You Don't Actually Need to Condemn the Murder of the CEO Guy

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:12 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Serious Inquiries Only. I'm going to go ahead and say this is episode 467, even though patrons might note that I did release a 467 for them. But I think I'm going to keep that one patron only. I haven't been doing enough for patrons at patreon.com/SeriousPod. So that one was, I think, a perhaps dose of realism and actual skepticism and rational thinking about the election and the post -election analysis. Some things that It really bothered me that all of that. So if you'd like to check that out, go to patreon.com/SeriousPod. But this one, hey, this is the new episode 467, and this will go to everybody. I have thought about recording something since the day that CEO was shot, pretty much. And then I keep thinking, I don't need to comment on this. And then then I then I think I do. And then I think it's been long. But no, I just need to comment. I need to comment on it. The break we're I have some things I need to say. Thing one, you don't need to condemn the murder of the healthcare CEO, of the insurance guy. You don't need to. I'm going to do you a favor. You don't need to do it. You don't need to, well, murder is bad. I condemn them. You don't need to. It's not a thing you need to do. There's lots of murders every day. Do you condemn those? No, you don't. There's lots of bad things that happen every day, do you condemn them? No, you don't actually need to. That might seem flippant, but it's actually, I've I've been thinking a lot about this and maybe this is just the way my mind works, but I've, I've come to realize it's almost like a mathematical thing. It's the way that the status quo perpetuates itself and that privilege works and that, you know, systemic, just systemic injustice continue. Like we do this thing where it's, it's climate change all over again. We've got one climate change denying scientist and we've got one climate like actual scientist and those are even we do the same thing with this because what I keep hearing is it yeah okay um of course the health insurance situation not great you know it's there's there's lots of suffering but murder you can't murder and this guy was a father and this was a human being and he's been murdered you know and there's that that kind of thing None of that is untrue, but you've put it now at a 50-50. You've now, and in some cases, depending on your emphasis, you've maybe made the murder more important because you've said, it depends on the thing. I've noticed it's the thing you say first, and I'm guilty of this too, because, you know, same thing will happen with October 7th. Yeah, October 7th was awful, but now look at everything that's happened since then, and I'll own that. I don't care as much about October 7th as I do about the genocide that happened after. It doesn't mean I don't care about October 7th. It means, relatively speaking, it's not my priority. And I think it's really telling which order you do that in. All right, yeah, health care, it is bad. I get it. I get that it is a murder of a thing. That tells me where your priority is. Your priority is in criticizing and shutting down people who are maybe vocally supporting the murder, maybe joking about it. And I understand why you're doing that. But I'm here to say you don't actually have to do that.

0:03:32 Thomas: And doing so is part of the injustice that continues. I mean this seriously, because what we're not doing is expressing our terms properly. We're not putting things on equal footing. If the thing we need to do is properly condemn all the deaths involved, then what that would, and this might seem ridiculous, but actually the more I think about it, the more I'm convinced this is right. What you should have to do, is go through every fucking example of someone who died because of bad healthcare or at least got fucked over, someone who didn't get their pills, someone whose suffered, you should have to go through every single example first and be like, yes, I condemn that person who was denied their cancer treatment and then they died a preventable death because of UnitedHealthcare. And yes, I condemn this person who's had to pay way too much. They went bankrupt because UnitedHealthcare denied their coverage and now they're bankrupt. Now they're on their other homework. They're homeless. Now I denounce what happened here. You should have to literally go through all of it. You have to go through both sides of the ledger and condemn every single instance on the other side of UnitedHealthcare fucking people over and what it did to them. And then, and only then, can you say, and I also denounce this killing of their CEO. Like that should be how it works. I know I you know, I I have no idea how people will receive this argument of mine. It may seem ridiculous, but I'm more and more convinced. This is actually what needs to happen because we suck as humans at doing this. We suck at properly evaluating large numbers of anything, but of suffering, especially. We see a headline that a million children are starving. We're like, oh man, fuck, that sucks. It's not like we're happy about it, but we're like man, boy, that's awful. And then we see a detailed image of one person being shot and we're like, fuck. That hits us the same or more. Actually hits us more. I mean, there's studies about this, like more numbers. If the numbers get too big to where we think like there's nothing we can do about it, we start to just not care. It's hard. It's human. I'm not saying anyone's like evil for accidentally doing this. It is very clearly our human biases. And what I'm coming to realize, if I hadn't already, was that these very biases are a major reason why this awful status quo continues. Because we have to do this fucking thing where this murder happens and we got, look, okay, the health insurance situation, not great. Not great. But murder, you can't murder. I'm serious. If you're going to fucking do that, you should have to go into detail. You don't get to just say in the same way that if you want to talk about the three scientists out of a hundred who don't accept accept climate change. You should have to go into detail. Okay. This person accepts it for these reasons. This expert says, yes, it's happening. Like you should actually have to go through the proper weighting of the sides.

