I think Lovett has an incorrect understanding of the health care system. It is not "broken," and Brian Thompson was not a "tool" of it. The system is working exactly as intended. Its purpose is not to provide health care to everyone. Its purpose is to make as much profit as possible at the expense of people who need health care. And Brian Thompson was a conscious, willing participant in that system of exploitation.
@@coygraf7897maybe we shouldn’t judge people based on the prescriptions they take….tons of people use GLP-1s for a variety of reasons and are healthier because of it.
I think you're massively underestimating the rage Americans feel over not just Healthcare in America, but wealth disparity and the feeling that we are totally powerless to change anything. Even if this murder does somehow bring us Medicare for all (which nobody is expecting by the way) it'll come too late for thousands upon thousands of loved ones who didn't have to die, but did directly because of our inhumane, ugly, intentionally cruel system. I have no empathy left over for the ceos who make millions off the suffering of people like me. Nobody in the health insurance system had an iota of empathy when it was my twin sister who couldn't afford insulin and died at 26. So my empathy is reserved for the hundreds of thousands of grieving Americans like me. It didn't have to be this way, but the one percent are the ones who pushed it all this far.
Please allow me to introduce myself I'm a man of wealth and taste I've been around for a long, long year Stole many a man's soul and fate I was 'round when Jesus Christ Had his moments of doubt and pain Made damn sure that Pilate Washed his hands and sealed his fate Pleased to meet you Hope you guess my name, oh yeah But what's puzzling you Is the nature of my game I stuck around St. Petersburg When I saw it was a time for a change Killed the Czar and his ministers Anastasia screamed in vain I rode a tank Held a General's rank When the Blitzkrieg raged And the bodies stank Pleased to meet you Hope you guess my name, oh yeah What's puzzling you Is the nature of my game, oh yeah I watched the glee While your kings and queens Fought for ten decades For the Gods they made I shouted out "Who killed the Kennedys?" Well after all It was you and me Let me please introduce myself I'm a man of wealth and taste And I laid traps for troubadours Who get killed before they reached Bombay Pleased to meet you Hope you guess my name, oh yeah But what's puzzling you Is the nature of my game, oh yeah Pleased to meet you Hope you guess my name, oh yeah But what's confusing you Is just the nature of my game, ooh yeah Just as every cop is a criminal And all the sinners saints As heads is tails just call me Lucifer I'm in need of some restraint So if you meet me, have some courtesy Have some sympathy and some taste Use all your well learned politics Or I'll lay your soul to waste, mmm yeah Pleased to meet you Hope you guess my name, mmm yeah But what's puzzling you Is the nature of my game, get down Woo hoo, ah yeah, get on down, oh yeah Tell me, baby, what's my name? Tell me, honey, baby guess my name Tell me, baby, what's my name? I'll ya one time you're to blame What's my name? Tell me, baby, what's my name? Tell me, sweetie, what's my name?
As a breast cancer survivor, I know first hand how terrible the insurance companies are. I was denied , I had never missed a payment. They fought me for 5 weeks. Until my daughter started to contact news agencies. Finally, my plight was taken up by a local television station . Once my story was aired, the next morning I got a registered letter stating that my insurers had decided to cover my treatment. All well and good, right? While going through chemotherapy, I was only able to work part time due to my reaction to the drugs I was receiving. That insurance company raised my premium every quarter. It got so expensive that I had to move in with my son. My story is just one of millions . Americans are screwed if they need healthcare. The richest country in the world has a criminally corrupt insurance system.
And, had you been covered under Medicare, this wouldn't have happened. Or at least it would have been much easier. AND if we did have Medicare For all this murder wouldn't have happened.
Your story puts into focus how inadequate the opinions expressed in this episode are. My deepest sympathies and as a citizen I’ll do better to do my small part to get us to a universal healthcare system. Step 1 was to unsubscribe from this channel.
I am so sorry and furious that you and so many others had to endure such an inexcusably inhumane experience. Having to work while fighting cancer (which is more than a full time job in itself) shows how far the cruelty extends. The horrific health system is reflective of our society at large, perpetually heaping additional insult & injury on top of previous layers of insult & injury (often literally).
