Leftists on social media blame the wrong culprit for healthcare dysfunction.<\/a><\/p>\nAmerica\u2019s social-media culture is often debased, but it reached a new low this week with the online jubilation over the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. The moral perversity is a sign of the ugly times\u2014all the more so because it targets private insurers for problems largely caused by government.<\/p>\n
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\u201cAnd people wonder why we want these executives dead,\u201d former Washington Post columnist Taylor Lorenz wrote on Bluesky, a leftwing social-media site. \u201cPeople have very justified hatred toward insurance company CEOs because these executives are responsible for an unfathomable amount of death and suffering,\u201d she added. \u201cAs someone against death and suffering, I think it\u2019s good to call out this broken system and the ppl in power who enable it.\u201d Ms. Lorenz is far from alone as an apologist for targeting CEOs.<\/p>\n
We realize that facts and reason don\u2019t matter when a political culture descends into \u201cLord of the Flies.\u201d But if fixing the system is really the goal, how about looking to Washington? Private health insurance in America is far from perfect. But the insurance problems sparking an outcry owe mainly to government policies that distort markets and force rationed care.<\/p>\n
Start with the reality that Medicare and Medicaid, two government programs, cover about 36% of Americans. Both pay doctors and hospitals below the cost of providing care. As a result, many providers won\u2019t see Medicaid patients, resulting in delayed care. …<\/p>\n
A 2019 meta-analysis of state Medicaid program audits by Yale researchers found that low-income patients were 3.3 times less likely to get an appointment to see a specialist than someone with private insurance. …<\/p>\n
Patients with fee-for-service Medicare can see most providers, though it is also losing doctors amid paltry payment rates. Providers also compensate for low reimbursements by increasing charges for private insurers. Anesthesiologists receive on average 330% more from private insurers than traditional Medicare.<\/p>\n
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Democrats sold ObamaCare as a panacea for the ills of private insurance, but the law hasn\u2019t made healthcare more affordable or accessible. The left\u2019s response has been to vilify private insurers and push for Medicare for all.<\/p>\n
But government health care is a recipe for more care delays and denials. Witness the fiasco in the United Kingdom, where the Labour government reports that more than 120,000 people died in 2022 while on the National Health Service\u2019s wait list for treatment. To adapt a famous Winston Churchill phrase, private insurance is the worst form of health care, except for all others.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
No surprise that there would be jubilation over the assassination in some corners of social media. Leftists on social media blame the wrong culprit for healthcare dysfunction. America\u2019s social-media culture is often debased, but it reached a new low this week with the online jubilation over the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. The moral […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=246"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7053,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246\/revisions\/7053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}