0:06:33 Thomas: That's how you would actually arrive at an accurate feeling, an accurate emotional gut feeling as to what's going on. That is our problem as humans. We don't do that. It's too easy for us to use language, this great human thing, to be like, yeah, okay. All kinds of suffering over here. Sure. Granted, you know? Oh, I accept it. Yeah, no, I know. It's, it's awful. So there's all kinds of stuff, but then there's a murder. And then like, just like that, we put them, we've put them on equal footing. They're not on equal footing. The, the stuff that the insurance company is doing is worse. The stuff that Israel did after is worse, they're not equal. If you, the thing you do where you're like, well, yeah. Okay. They, they're not prosecuting the war properly, but like the terrorists. Yeah. Okay. We should have to go through each and every child. Let's do it. Let's do it! I condemn, let's start, let's start, keep, we'll do one in one. Here's what we'll, do we'll do one in one. I condemn this death of this Israeli on October 7th and now we go over, okay, now I condemn the, this child that was killed, this Palestinian child that was killed. We'll go one for one and we'll keep going until we've done done all that. We've condemned all of them. And then wouldn't you know it, what'll happen is we run out of the October 7th pretty quickly. And then we have tens of thousands left over of Palestinian children to talk about after that. And only then, if we actually went through that fucking process, would we have a proper emotional feeling of what's going on there? We're just, we don't do that as humans. We're not good at it. And it causes so many problems. So here's the about my personal feelings, because I want to make very clear, I want to make it very clear. I'm not here to lecture anybody about what they're doing, but I'm going to for a second, we're just, I promise. This is just my personal, me explaining my feelings on this. I don't really joke about these things. You don't see me sharing the same jokes everyone's sharing about the CEO murder and the, and the memes and the whatever. I personally, I don't find that to be something I want to do. Once again, I just want to talk about my personal feelings for a moment. Please

0:08:50 Thomas: Don't take this necessarily as a criticism of anything you're doing. This is entirely me focused internally for a minute to just talk about it. And I'm doing it because I think there are a lot of people who are coming from a place of compassion, of genuine empathy, who are like, I can't handle it. I can't stand it to see a murder cheered on, to see human life taken, and to see that cheered on. I am so with you, I can't even explain it. I like, I promise you I'm with you. And for that reason, I don't really partake in the dancing on the grave. I don'T really partAKE in the jokes. I DON'T really partAKe in, you know, for several reasons. I find it distasteful. It's not something I can ever really do. I mean, there are a few human beings on this planet who are so evil that maybe I would partake in that, but that's just me. That's, that's how I am. That's how I've always been. It's not really something I like. Um, but once you take that very, um, I think very praiseworthy human empathy. I think that's a, that's a praiseworthy quality to be someone who doesn't want to partake in that kind of, you know, grim, gross dancing on a grave. I think that's laudable. I think that's good for that because I feel the same way. But once you take feeling legitimate feeling legitimate thing, not want to participate made in. And then you say, well, here, now I need to lecture other people. Now I need to tell other people that they're evil for doing this. Then you are making a political statement. Then you are making a choice that prioritizes the suffering of a CEO who has been accused of insider fucking trading and selling his stock before the investigation was revealed publicly of what UnitedHealthcare has been doing. That's real, by the way. He's not the worst of it. There's another guy, another executive who made over a hundred million on insider trade before an investigation was publicly known. And then after it was publicly announced, this is real, this is all stuff I vetted. You know me, I vet stuff. That once the investigation was announced, the stock price tanked. And wouldn't you know it, the insiders who insider traded, like this CEO who was killed, to a lesser degree than the main guy who made hundreds of millions, This CEO only made tens of millions on it. They insider trade. So like you are making a political statement. I know I'm just shoehorning that in. I just can't help it. But you're making a critical statement that that guy's life and that guy is murder is on the same level or maybe even on a higher level than the suffering of the people who are being fucked over by the insurance company that is making billions of dollars and profiting off of our ill health. Health, like profiting, like definitionally, I could yell about health insurance and I'm going to. But I just want to make that very clear. Nothing wrong with having the impulse. Nothing wrong with having the feeling that, hey, I don't, I don't really like these jokes. I don't really like, you know, the celebration of a murder. Hey, I'm right there with you. You, you can check my feed. You won't see me doing the memes and the jokes that I just don't. I don't like it. I personally don't. And there's another reason I don't as well. And it has to do with, I am just toxically, deathly allergic to hypocrisy. And I'm not calling anyone else a hypocrite. I'm necessarily, but I can't do anything. Like I can't sit here and say, yes, great. Murder the healthcare CEOs. If I were not willing to do it, that's just how I feel. It's a thing that I just don't, I don't, I don't like, I think I feel when I, if I were to do something like that, if I were to say, yeah, let's go get them. Everybody get out there. Print your ghost guns. 3D print those bad boys. Get them going. I would feel like I, from the comfort of my own home and my own family that I love very much and that I would rather spend time with than be in jail, I feel like I am telling other people whose lives matter less to go throw their lives away. That's what I feel like when I say that stuff. Maybe you could call me kind of a stickler, call me extreme, fine. But that's just my my internal feeling. I feel like a fraud. If I said, I feel like if I say, yeah, let's get them. And then, you know, I'm like Trump on January 6th or whatever, where it's like, oh, I didn't actually mean me. I mean, all of you go do it. I don't like that. I think that's the, to me, there's something dishonest about it. There's something, you know, I just, I, and for that reason, I don't partake. I don't. And I will always probably be that way because there's nothing I love in the universe more than my children, my family. And they're They're like truly just, again, call me silly, by a bare mathematical calculation, there's almost nothing that could get me to do that because my only care in the universe, my maximum, not my only car, my maximum care will always be being with my family. And for that reason, I'm just not going to be able to do a lot of the, what I think are very morally praiseworthy