The trouble with the "Murder is bad, denying healthcare claims... also bad" take is that it's just factually wrong. In 2024 America, you are punished for committing murder, and you are handsomely rewarded for denying healthcare claims. People who have suffered so that others can be made rich by their suffering aren't going to be against punishment for what you call "bad" but the legal system and business community calls "good performance".
you could not be more right with this. I hated the smug laugh they had while they talked about this. Sure, it's bad. But no one is doing anything about it.
This is so tone deaf and frustrating. It isn't just about healthcare. If you guys will pay attention, it's that people - working class people - are tired of being screwed over. Screwed over by private industry, by government, by the wealthy. THIS IS A CLASS ISSUE.
Most of the people who voted Trump and didn't vote him in to get rid of the Affordable Care Act, they voted him in because he is a challenger to the party that isn't doing well with the economy. All of Trump's baggage is just baggage to the average voter.
Are they the same people who voted for the party that wants to deregulate and let the wealthy capitalists run roughshod over the environment, their enormous employees and their customers-and cut taxes on corporations and the wealthy?!
@@pendorran Idk which is right but I do appreciate you pointing this out (if true lmao) bc it goes a long way to showing how political rhetoric is so often semantic, what resonates with people long-term is the underlying sentiment even if the (superfluous) rhetoric gets fully torn to bits by reactionary conservatives
7:50 Lovett, asking someone in America if they like their insurance is akin to asking a hostage if they like their taker while they are actively holding a gun. Yeah, I prefer having insurance over not in America, it just means I'm LESS likely to die penniless and sick. What a stupid argument.
Relying on polls seems to be the mainstay of this trio. Not sure I have the same faith in them as they do, speaking as a person who'd rather run my bare knuckles over a cheese grater than take another survey.
I understand the concern about copycats, but honestly, my feelings arent hurt that rich, powerful, greedy individuals now have to live with the same fear average Americans face each day. The only difference is that a national manhunt takes place when a rich person dies. If you're poor, you're just another case file on a desk.
In 2020, the FBI reported that the USA is at an all time high for unsolved murders at about 50%. The disproportionate amount of resources given to this ONE case is a slap in the face to those who haven’t had their cases solved.
"Murder is wrong, but also dismantling this evil system is next to impossible. We know. We tried." This is why people are reacting the way they are. The Audacity of Hope has been replaced with the Timidity of the Possible, and timidity isn't good enough when your loved one is dying of cancer. The hope is gone. The idea of things getting better feels impossible. Of course there would be a celebration of someone lashing out at this. What else is there to do?
The trying was certainly half-hearted, especially since Bernie was the only one really trying and he got shot down at every turn. Whatever you might think of Glenn Greenwald today, read his series in Salon from 2010. Explains exactly who was getting what out of the ACA.
Do you guys hear yourselves? Last week, you were going on and on about how you need to listen to the base and meet people where they are so the democratic party can win elections. The people are telling you where they are at. Its time you get with the program or stop claiming to be progressive when the only people defending Johnson are the people who have a vested interest in the safety of the billionaire class.
@@nancychandler367same! It’s become so apparent how out of touch and elite they are in their post election breakdowns. They are still so welded on to the Democratic Party machinery. Lovett’s interview with Hasan, was especially galling for me.
It really might be over for PSA. It's been almost nothing but bad takes ever since the election. Namely because the results of the election have proven that their classical brand of centre left liberalism is no longer a solution. People are either giving up and tuning out, or shifting further left and leaving this lot behind.
All due respect to Lovett, but this guy is not just a "tool in a broken system" he was an active participant in keeping the system in place, and in exploiting it for his own personal gain.
Right, a tool in a broken system would be some random health insurance worker who has a job with United Health just to pay the bills. This guy was a major architect who decided how the tools are used for one of the companies that uses the tools more cruelly than any other (most denials). To imply otherwise is disingenuous.
