Is the US a dystopia?

concerning

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtxH414tGkA

https://abcnews.go.com/US/man-shot-chest-midtown-manhattan-masked-gunman-large/story?id=116446382

The words "deny," "defend" and "depose" were discovered by detectives on the shell casings found at the scene where Brian Thompson, the CEO of major insurance group UnitedHealthcare, was gunned down, police sources told ABC News late Wednesday evening.

Which is very similar to this...

https://delaydenydefend.com/

surely you're joking mr. feinman

you know I feel uncomfortable laughing at this, but milo has been very funny, I guess if everyone else is like "nah it's okay to laugh at this dude's death" then maybe the answer to the thread title is indeed yes

― frogbs

i feel like if i had any other voice or power or agency to correct or remediate the grave systemic injustices perpetrated on people in the US by the amoral plutocrat greedheads who routinely exhibit depraved indifference to the lives of people they nominally have responsibility for in pursuit of the further accumulation of already-monstrous personal and corporate wealth, idk, maybe i wouldn't make fun of these sons of bitches when they died

but maybe i'm the one who's a shitty immoral person for not treating them with the inherent worth and dignity they regularly deny to everybody they have power over

really, who can possibly say for sure? it's important to consider things from both sides

Never cared much for John Donne

you know I feel uncomfortable laughing at this
― frogbs, Thursday, December 5, 2024 5:05 AM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

It's not just you. Rejoicing over someone being assassinated in the street in NYC because their paycheck or company make them unworthy of basic human dignity is beyond fucked up. But I guess it's ok because a million other people on Twitter were hoping just for this exact comic relief.

Anyone wants a laugh ? I'm in a train in a rich country that just hit a person and they're cleaning up.

Shouldn't have dedicated his life to climbing the ladder at the Evil Factory.

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/05/united-healthcare-immoral-barbaric/

Who knew guns could be used for the greater good? There is hope for you guys.

surely you're joking mr. feinman

― Kate (rushomancy), Thursday, December 5, 2024 1:57 AM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

<3

The practical result of this act won't be reconsideration of cruel business practices, but increased efforts to cover them up.

Let's give it a go first.

Holy shit

"What you can do about it" https://t.co/Ncf18PRde7 pic.twitter.com/M6sJM32LRK

— A. V. Dremel 🔻 (@BmoreOrganized) December 5, 2024

if everyone else is like "nah it's okay to laugh at this dude's death" then maybe the answer to the thread title is indeed yes

― frogbs

I just read that the investor meeting he was en route to started on time

so if you're inclined to hand-wringing about the state of people's souls based on their reaction to this, maybe start there

i think it's the callous profiteering upon the necessities of the people which represents the breaking of the social contract in this instance -- and rarely does it happen to such a morbid and heartless degree as in healthcare. what do people expect to happen? if anything i'm inclined to think the shooting offers a glimmer of humanity in an otherwise bleak landscape. and it's not always the case that good news is hilarious. so -- please save us the moralizing

Would the ppl moralizing about this be the same if the shooter had succeeded in killing Trump?

(ah sorry, turns out the investor meeting thing is false; they cancelled it)

Anyone wants a laugh ? I'm in a train in a rich country that just hit a person and they're cleaning up.

― Nabozo, Thursday, December 5, 2024 3:39 AM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

interesting quirk of those jumping up to scold peoples reactions to this news story is once they get past vague generalities like human dignity they fail totally at simple analogies prob cause accuracy would demand something like if a weapons manufacturer was killed by someone harmed by their weapons would you laugh then huh not so funny now

If this CEO had slipped on a policy, gotten a concussion, and died -- now that's justice.

what if he denied himself coverage

I'm sorry that happened Nabozo that sounds extremely traumatic.

The wild thing is that in 3-4 months this whole situation will be a faint, distant memory, because that’s how life is now

I'm sure it won't take Nabozo 3 whole months to forget about the train victim

"Thompson’s killing quickly sent shockwaves through the corporate world, with corporate security heads gathering in a conference call to Wednesday.

“Many of my colleagues today are sitting down with their executive protection team leaders, their security leadership teams, and re-evaluating what they are doing and not doing,” Dave Komendat, president of Seattle-based Komendat Risk Management Services told the New York Times."

That's right.

You know who doesn't need to surround themselves with security teams? Most non-terrible people. There's a reason for that.

their industry rests on the fact that people dont try to kill ceos that much

yeah honestly the moralizing around this is reprehensible to me. the only reason i am not in deep medical debt is because every member of my family wrote to the hospital that treated me for cancer, asking for them to forgive $250k in charges. Because the hospital is among one of the wealthiest research hospitals in the world, they were able to do so.

But my insurance company was more than willing to put that money on me like an albatross for the rest of my life, simply because i dared to want to live.