things like demonstrating, protesting in dangerous places, putting your body on the line. And I'm not really willing to do those things because of all the things I value. And I very, very much value, I promise you, I very much value a lot of these moral causes. And I've very much valued the wellbeing of every human being on this planet. I very very much do that will just never quite get to the point where I will put them ahead of my desire to be with my, my kiddos who I love so much. I just, I I'm selfish in that way, I suppose. And so I've always felt like I can't really tell people to make that choice. I can't be advocating that we all ought to take up arms and we ought to kill CEOs. I'm not going to do it because I won't be doing it. I'm going to be a fraud. I'd be a fraud to do that. So for that reason, I don't really partake in the encouragement, the celebration of it. I don't partake of the jokes. I don't really find it funny. You know, even if I like may feel a certain way about it, the way I feel is not like let's joke about it per se. That's just never how I've been. Don't get me wrong. I might feel like, hmm, this is great. Wait, this, this might have been a net good is how I may feel, but I don't feel that it warrants jokes. And that's just how I am. Again, this is me. I'm not going to lecture anyone else for what they feel. I've just, I'm describing my internal feelings. I very much, very much think people's reactions here are legitimate and understandable. I am not here to lecture you. I pretty much 1 million percent. That's the opposite of what I'm here to do. I'm actually here to try to get people to stop stop lecturing him. If you're someone who partakes in these jokes, if you're someone who perhaps got a little enthusiastic about this murder, I am expressing all this because I specifically am trying to appeal to the people who might be like me, who might not be like you. I'm trying to be out there lecturing. You don't need to do it. You don't need to do it. It's just so interesting, isn't it? How it always seems to just come back in the favor of the privileged bajillionaires, you know? Like, Like we're all, everyone feels that desire. Hey, call me crazy. Call me old-fashioned. I don't like murder. So it's what, yeah, okay. Where were you when all of these people who were getting their health coverage denied by UnitedHealthcare were dying? You aren't there. You don't know. I'm not blaming you for not being there. I'm telling you that your selective focus is part of the problem. So what my, again, just talking for me, my personal solution is I'm I'm not going to fucking say anything about this guy's murder to condemn it. You don't need to. That's what I'm saying. Just fucking shut up about it. Like if you're, if you're very, and I'm saying, if you're somebody who's like me, who feels sensitive about that, if you're someone who's not going to cheer it on, if you're someone who feels like that's gross, I get you a million percent. You don't have to do the other thing. You don't have to condemn anybody. You don't have to be out there thinking you're morally superior by saying, I would never, never condone.

0:16:43 Thomas: Violence. And you don't have to. It's because like, you don'T, it's not needed. That service is not needed actually. And what's funny is like, I mean this seriously, this selective outrage is a problem. This is not whataboutery. We're talking about the very issue. This is the very, I'm not saying what about unrelated thing. I'm saying what about directly related this guy's victims? I'm I'm saying, what about that? When, you know, if Bill Cosby gets shot by one of his victims or something, I'm not going to say, I might not be happy, I may not be condoning, I my not be saying, hey, this is great, vigilante violence is great. I don't think vigilante is great, that's not a good thing, it's not, it is not, but, and this is a major important but, we need to put it in proper context, if there's a situation situation where someone like, say, Bill, I don't know why I picked Bill Cosby. It was, you know, could be a Harvey Weinstein, whatever, where let's say they victimized tens of people hypothetically in horrific ways. And let's Say they escape accountability. And one of those victims decides to do a little murdering. I would understand it. And while I, again, it's not ideal. It's not something I'm going to say that someone should ever do. Like, I know that's not, We're not, we're not going to live in a good world if everyone decides to be a vigilante because that's just not sustainable because you need to have, people can be wrong about stuff, you know, like people can make inaccurate judgments in their vigilantism and that's horrible. Like if innocent people start dying because of it, that gets worse and worse, you know, so I'm not a fan. I understand it though. I would understand if that happened. I'm going to sit here and condemn everybody cheering it, you know, take time out of my day because systemically we do not have enough energy behind getting rid of this fucking stupid healthcare system. We don't have enough energy behind that. You know, we do have enough energy behind as a society protecting fucking millionaire CEOs. We're good there. We are good everybody. We do not need more contributions there. Somehow we are fine on that, on that front. Weirdly. Um, probably cause you know, they have millions and tens and hundreds of millions, maybe billions of dollars and they're going to be fine. They're going to be good. You don't, you, so you just don't need to, you don't need to do it. They don't need your help. They really don't. They are fine. And now I will confess to my feeling of, I felt, I'm going to say this, felt pretty sad when the guy was caught. That was a bummer. Well, I'm just honestly expressing my feelings in this moment. I saw the news and I was like, damn, bummer. That was how I felt. And you know why? It's because it was nice for a moment for the people in fear to be the billionaire, millionaire CEO people. That was nice because you know who lives in fear every day is the people who are in fear that their health coverage is going to go the fuck away any moment because this exact fucking company is going to decide they don't want to pay it. Am I exaggerating? Well, I have to talk about one of the best pieces of journalism I've ever seen, which is this ProPublica story from before all this happened, from 2000, let's see, came out in 2023. It involves events from 2021 and before. This is UnitedHealthcare, the very same company that we're talking about. This fucking coverage, ProPublica is a gem, is an absolute gem, I, uh, support that outlet, if you can donate, read it, um, I, if I remember I will put the link in the show notes, I hopefully will remember, but it's late and I have ADHD, I'll try, but ProPublica, it's a, it's the fucking fantastic, they deserve all the credit in the world for this, this article, I, I, it is, it's, it's hard to not want to, to just read you this entire article because there was a, there was, uh, a student at Penn state. And this is a really tragic story. This, this gentleman is, I think doing okay now and is still alive. So just to, I, you know, I don't want to bum you out too much. It's sort of a happy ending for this