@@rusk3986 Agreed. I think Jon's point is not entirely invalid, and is meant to point out the failures of the government to act in the face of this harmful system, but is missing the part where these CEO's actively work to push the government to benefit themselves over the best interests of the people as they should be representing. It's a failure of many systems, but to dismiss the CEO's part in it and redirect the blame solely on the government is not telling the whole story.
Correct. He was a key player in optimizing the system to deny as much health care as possible and to line the pockets of shareholders with the highest costs possible.
I think everyone was scratching their heads on the how much anesthesia a patient was limited to - that is a crazy notion . One can only imagine that more of those types of constraints put on all the time.
@@pjpredhomme7699 And then the recovering patient is met with a giant medical bill while they have to keep making their premiums. And this dude is living large in five-star hotels eating at New York's fanciest restaurants.
This man made a choice to work for a company that kills thousands. For 3 years I worked for a for-profit health insurance company. I was required to lie to patients and providers. I couldn’t live with myself and quit cold turkey. I’m poor and decided I rather live in my car than continue to lie. I took the high road. This man was part of the problem. His family will never do without. They live a life based on the tragedy and misfortune of others. He took a gamble and lost.
That's some kind of socially regressive metric that over values anyone who reproduces; some kind of weird tip of the hat to "family values". If the CEO was a childless cat lady, would the shooting be easier to accept?
Also is the implication is those without kids are not as sympathetic. It's like the father of daughter line actually meaning women weren't important until you had one.
Right? This guy was a killer even if he didn't pull a trigger. I don't remember these people crying over Osama bin Laden's death just because he had a family. This CEO is probably responsible for killing more people than him too.
Be sick of American gun violence & how Americans keep voting for Republicans who only destroy healthcare & are funded by billionaires. Btw, Luigi was a killer rich kid.
One CEO was shot and killed, the NYPD spent tens of millions of dollars to find the killer. In that same span of time hundreds of Americans died from lack of insurance. Brian Thompsons' company has denied healthcare to children with cancer, often using AI to approve or deny claims, this was reported to have upwards of 90% failure rate. AND the icing on the cake is this man was on his way to a shareholders meeting, a health insurance company being privatized and dependent on shareholders not its ability to help people is the real crime. The fact that we are expected to feel bad for a man who was the face of a monstrous insurance company who is directly responsible for thousands of Americans pain, suffering and even death is laughable.
I didn’t come here expecting to hear a defense of the shooter. But this is such an institutionalist view. No one (as far as I’ve seen) thought we were gonna get healthcare for all through violence. I don’t think anyone believes we will get that period. But when two other corps. reverse their anesthesia policies after this happens, it’s pretty obvious this did more in an instant than voting has done in years. If anything, I’d like to see a dem politician say “this was murder and it was wrong, and I’d like create a world where Machiavellian anesthesia limits are curtailed by rules, not crime. This is proof that regular people feel as though they have nowehere else to turn but violence. We need more robust systems that affect change as quickly as this violence did, so that we have no need for that violence.”
@@SofistacationOof, same. They are as out of touch as Democratic leadership. If we don’t use this bipartisan outrage to wake the red-pilled working class up and become the Democratic Party again, we don’t deserve to win elections.
I won't be a centrist about it. Healthcare in the US will never change. Realistically this murder is the only smidgeon of justice the public will ever get.
So it's performative when people are disgusted and have no sympathy, but not people talking about all their sympathy for the family? Way to dismiss people. What about sympathy for the families of all the people that that CEO indirectly killed? He was paid to kill people for money. but because he does it from behind a desk, he's called a CEO, and not a hitman. When do we hold people accountable?
The lack of empathy was not performative. It was real. You guys are as out of touch as Ben Shapiro. Please for the love of God, have a person who makes under 100,000 a year on
"I am sorry, I do not know anyone like that" would be their answer if we asked why they never interview MIDDLE class people, let alone us worki g class bums.
