Profiteering on the lives of other people is morally repugnant so it's very natural for human beings to be angry at people who are directly involved and thus bear some responsibility.
The anger is natural but fundamentally it misses the mark.
Given the mechanism of american healthcare there will be millions of denied claims even if all the profit of the insurance would be reinvested and all employees including the CEO would be volunteering.
While that would absolve the CEO from the moral responsibility of profiteering it wouldn't improve the lives of the many people whose claims must be denied because of the mechanics of the heath insurance system.
Given the current system, the insurances must stay afloat and if the bankrupt that will affect even more lives.
Furthermore, hospitals have a different set of incentives which are not aligned with reducing the pressure on the healthcare insurer.
You could say "but the government should not allow that and it should just bail out the heath care insurers that go bankrupt in order to save lives". Yes you could say that.
Would they? Should somebody try that? Should some CEO of a major healthcare insurer be brave enough and bankrupt the company they're supposed to manage just to force the hand of the government to fundamentally prove that healthcare is a public good?
Should a CEO be shot for not risking everything to force the government hand?
Or should a politician get shot because they didn't improve health care when they could have? Which politician? Every politician? Only the top level ones? How time we would give them to make the change? One term? Two terms? Punish them when they retire after not having fixed the healthcare?
Despite all the power that the people have on paper, democracies are only as good as the public discourse that unfolds in such democracies.
Do we really think that we can solve problems as complex as healthcare by shorting at whoever our ape brain thinks is the most proximal responsible person?
It's not like the world isn't full of examples of countries where healthcare is approached as a public good from the ground up. There are plenty of places where you also have private healthcare on top of that.
Why don't you just take the opportunity to push for actual reform. Siding with a murderer is not going to help your cause.
Right, the problem is we have been voting, donating, and protesting since occupy. I need things to change within the time that I am alive. If anything things have regressed, and some really strong feelings (I know this is strange to the beep boops of HN! It's so irrational!) are being expressed right now because people are at their end.
Irrational is tens of thousands / hundreds of thousands over time of Americans losing the game over health issues. What I am getting at here, is if the model is to "let the unproductive ones die" then say so, and we can accelerate getting rid of insurance.
If you're a turbo capitalist, then the real issue is price discovery, insurance companies create false price signal due to the variance in payouts and hospitals mask their pricing. We can blame both sides maybe, but it is clear insurance has some explaining to do before we completely eliminate them. They do not need a third boat. I need to keep my house.
I will also anecdotally mention that NO ONE that I know is against Luigi. Not even once has someone said "well that guy had a wife and kids". It's not personal, it's not about him. In their view, it is a wakeup call because no amount of protesting, voting, and donating has gotten progress in the direction they want in their life time. Not even a sliver of a debate among about 5 different friend groups, 4 of which are not in tech.
Your concerns and your rage are legitimate and I understand them.
But you're also privileged to not be born and live in a country that has been torn by civil war. You're very lucky to live in a part of the world where however hard it's still possible to enact positive change in a civil and peaceful way. Don't throw that away. A violent society is not one that will bring the social justice that you seek.
The public discourse in your country is highly divided and it's no wonder that yelling harder into each ones echo chamber is not achieving any effect. Adding gasoline and sparks to all that is not going to improve the situation but on the contrary its going to entrench the differences even more.
A lot of progress has been achieved in the 70s via true peaceful movements. I don't know why that spirit no longer seems to resonate with people nowadays who just want to flush the baby with the bathwater.
I have the sense that social media is key ingredient in that. The asymmetry of Brandolini's law makes it easy for trolls to drown any peaceful messages and algorithms amplify people's rage.
I think you can reach more people if you condemn violence and also condemn injustice.
It's not a zero sum game. It's not either be with Luigi or be with healthcare CEOs. That's insane. Let's not fall into this trap. This mindset will necessarily reduce the reach and thus the possibilities for fixing the issue that's plaguing so many people.
My mindset is that people are tired of the way shit is and are presently more open to violence-based solutions than others are comfortable with. It's a thing that happened, and I don't feel the need to advocate for an opinion, but I do feel a need to inform people that now is their chance to fix it before violence-based solutions are much more common.
Maybe a more concrete example: the peaceful process in the USA resulted in people toasting from a high rise over protestors. Corporations have essentially said "make me", knowing in "a legal process" they will win. Winning to them meaning: you sell your house, liquidate your retirement assets, lose your savings aka better luck next life.
It is that bad in the USA right now, about half the people I know have had a medical bill issue in the five figures between 20-30yo, which stunted their economic growth aka no house, or kids. At least one with a six figure bill. Rip bro.
There is no yelling, the fact is that a corporation can take my surplus at will if I fall off the tightrope here in the USA. That is an existential threat. The reason is so someone like UHC CEO can buy another car, or another boat. You may disagree, but remember, the people we are talking to live check to check or have less than 10k in the bank, working 40+ hours in a normal human job (aka not software).
The discourse is divided on this in the news, but I assure you from corper to bar back in my town there is a sense of "well he had it coming" when understanding the context. Pretty sad right? A "make me" moment made manifest.
The spirit does not resonate because culturally in USA, the peaceful movement is for suckers. Protesting? Suckers. Donating? Suckers. Voting? Also suckers. The end result is the exploiters win because they do not think they have to play, and nothing meaningful happens in your life time. They do not have to negotiate anything, they win via lobby, laws, money, power.
Rage implies hysteria, righteous indignation is a much sharper description, and many people have this axe to grind either for personal or ethical reasons.
Both things can be true, don't give me the war torn country reason. You're right that the peaceful system is better than the alternative, however when the peaceful system can economically destroy you, what is the difference?
Profiteering on the lives of other people is morally repugnant so it's very natural for human beings to be angry at people who are directly involved and thus bear some responsibility.
The anger is natural but fundamentally it misses the mark.
Given the mechanism of american healthcare there will be millions of denied claims even if all the profit of the insurance would be reinvested and all employees including the CEO would be volunteering.
While that would absolve the CEO from the moral responsibility of profiteering it wouldn't improve the lives of the many people whose claims must be denied because of the mechanics of the heath insurance system.
Given the current system, the insurances must stay afloat and if the bankrupt that will affect even more lives.
Furthermore, hospitals have a different set of incentives which are not aligned with reducing the pressure on the healthcare insurer.
You could say "but the government should not allow that and it should just bail out the heath care insurers that go bankrupt in order to save lives". Yes you could say that.
Would they? Should somebody try that? Should some CEO of a major healthcare insurer be brave enough and bankrupt the company they're supposed to manage just to force the hand of the government to fundamentally prove that healthcare is a public good?
Should a CEO be shot for not risking everything to force the government hand?
Or should a politician get shot because they didn't improve health care when they could have? Which politician? Every politician? Only the top level ones? How time we would give them to make the change? One term? Two terms? Punish them when they retire after not having fixed the healthcare?
Despite all the power that the people have on paper, democracies are only as good as the public discourse that unfolds in such democracies.
Do we really think that we can solve problems as complex as healthcare by shorting at whoever our ape brain thinks is the most proximal responsible person?
It's not like the world isn't full of examples of countries where healthcare is approached as a public good from the ground up. There are plenty of places where you also have private healthcare on top of that.
Why don't you just take the opportunity to push for actual reform. Siding with a murderer is not going to help your cause.