person, I Think. But this, this poor guy was a college basketball player, um, tall athlete, you know, and I only say this because, you know, the contrast when, when, when, you know, terrible healthcare stuff happens is very sad. Tall, in shape, fit basketball player guy develops severe ulcerative colitis. This is, this is horrible. This is just one of those bad fucking moral luck things. You know, it's just, it's just bad luck. This, it's precisely the reason we should all want to be covered healthcare wise. We should all all want to be covered health care wise because there but for the grace of the fucking spaghetti monster, go I. There but for the grace of God, go any of us. We could just one day be like, boop, ulcerative colitis or any number of things. But in this instance, it's that. This poor guy went from being a college athlete to not being able to leave the toilet. It's horrifying. It's absolutely horrifying, horrifying, you know, bloody diarrhea, 21 times a day, uh, or more this poor guy, um, real, really shit stuff to, it wasn't even trying to make a joke, shit luck I'll say. And like, this is, this is so sad. It's the kind of thing that like, if this happens to you, your life is so fucking ruined. You know, you go from living a normal life to like, This guy can't leave his house. This guy can barely function. This guy's lost weight. He's got other really bad, you know, there's all kinds of bad health outcomes from this. Now, you'll never guess what happened. See, UnitedHealthcare was looking at their fucking spreadsheets, looking at their numbers, looking their financials was like, hmm, we love this part where people pay us money. Love that. That's great. Well, isn't that such a great part of it where they're like, hey, we'll pay you money just because we want to hopefully someday get coverage for our healthcare. That's awesome. A plus. Love that we're looking at this other line item that says where we We pay for people's health care. But that's, well, it's not as fun. We don't like that part. That part, it is like a, it's a red number. It goes down for us. We don't, we don't like our numbers to go down. And they identify in their spreadsheet, this one guy on this Penn State health plan was costing them a lot of money because he had a really bad condition. And so, wouldn't you know it, because of that and because of nothing else, because of no medical reason, because no moral reason, no good fucking reason, but because of a number reason, a bad, bad number for them. Lots and lots of money. It's costing this, this health insurance company, you know, health insurance companies, the company whose entire purpose is to provide money when you need healthcare, because what you've done and what others have done have paid into the system when you don't need it. Yeah. They don't like that second part, the part where they have to pay back out. They Don't like the, ah, that, that sucks. Ouch. Oh, we don't like that part. Not as good as just receiving money. And so they found, started finding all kinds of ways to get rid of this guy. They're like, this guy's costing us a lot of money if If we can get rid of him, we're making more money. Now, what complicates this a little bit is, unfortunately, the only thing that was working for this guy after going through lots of treatment, this guy's life was, again, ruined. Imagine it. I mean, this is ulcers like inflammatory bowel disease, ulcers in your digestive tract. It's got no cure and ongoing treatment to alleviate symptoms. That's all you got. That's all you got. Otherwise, this person, he lost 50 pounds, bloody diarrhea up to 20 times a day, severe stomach pain. I mean, if you've experienced some small amount of this, it's life ending. I mean, if you have that kind of bowel pain, which I've had a time or two, because of my, not this, but like other digestive problems I've had, you're not living, you know, you don't live, you are just on the floor, you just curled up, you waiting for it to go away. Way, it's, it's horror, it's awful, it's really sad, and it's something that could just happen to fucking any of us. And so, like, once again, that's a reason we should, you know, have a system where anyone would be covered. For the few unlucky people, there's no moral thing this guy did, there's no thing, you know, even if there were, by the way, I wouldn't care, but like for those who think there's always people always deserve it, nope, just, it happens, shit happens, god, I keep accidentally making a pun. I'm not even trying to do it. Stuff happens. Now, he goes through a lot of treatments. They don't, they aren't working because he has a severe case. For some mild cases, these treatments do work, you know, reasonable enough. When you have a more mild form of it, the normal medications might work. This guy, wouldn't you know it, mathematically, there's always going to be some people who have the worst kind of thing. That's just how stats and people work and math and numbers. This person happens to be the unfortunate person who has a bad kind of this. And so with a doctor who seems to be really good, they're trying to figure out what to do. And eventually his doctor says, okay, we've tried a lot of stuff. We've tried the usual stuff, not working. This is awful. Let's try a certain course of treatment that has potentially worked in other cases where, where you take these biologic drugs that I don't totally understand, and pin in this for, I don't know, someone who knows more about this. I don't think these should cost so fucking much. I don't know why they do. That's another question. But that''s a separate issue. Because for now, the important thing is these biologics drugs, as they call them, for some reason, they cost a shitload of money. There I go again. Not even trying to do it. I just, I'm now realizing how much of my normal speech involves shit-related words. So I will try to cut that out. So I'm genuinely not trying to do it. But for some reason, these cost a bunch of money. And another unfortunate thing, in order for this treatment to work, they have to do very high doses of them that are not the normal amount. So already, I'm sure anyone who's had experience with insurance companies is thinking, well, this is, you're fucked. Because those exact things are the kinds of things that are very hard to get insurance companies to cover. It's not the usual drug. And furthermore it's two, not the usual drug, and furthermore they're doing high doses, but here's the fucking thing, that works, it works, he tries this treatment, this very expensive treatment, and it works, the guy starts having a normal life. Can you imagine going from bloody shit 20 times a day, not living, to having a life? That's priceless for any human, for any person, uh, not priceless, this is for an insurance company that has a cost to it, but wouldn't, but boo fucking who, because hey, that's the job you're in. That's the industry you're. And that's what I'm talking about. That's what the sector you're in. Sometimes you get people who do nothing but pay into your little system to your little fucking scheme. They do nothing, but pay you money all their lives. And then maybe they're hit by a car and die. Never having used their healthcare treatment. Do we ask for their money back from you?

