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> UHC is acting rationally when it squeezes more profit from people

A company is not acting rationally if it knowingly and willingly creates enemies that can and will act against it.

“Unless it is more profitable to do so because…”

Rinse and repeat.



Yes, that calculus is probably happening right now, but my point was that we are to blame for this so violence against UHC is unacceptable. I see people that are mad at healthcare, and I am one of them. The industry is clearly evil, but we let them get there. We voted in the people that enabled them, that allowed lobbyist to wield influence in changing regulations. We voted in people that opposed the obvious solution of universal healthcare that works orders of magnitude better in nearly every other country out there. UHC is an evil company and their acts are despicable, but the system we keep voting in demands that a company like them will exist. If UHC disappeared today there would be a new company just as bad to take its place very quickly. Even if UHC were to be well regulated, the rest of the healthcare system in the US is just as bad. My core point is that we are to blame so, yeah, get mad but get mad at the actual source of the problem. Vote against people that help this industry. Write your reps. Tell people that they are stupid for voting to block universal healthcare and support those that do support it. Get mad at fake news sites that confuse and lie about this issue and tell people they are harming themselves and others by listening to them. We are to blame and we are the ones that need to change.


You use the word “we” quite often, but “we” are not all hurt equally. Nor do we have equal say or power despite the rhetoric.

10% of the populace owns 66% of the wealth and the trend is worsening.

This same 10% is relatively homogenous in race and creed and education compared to the remaining 90%.

This 10% is far more likely to have been born into wealth.

This 10% also has more access to the tools required to understand, manipulate and abuse human nature for their own purposes. Very handy for the rare election or referendum.

None of this is to say Mangione had the right to kill. If I were in his position, I wouldn’t. But I still don’t judge him for it.

And within such a society, “the right” doesn’t matter. That’s a religio-philosophical concept that is of little consequence to a truly stressed individual. When stresses increase, the stressed will react however their nature and nurture dictates.

Point being, rhetoric is only useful for true believers and those who are not stressed.

And a rational, intelligent ruling class wouldn’t let themselves become targets unless they believed they could get away with it and simply didn’t care about those reliant on them.

—-

Numbers alone makes this all clear. It’s easier to get 10 people to cooperate for their own benefit than to get 90 people to do the same. And if it’s a competition with unclear boundaries, then those 10 would be wise to split themselves into two camps to persuasively divide the other 90 while still acting in unison when it comes to maintaining power and wealth.

Granted the scale here is far greater and the cohesion is far less, but the principle remains.




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