out on real stuff, but I don't care. No clue if Trump is even real. Haven't met him. I deal with real people I know and see things I know are real. It's why I stopped watching TV and most modern movies. Radio never on in the car.

Probably better for the meme thread, but I can't stand them. I like written personal thoughts. Not a fucking picture book. I know that will piss some off, but just write. I don't like quotes from other peoples articles that are probably made up articles and you wouldn't know. What are YOUR thoughts, not someone else's.

WookieMan says

Are they good people, no, but there are a ton more bad people out there that are worse.

GNL says

Do you know which 3 companies?

No, but the point is only that there will be pretend competition while the government is actually in charge, to control what people see and to spy on what questions they're asking.

Reminds me of the Apple / Android duopoly in phone operating systems.

GNL says

Everyone should stop buying health insurance for 5 years.

Yes, but they have made it illegal not to buy health insurance. That obligation for the public to buy a private product used to be the core scam of Obamacare, and it's still the law in California.

AmericanKulak says

Trade deficits inevitably lead to budget deficits.

I don't know enough macro economics to understand this. So if a country runs an overall trade deficit, does that mean that its government will borrow to make up the difference?

Patrick says

So if a country runs an overall trade deficit, does that mean that its government will borrow to make up the difference?

Trade deficits and budget deficits are two different things. One does not automatically cause the other.

For over two decades, Italy and Japan have had mostly consistent trade surpluses yet enormous and consistent budget deficits, for example.

PeopleUnited says

WookieMan says

Are they good people, no, but there are a ton more bad people out there that are worse.

I disagree here. Fauci is a shit head for sure. Do what you want with him (legally). Who is the fucking actual scientist that thought this was something they should do work on? Creating a virus? Who did the work?

You could maybe bring up AIDS as an example, but what disease or virus REALLY has been deadly in the last 60- 70 years. Ebola? Nothing there.

We've learned you don't fuck men in the butt if you don't want to take a cock(tail) of pills. Covid was a joke. I don't even know how Ebola is transmitted. Malaria and shitting your pants is the biggest concern traveling abroad.

Cleanliness was our issue and we fixed that with running water and sewers. There's no need to research or make a virus in a lab, that doesn't fucking exist. The scientist knew it was wrong and still did the actual work. That's who we should be going after. This isn't the 1500's with some plague as you're swimming in your own piss, shit, blood and vomit.

Whole thing was staged. Like Ole Dammegard says, don't look at the managed stage play, look for what ISN'T there but should be.

There were two direct witnesses, the person who was right there and dodged when they saw/heard gun and somebody in the vehicle on the curb. Not a peep, nada, no interviews, nothing revealed about these characters as well as the complete void of characteristic follow up. All we have is the blaring spotlight bullhorn on the designated patsy. The lack of designated appropriate follow up is a common theme of the Intel/Deep State movies these days, substituted by media glare on a magician's distracting narradigm.

It's like Trump's Pennsylvania 'assassination' where not even the slightest gesture of proper procedures for crime scenes were followed.

WookieMan says

Who is the fucking actual scientist that thought this was something they should do work on? Creating a virus? Who did the work?

Fauci and others whose names we don’t know, collaborated with Eco Health Alliance to off shore gain of function research when it was banned by Obama. Fauci is responsible for the creation of the virus. And the virus did kill people. Perhaps not as many as the ill advised responses to the virus, but under certain circumstances/ in the right person that frankenvirus will kill. The initial strains were likely the most deadly, the ones that escaped to the US were less lethal.

Yes, it was Fauci who created the virus in Wuhan, and it did knock off quite a few elderly who were on death's door anyway. Proof of that is that the average age of a virus death was greater than the average age of death overall.

The timing of the plandemic, right after two failed impeachments of Trump, strongly suggest that it was deliberately released to destroy Trump's excellent economy and provide the excuse for mass mail-in ballots, which are trivially easy to use for fraud.

Why has Fauci not been prosecuted? There is a clear paper trail showing his funding of the people creating the virus in Wuhan.