0:28:09 Thomas: No, that doesn't happen. Sometimes health insurance companies, I know this is hard to hear, but I got to give you a little like no nonsense brass tacks. You know, sometimes health insurance companies, you have the opposite where someone hasn't paid in very much, but they have a very expensive treatment. And hey, it ultimately all works out in the end because mathematically you make sure it does. That's how your business works. You make sure that you always make money. You mathematically make sure. It's called whatever the actuarial tables or whatever the fuck that is. That is how you do it. You will We'll always make money, but that's not enough. That's not Enough for these companies. They always, because of capitalism, have to be trying to make more. And because of, you know, CEOs that get paid hundreds of millions of dollars in stock options and all that, they have to Be trying to Make more. How do you Make more? Well, let's find a way to get rid of the ones that are on the other side of the thing. Don't want to get rid of the ones that just pay us money and then don't use the stuff, they're great. Let's find more of those. But let's get rid of the ones where we have to print money out because that isn't as fun for us. And so they start doing these reviews over and over. This poor guy who's finally living his life again, this young guy, he had to like, I think he dropped out of college. I don't, I don't want to go through the whole thing, but again, read this ProPublica article. Fantastic journalism, amazing support that I'm literally going to fucking donate to ProPublica just because of this article. It's so good. It's so good! Anyway, the cover, it just goes on and on. There's so much to it that I would love to do. This expensive treatment that is giving this poor guy a life again. It is very, it is very expensive. I mean, it's, there's no getting around it. It's, it's something like 50,000 a month or something like for the insurance company is costing the insurance company a lot of money.

0:29:50 Thomas: Are they going out of business? Fucking no. Is this amount of money, anything to them on a global scale on their, to their entire business? No, not noticeable. But to the penny pinching people who work there, um, that's, that's always the effort. The effort is always to squeeze, to squeeze to squeeze more and more and more, squeeze more, take away coverage, cover as little as possible. And they have all these little fucking ways they do it. Wouldn't you know it? This this treatment is working. They pay for it for a little while and then they do the thing. I won't go through the bit again, but they do the thing of not liking that part. And they're like, hey, we got to review this. We have to do a review. Isn't that weird? Oh, you got to do review. So they have their staff doctors go through it. And wouldn't you know it, damnedest thing, their staff doctor and nurses, they look at it and they say, you know, this is not medically necessary. Isn't that weird coincidence that they happen to review it, and then they're like, now we don't think this is medically necessary, after he's already getting the treatment and they paid for it for a little while and remarkably he's way better and his own fucking doctor is like, yes, absolutely, this is what he needs, he's living a real life now. But what did it, you know it. They're a doctor and nurse who knows better and reviewed. And they're like, this is not medically necessary. Hell of a coincidence if you ask me. And so they start trying their damnedest to deny paying for this stuff for a while. And there's so much more I would love to go into, but I'm not going to. But what's fantastic is the reason we know all this, and, and keep that in mind, the reason we know all this is because this particular family had the resources to fight back and they sued and they got access to a whole bunch of shit and discovery that sure didn't look great for United Health. In my life, I have such an allergy to bullshit, I can't stand it, and I just can't, I, I couldn't work for an industry like this, I couldn't, where the whole thing, do you think when they got discovery, everybody, what they found was a bunch of documents that were like, hey, um, just in the interest of the best health care, uh, we really need to look this over, and for this man's health, um, we've just made this decision? No, they get a bunch of documents, they're like, how the fuck do we get this fuck asshole who's costing us money off of our thing, let's, how do we do it, let's get it, we gotta get rid of this, this is, and some of them are kind of justifying it, well, this is, this, they're getting way, he's getting way too much of this, the drug, you know, they try to justify it. It's too big of a dose. They should, that's not safe. That's not reasonable. They say that's all based on anything other than them wanting to not pay him. But mixed in with that as some bad documents, as they say, and some calls where they're like, Hey, the family is kind of being assholes about it, which I got it. Got it. I, the, the amount that, that people like this cannot fucking understand humans and cannot, cannot empathize, one minute. Look, it might be true that a family member would be annoying to you personally. But, and I could even imagine thinking like, oh boy, this is a pain in the ass. But you know what I wouldn't do? I wouldn't be like, yeah, you know, this family member of this guy who we're trying to ruin his life. You know? Yeah. Look at the report. Yeah. We're trying to ruin this life. They're being dicks about it. Like why would you ever complete? Yes. They're going to be dicks. They'll be dicks about you trying to ruin their life, or their family member's life. That's gonna happen. There's all these comments, oh, they're really pushy, really pushy, these family, yes, you're trying to ruin their fucking, they got a bill, by the way, I forgot to say this, once they canceled the coverage, this is after they got a bill for eight hundred thousand dollars. Imagine that, you have, you have this treatment, life-saving treatment, the, you've, they've taken great pains to make sure United Health is going to cover it, they've, they've made sure. Obviously, obviously you would make sure, they made sure United Healthcare did cover it for a few months or something. And then all of a sudden, ah, denied, not medically necessary. Here's your bill. Eight hundred thousand dollars. Yeah, you might be a little pushy. You might be able to sour on that. You may be a bit grumpy. And these fucking inhuman people who could work at this place and be like, people pushy. What are you talking about? You fucking assholes. And so when they get access to this discovery and they see what's happening here, they find that there is no medical justification whatsoever, even though they pretended there was. There is reports indicating, yes, this guy needs this fucking treatment, obviously, which the insurance company hid, didn't tell the family about. Up. And in fact, I love this detail. There was a report, again, I'm not going too much into it, but there was one review they did where they actually talked to like the right doctor or something. And they're like, yeah, no, it seems good. He needs this. And they just buried it and they didn't even provide it in fucking discovery. And the only, this is, I can hardcore relate to stuff like this, not exactly this, but the only reason they found it is because was doing good lawyering. And when you see a lawyer doing good work for a good cause, there's nothing more satisfying than that because the evil version is, there's, there's Nothing worse than that. It's really hard