The people who profit off of this system are less than scum— they are demons. This turn the other cheek shit has to end somewhere, and these death-dealers must be held to account.

everyone has someone they think its ok to kill

I'm absolutely delighted at the idea of lots of rich scumbags living in mortal fear of an assassin's bullet, excellent start, but we need to keep the momentum going here, lads.

Unfortunately, they will be denying even more claims now to pay for all the security details.

when you can't change this heinous shit through democratic participation, then this is the only path to take imo

^ ^ ^

yeah street justice is a symptom of this guy hes the unaccountable elite

or at least he was

Wonder if this is like the start of the nWo angle and this guy's just the herald of a whole army of well-equipped hitmen 🤔

would certainly be interesting

Useful to think about-- Engels' concept of "social murder":
"When one individual inflicts bodily injury upon another such that death results, we call the deed manslaughter; when the assailant knew in advance that the injury would be fatal, we call his deed murder. But when society [1] places hundreds of proletarians in such a position that they inevitably meet a too early and an unnatural death, one which is quite as much a death by violence as that by the sword or bullet; when it deprives thousands of the necessaries of life, places them under conditions in which they cannot live – forces them, through the strong arm of the law, to remain in such conditions until that death ensues which is the inevitable consequence – knows that these thousands of victims must perish, and yet permits these conditions to remain, its deed is murder just as surely as the deed of the single individual; disguised, malicious murder, murder against which none can defend himself, which does not seem what it is, because no man sees the murderer, because the death of the victim seems a natural one, since the offence is more one of omission than of commission. But murder it remains. I have now to prove that society in England daily and hourly commits what the working-men's organs, with perfect correctness, characterise as social murder, that it has placed the workers under conditions in which they can neither retain health nor live long; that it undermines the vital force of these workers gradually, little by little, and so hurries them to the grave before their time. I have further to prove that society knows how injurious such conditions are to the health and the life of the workers, and yet does nothing to improve these conditions. That it knows the consequences of its deeds; that its act is, therefore, not mere manslaughter, but murder, I shall have proved, when I cite official documents, reports of Parliament and of the Government, in substantiation of my charge."

Engels otm

on that note, I read this year-old story earlier: https://arstechnica.com/health/2023/11/ai-with-90-error-rate-forces-elderly-out-of-rehab-nursing-homes-suit-claims/

UnitedHealthcare, the largest health insurance company in the US, is allegedly using a deeply flawed AI algorithm to override doctors' judgments and wrongfully deny critical health coverage to elderly patients. This has resulted in patients being kicked out of rehabilitation programs and care facilities far too early, forcing them to drain their life savings to obtain needed care that should be covered under their government-funded Medicare Advantage Plan.

That's all according to a lawsuit filed this week in the US District Court for the District of Minnesota. The lawsuit is brought by the estates of two deceased people who were denied health coverage by UnitedHealth. The suit also seeks class-action status for similarly situated people, of which there may be tens of thousands across the country.

The lawsuit lands alongside an investigation by Stat News that largely backs the lawsuit's claims. The investigation's findings stem from internal documents and communications the outlet obtained, as well as interviews with former employees of NaviHealth, the UnitedHealth subsidiary that developed the AI algorithm called nH Predict.

"By the end of my time at NaviHealth I realized: I'm not an advocate, I'm just a moneymaker for this company," Amber Lynch, an occupational therapist and former NaviHealth case manager, told Stat. "It's all about money and data points," she added. 'It takes the dignity out of the patient, and I hated that."

AI is going to fucking kill us but not in the way the pro-AI freaks think.

It's not just you. Rejoicing over someone being assassinated in the street in NYC because their paycheck or company make them unworthy of basic human dignity is beyond fucked up. But I guess it's ok because a million other people on Twitter were hoping just for this exact comic relief.

― Nabozo

my deepest condolences. he must have meant a lot to you.

the use of the word 'assassination' alone clearly establishes that this wasn't a fuckin' UHC claims adjuster that got capped, this was someone who ran the damn show at a company who has routinely made lives hell for people who had the audacity to acquire health issues

The audacity of having bodies.

i ain't been this close to it in years but back when I was more in the day to day of call center ops I used to frequently be on conference calls with UHC and upset patients in which I'd hear the most outlandish explanations of why they didn't pay someone's claim, and half the time it was a mistake on their end, so I'd wind up getting an advocate involved. they count on people just giving up and paying their provider. it's a feature, not a bug for them ,etc

Just worried that when the assassin is caught he'll be Milkshake Ducked. Like we'll find out he's a Post Malone fan or something.

voted the wrong way in end of year poll

Used a microwave to make tea

is there any political vandalism/destruction of property that you are okay with or are you a law & order buff?