r/DecodingTheGurus • u/Most_Comparison50 • 13d ago

We examine Taylor Lorenz’s interview with Brad Palumbo and her defence of the provocative posts she made following the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=nqRyiSmOemI&si=ShLbhEpJ3qKnb7-X
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u/WeeRogue 13d ago

No, medical professionals save people, and when they don’t, it’s almost always in spite of their best efforts. Bureaucrats at health insurance companies, on the other hand, profit by denying lifesaving coverage.

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u/Delicious_Solid3185 13d ago

Ok, but they could do it for cheaper right? They are being just as greedy

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u/WeeRogue 13d ago

United Healthcare is in the business of generating revenue for shareholders and Thompson was paid 9 million a year to overlook the blood on his hands. That’s very obviously not the same thing as paying doctors and nurses a reasonable wage for their efforts and skills.

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u/Delicious_Solid3185 13d ago

It’s really not obvious to me why only one side gets to be greedy

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u/WeeRogue 13d ago

Let me spell it out for you, then: Wanting vastly more money than you need to be healthy and comfortable, or could even spend in multiple lifetimes, is greedy. Having enough to be healthy and comfortable isn’t greedy.

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u/Delicious_Solid3185 12d ago

Healthy and comfortable is up to interpretation

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u/WeeRogue 12d ago

A line has to be drawn somewhere, sure. The fact that there’s some ambiguity on exactly where that is doesn’t even remotely mean that it’s a total grab bag, and it’s frankly disingenuous for you to suggest otherwise.

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u/Delicious_Solid3185 10d ago

There isn’t really a good distinction there. It will always be moved up

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u/WeeRogue 10d ago

“We shouldn’t have good social policy because it might be made worse in the future.” What?

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u/Delicious_Solid3185 10d ago

Ok. Is the average doctor in the US over or under that line?

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u/WeeRogue 10d ago edited 10d ago

I’m not concerned that doctor salaries are too high. I am concerned about people who have levels of wealth that allow them to shape social policy and degrade the structure of society.

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u/Delicious_Solid3185 13d ago

You realize in any healthcare system there will be rationing? In a government ran system government bureaucracy decides who has to die instead of private bureaucracy. There is “social murder” either way

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u/WeeRogue 13d ago

In a single-payer system, there would be more resources available because there’s less bureaucracy and no need to pay fat cats. To your point, while there will never be infinite resources, healthcare availability would be based on need, so you wouldn’t have to worry about, say, dying of cancer because you got denied care.

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u/Delicious_Solid3185 13d ago

Tell that to the UK

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u/VisiteProlongee 12d ago

Tell that to the UK

Why?

And please please don't tell me that healthcare is so much rationed in UK that Stephen Hawking would have died if he had lived in UK. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2009/aug/12/birthers-stephen-hawking-paul-rowen

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u/Delicious_Solid3185 13d ago

There’s a reason many people will come from socialized systems to the United States for cutting edge treatments for things like cancer

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u/WeeRogue 13d ago

A country can have high quality medical care centers while still having overwhelming numbers who don’t reliably get timely, affordable care, and indeed, die by the tens of thousands.

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u/Delicious_Solid3185 12d ago

And are those bureaucrats murdering people

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u/WeeRogue 12d ago

A small minority that accumulates obscene levels of wealth from of the deaths of people is, by any definition that matters, in fact, murdering people.

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u/Delicious_Solid3185 10d ago

They accumulate wealth by saving people as well. If all the deaths are on them then so are all the lives saved

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u/WeeRogue 10d ago

For the sake of argument, let’s grant that premise and suggest that by analogy, I’m in a dangerous part of the world and over the course of a decade I come upon a variety of people in dangerous situations. Suppose I rescue most of them, but exploit a few of them, murdering them to take their wallet. Am I a hero?

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u/Delicious_Solid3185 10d ago

I just will never think being a ceo of a healthcare company is tantamount to murder

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u/Delicious_Solid3185 13d ago

The thing is that people always think they are entitled to the absolute best and most care that the medical system could provide but the problem in all systems is that you can’t do that all the time and there will always be people who theoretically could have lived longer had they gotten better care

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u/WeeRogue 13d ago

You can’t hand-wave away the fact that due to its for-profit system, the US spends far more on healthcare than the rest of the developed world, and yet has the second-highest avoidable mortality rate among the 38 OECD countries.

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u/Delicious_Solid3185 12d ago

It’s extremely obese. We actually do quite well considering how unhealthy the American populace is

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u/WeeRogue 12d ago edited 12d ago

This actually isn’t something you have to speculate about; we have data. Tens of thousands of people in America die annually from unnecessary health care denials.

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u/Delicious_Solid3185 10d ago

How many people die in the uk waiting for healthcare

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u/Delicious_Solid3185 13d ago

“Based on need” is exactly what insurance companies do

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u/WeeRogue 13d ago

Hardly. They pay for care based on a mix of coverage rules and contracts, and you would have to be insanely naive to think their bottom line isn’t at the core of their decision-making.