when you see them doing a good job for a Good cause. Oh, well, just kiss because they're going through all the stuff and they just happen to hear one little, you know, reference to something in a phone call. And that's, that's where lawyers are really at their best. That's where the profession is at its best. When they, they catch that detail and they're like, what was that? What were they referencing? And they go and fucking figure it out. They find out, oh, you, you withheld this report by someone who actually knew what they were talking about, who said, yeah, no, this is probably the right treatment. It's actually working for the guy. Isn't that, isn't that beautiful? Isn't that marvelous? But at the same time, it's so depressing because you know, they get away with it. You know, they get away with it nine times out of 10, 99 times out of 100 or 999 times out of 1000, probably. Probably, right? Right, you know, they fucking get away with it. It's only when some family somewhere has either the wealth or the wherewithal, or just, or just is willing to go into a lot of debt or something to fight back, that's the, the only time, and a lawyer does a great job, that's the only time when they can, they can actually be caught on this. And they were caught in this thing, and they did another thing where, like, they were lying about what his own doctor was saying. So, like, obviously, obviously, this guy, this poor guy with the thing, with the colitis, he sees in one of the things like, oh, yeah, his own doctor supported this. And so he goes to his doctor and is like, you supported this? And his doctor, who's a good doctor, is like no, because one thing his doctor said, which I'm not a doctor, I don't know, but they said, hey, there's a real danger here. This medication has started working. There's a danger if you stop it or if you reduce the dose that you actually won't get it to work again. So can you imagine the panic? Panic, can you imagine the panic, of being told, hey, this treatment, miracle treatment, it's working, you have a life again, they're trying to fuck you over, if you reduce it you might, it's not as though, like, oh okay, I'll have to have the shits for a little while and then maybe I'll get the, no, it might never work again, is what he's being told by his doctor. And so his doctor, when he found out that the insurance company, oh, UnitedHealthcare, by the way, is the insurance committee, was misrepresenting what the doctor was saying, was like, no, I never said that. I never said that, and then the person at UnitedHealth was like oh, I guess I misunderstood the conversation. I thought they had agreed with me. It's fucking nonsense. All this stuff, and I could keep going. In the end, it looks like what happened is United settled, and as a condition of settlement, we can't really know, but let it suffice to say I imagine they got millions of dollars. I imagine, imagine this guy with this health condition got millions of dollars. I'm not good. I, I, he should get a billion dollars and, and partially because he deserves, but more because United Health ought to pay it. That's more like if they had to donate to charity, that'd be fine too. Like they should have to pay out their fucking ass for this so that they don't keep doing this. The incentives don't work out. We know that assholes hollow this out and, and judgments get reduced. Unfortunately, this is a settlement, so I guess it can't be. But like in these situations, judgments get reduced to nothing. And in the end, the corporations barely get a slap on the wrist for, you know, for whatever it is, for spilling oil all over, killing every fucking animal in Alaska, whatever the hell, you know, it, in the end, it all gets slapped down. It all gets worked down to a slap on the wrist because status quo perpetuates itself. The wealthy have the ability to protect their wealth, capitalism, blah, blah. We all know that happens. And so I just wanted to tell the story because, hey, again, ProPublica, fucking phenomenal. It's so well done. This is, again, a couple of years before any of this happened. But also just think about all that. Think about all the times that they're getting away with this, that they have ruined lives, that they've probably literally killed people or at least taken years off their life. No, they've definitely killed people. If not directly, they have put people into poverty. They have fucked people over into ill health that didn't need to be into it. I was going to go through more stories. I actually had more pulled up, But then this one was so compelling that I just wanted to tell it. But people started sharing, hey, my mom needed a cancer screening, was denied because there wasn't enough time since the last one. And wouldn't you know it, she had cancer. It wasn't caught in time and she died. That's a life that UnitedHealthcare cost. And we do this thing where administrative violence, I think is the term, actual deaths deaths caused. You could call it maybe murder. I don't think in every instance, but in some instances, I think you could and should call it murder. In other instances, it's just profit driven, fucking psychopathic, depraved violence in a way. We don't count that. We look at this CEO who was murdered. He was unquestionably murdered. I know he was murdered by the guy. We We look at the CEO who was murdered and we see murder, murder, gunshot, murder. That's bad, evil, bad, gunshots, violence, bad. OK, I understand that reaction. We look out this fucking shit. I just read you. And for one thing, we don't look at it actually is more important for the most part. Had you ever heard of this ProPublica article? Maybe if you are one of the very well -informed people who reads a lot of ProPubblica, how many people do you think that is? How many people heard about this one case about this guy's ulcerative colitis that was debilitating and United tried to fuck him over forever? Nobody hears about it. Nobody knows about it, nobody condemns it. We didn't get a round of every single politician, every single pundit. Oh, well, of course I condemn, uh, forcing someone to live with debilitating ulcerative colitis. Of course I condemned that, but you know, like we don't, you don't get that round of that. And multiply that times what, I like, realistically, what, like a hundred thousand, I don't know, for this one company, for it, let alone for like all of private health insurance industry, you know? Like multiply that by how much, and then, and Then talk to me, you know like, then let's go through it. We'll do condemn. Okay, on one hand we'll, we'll condemn the murder of all the CEOs we can even start with those just for fun if you want we'll condemn the murders of CEOs on the other side of the ledger we'll the condemnation of every single victim of the private health care health insurance industry and we can do that and we'll go through them all oh we ran out of the ceo's it was one okay uh we still have like hundreds of thousands on the other side to go through and to to condemn one by fucking one. That would be the proper way to morally account for this. And every incentive in our media and our, just as humans, every incentive is aligned to do the opposite of that. Every incentive is lined to, well, we all need, of course, to comment that I don't support violence. I don't support administrative violence. I don't support giving someone ulcerative colitis and making them live with it to ruin their lives. I don't support that and we should have to if we were being accurate go through every single fucking instance of that and then we would have something like justice in our conversation and you would have forgotten about the CEO because that would have been a hundred thousand names ago and you'd be like oh yeah I guess there was like one on the other side of it yeah one CEO got murdered that's true that hey count it one we'll count that one I'm not saying don't count count it, count it. Double it if you want. I don't care. It doesn't matter because it's one. And then on the other side, hundred thousands or whatever. I get it because on one hand, I started to say, we've got gunshot, death, murder. That's bad. I get and we don't identify with that. I should hope most of us aren't going to say that could be me shooting someone in cold blood. But on the other side, we see the CEO guy and we're like, well, that guy's just doing like paper stuff. That guy's just doing office stuff. That kind of feels like I do that. That kind of feels like people I know do that, people I know do office-y, business-y stuff. They might make decisions that, yeah, maybe I know people who make business decisions that do kind of, maybe they do hurt people in a way, you know, like they're doing their best. And we start to identify with that more, and I think we just, we can't, we can never, ever properly account for administrative violence. And there are certainly going to be cases where I'm not talking about the cases of where people are doing their best to balance different harms and people are fallible. If you're a politician or if you're somebody who's in earnest making a good faith effort with the information you have to say, well, I think we should make this choice. It might cost 10 lives, but save 20. You're not a murderer. You're not, even if you're wrong and it costs 20 lives and saves 10. I like, you're not a murder. You're acting in good faith, doing a different thing than murder. You're doing it. You're not, you're not sitting there saying, Hmm, how can I make the most money here? Well, it's by killing the 20 people and maybe accidentally saving the 10. That's not, that's a different thing. It's a difference. It should be a high bar, should absolutely be a high bar. We shouldn't count anyone who's in a tough position to have to make decisions. Some of which might be wrong. Some, some of which might be based on wrong information that lead to deaths. That's not all administrative violence. It's not, that's not all the same thing. But when you look at fucking health insurance, private health insurance, here's the thing I'm getting, I could, I don't, I think I need to yell about this for an hour, but I'm going to, I'm gonna try to just keep it short. The entire fucking business, definitionally the profit margin of private health insurance is fucking us over. If if you paid it if you collected an amount and you paid out an equal amount which would be like kind of just like equal there would be no profit the only way you can profit is by like the best version of it is saying okay but look here's the thing we're taking on some risk because you know sometimes there's going to be bad years for us where a bunch of people need health care um and we're talking on some risks and so yeah there's some profit margin involved that's the best version of health insurance, there's some profit margin involved in taking on that risk. And so therefore, you know, it's going to be a margin, but we're, for the most part, we're just providing care. And we are, the thing you're doing is again, in my opinion, worthless. The thing you're doing is just having money. The business of health insurer, you might say, oh, but there's all this billing stuff. There's all these employees, there are these workers. Yeah, they're not necessary. They're just there to do the worthless system that fucks us over. We could just get rid of them and they could get other jobs and that would be fine the the reason they exist the reason these ceos are getting so much money the reason these companies are worth so much fucking money is they constantly are trying to find ways for the amount they pay out to cover our health care is less than the amount They take in and any movement there is them fucking us that's it it's all there is and their only reason they're in that position is because they have money. This is a job. This a function that the government should do, in my opinion, rather like how valuable is it to the world to be like, well, we really need an industry where an entity can make money by just having a lot of money and then fucking you over. Like we just need that. It's nothing. It's not innovative. It's not important. It doesn't do do anything good, the only thing you can be doing when you're in a health insurance company trying to make money, the only thing you can be doing is fucking people. There's no other place to make money in that business scheme. It's only in trying to pay out less than you take in, which is definitionally fucking someone over. And if they didn't do that, if there were tight regulations, and if they were only allowed a certain profit margin, and if there was very tightly regulated and what they denied. And it was only good decisions. Okay. Maybe, you know, I'd be like, all right, necessary evil, I guess like what, maybe that move. That's not what's fucking happening. And you know it, we know everybody knows it. That's not what's happening. I've worked in healthcare for a little bit in the accounting side. And all the doctors talked about was how much it's like, well, it's just bullshit where you have to keep up with every form. They want you to fill out the TPS report with the proper thing. And if you put the thing in the wrong thing. They basically, they find whatever ways they can to deny your claim. That's all they do. That's their function. That's the way they make more money is finding ways to fuck with your healthcare. That's not something that is valuable. Forget valuable. That's not something that ethically you should do. And so while I'm not going to personally call for and support the murder of anyone who works in healthcare, that'd be pretty extreme, or health insurance, that'd be pretty extreme. I do think on the scale of the Deserved-O-Meter, someone at the top of a multi -bajillion dollar company, who's by the way, also done some insider trading and profited off of that to the tune of tens of millions of dollars, whose entire purpose and way of making money is to fuck people over specifically. And only that there's no other good way to make money. That's it. You fuck people over. That's how you make the extra money as health insurance company. Somebody, maybe that like on the scale of like deserving it, that's somewhere on that scale, you know, you're not, you know what I'm saying? There's no ethical way to do that job. I'm sorry. There just isn't. We all want there, like the system wants there to be, the privileged system wants there be, every incentive that I've already talked about is driven toward being like, no, but that guy should have it. He gets to just do his job though. He's doing a job job. He is a guy, he's a father, he does a job. But yeah, but, but the job is harming people. You get that part? Like that's the job he's doing. So I confess it was nice. It was nice for a moment for the people to be in fear, to be that kind of person. Oh, that's The Other Thing. Maybe you saw the headlines. Sorry. Man, I cannot believe how much, I still have so much more to say. I've just talked, talk nonstop, as I'm sure if you're still listening, you've heard, um, remember that whole Anthem Blue Cross thing that was like a headline around this time that was like, Hey, we're, we're not going to pay for like the full duration of anesthesia for surgical procedures. We're just, we're gonna, we're gonna put a cap to that. Why?

0:50:06 Thomas: Ostensibly it's like, well, because you know, we were just setting a limit on what, uh, surgeons can bill, you know? They shouldn't be able to just use as much as they want. Yeah, the reason you're doing that is you want more money. That's the only reason. There isn't a legitimate fucking reason. Like, I saw that headline and I thought, again, I thought it was, I didn't think it was. But I hoped it was fake or something. I thought It was like a distortion. No, it was real. And then once you know it, after the CEO was killed, they went back on that decision. Isn't that weird? Weird. We're like, oh, okay, well, you know, it was a misunderstanding. Seems as though that people were misrepresenting our policy. And for that, and if it was a good policy, seems like you'd be like, yeah, people are misrepresenting this, but we need to do it. It's necessary. But no, they didn't do that. They said, well why don't we just call it off? Why don't we just call the whole thing off? It was being misunderstood. I would just call it off, call it even, just forget about it. Oh, that's weird. So that was an option. You could have just not done that. Boy, it doesn't, that sure seems like you're just trying to make more fucking money off of us. That's what that feels like. Why do you exist? Why does that industry exist? An industry which you could be like, let's just brainstorm more. Oh I know. Let's say like you don't necessarily get covered for the full surgery. You know where you're like passed out because definitionally this is like a thing where you get you're put to sleep what if because you're an asshole you fell asleep too long because the surgeon gave you more or something or the surgery took longer or something like jokes on you now you get a bill for ten thousand dollars like what the fucking idea that that could exist that that decision could exist is fucking batshit And so on one hand, we had people living in fear every day are people, you know, in the medical system, desperate to hang on to their coverage or to get coverage. Those people are in fear of receiving a huge ass fucking bill, being put in an ambulance when they're passed out. Boy, I always forget we have non-American, a lot of non-American listeners who I'm sure think this is insane. Yeah. There are people who are like, don't ever put me in an ambulance, even if I'm passed out against my will. Cause I will get billed for it. And then that happens to them. And it's like ruins their life. Cause you know, I don't know how many people that is, but it's, it's not zero. I know people like that who are Like, I can't ride. I'm not going to, I'll just drive myself. I can ride in an ambulance because I don't have the money for that. Those kind of people live in fear every day. Most, it's a lot of people, like a lot of people in this system live in fear every day, and for like a couple of minutes, for a couple minutes, those people got to feel like, you know, those CEOs and the people making decisions to not cover all of surgery anesthesia -wise, they're the ones living in a little bit of fear for five seconds. That was nice, wasn't it? It's a little nice, and then it's over. It's over, and they don't need your defense. The CEOs are fine. They'll be okay. They're better than okay. One of them died, but as a whole, they're better than okay, look at the other ledger, oh, tens, hundreds of thousands of people being fucked over every day, so, oh boy, what a thing. This industry does not need to exist, it should not exist. And the people in it, especially the people at the top, are immoral. And some more than others, some to a downright criminal degree, morally speaking, in my opinion.

0:54:02 Thomas: And in a world in which they're not held accountable in the same way that, I don't know, if a murderer or if a rapist is not held accountable, once in a while, one of their victims might decide that's not acceptable. That might happen. What should be done about that? Should we scold everyone enough to where they would never support? Is that the, even just practically speaking, is that the best way to go about that or is the best way to get rid of that injustice and make sure that nobody ever feels like that's the choice they would need to make?

0:54:38 Thomas: All right. Thanks so much for listening. Hope you got something out of this. I needed, I just needed to say all that. That's the kind of anything. I didn't have a script. I just, you know what I had? What has it been? Two weeks or something? Like two weeks of just hardcore these thoughts occurring in my head because I cannot stand it. I can't stand this whole fucking thing. And I'm as surprised as you are that I just spoke for an hour straight with no notes. I could go for another hour. It's infuriating. And I hope you got something out of this. If you did, please consider supporting the show, patreon.com/seriouspod really appreciate your support or share it uh if you can I'll try to I'm trying to actually like um blue sky I'm gonna say tweet not tweet but you know I'm trying to blue sky to bleat the thing so they're a little more shareable but we still haven't gotten the website fixed so once once we do um it'll be a little easier to share but for now please share it or word of mouth or anything if you enjoyed this if you got something out of it thank you so much for listening see you soon