Pfft, even being in healthcare with a good salary ppl know this doesn't work. Other than value based care, which is driven to invest in keeping patients out of the hospital, for profit models don't work. And while some ppl outright celebrated the CEOs murder, I saw way more people saying they couldn't shed a tear because that industry takes advantage of people at their lowest and most vulnerable point in life. That the chattering class can't get that is ridiculous. For profit health insurance is pro-suffering.
I'm continually amazed at how bad your takes are. We have been utterly and completely denied ways of fixing this issue so naturally this happened. This is not surprising, it is inevitable
Exactly, especially since the system is set up so the proletariat gets zero justice. These guys would buy their way out of accountability and go full speed ahead. The anesthesia BS got reversed all the sudden.
These guys are part of the political class that's in an encestuogs relationship with corporate America. They are not on your side. They never have been. If you don't get it by now you never will & the rest of your life is going to be full of confusion & surprises.
@@darkmoneyinwi Almost all of these political commentators from both sides of the political spectrum don't seem to understand why a lot of people do not care that a rich CEO is dead.
So disappointed in where this show has gone since the election. Basically every American has a horror story about themselves or others being denied care many of which involved the death of someone who did not have to die or did not have to die in such terrible circumstances. The reason people equate this with "Medicare for All" or other forms of Universal health care is because that is the solution. Downplaying that is absolutely insane. Do better.
I've watched pod save since 2016. Today I unsubscribed. Between the interview with the Harris team post election and this... these guys aren't committed to "saving America." They're committed to maintaining the establishment. I'll keep watching Ben and Tommy because their guided by morals and consistently express that commitment. The Jons are completely out of touch and it's going to fuck us over.
And yet they voted for republicans who most definitely will NOT fix this. So apparently even though most Americans are affected by it, they didn’t vote like it was a top priority of theirs.
Every time I click on a Pod Save video, I am at least a little bit disheartened by the content. Then I read the comments, and I am a little bit re-heartened.
@@EdwardLindon Some crimes, by some people, are rewarded. Some crimes, by some other people, are punished. Maybe you have a different kind of ethics or logic than mine. But I don't think your social class or status should be the line of demarcation for the consequences of your behavior.
PSA just wringing their hands and wondering "why won't someone do something!". Well, Luigi did, and they can't fathom it was more effective than decades of Dem bullshit.
People might go after abortion rights groups? You mean like they've been doing for decades? You're acting like people haven't already been firebombing abortion clinics and using violence against their workers. The thing you're worried about is already happening.
@@stavros.g.halkias Just like goof ball card carrying republicans who are anything but the landed elite. That gets me. The poorest of the poor voting for the party that treats them as chattel. But you're right, the DNC has become nothing but the same, as it was anyway. FDR literally only made his new deal laws and had to get new supreme court justice, as it was initially struck down, to get social security, 40 hour work week with 1.5 over time, collective bargaining rights, unemployment insurance, etc. was just to keep the hoard of world war 1 vets that were camping just outside DC from doing what the folks in Russia did to the Czar, or what Germany and Italy did. The two parties are bullshit. Hedged oligarch. I mean their names literally mean nothing, might as well call them a color... oh wait we do that too... red and blue. Other countries actually have the name of the platform on what they support as the name of their party... like a labor party. Or green party. Etc. Because their 1 percent is just that, these other countries to obscure their primary oligarch party with platitude names like Nationalist party or Conservative ABCD Party etc. To appeal to the needed more than 1 percent that party policies that party stands for.... the 1 percent always has to dupe the general public just a small fraction is needed, 20 percent to maybe 30 percent if you can pull that off you got a majority enough to do whatever the hell you want. NAZI party only needed 20 percent to then thug others into obeying their disaster evil rules. Hence why we got a convicted felon awaiting sentencing is now going to be president, and a sitting president just pardon his convicted son. But it's rich to say the DNC in particular being in a "rich" bubble, when for so long and even still even though it appears they just feign supporting unions and other labor working class policies. While the RNC is outright just for the rich. It's rich. But again, they're both phony. The DNC is paid to lose and never get much of anything passed for the people, the working class, essentially 90 percent of us, as the top 10 percent of which the 9 percent are the hired thugs for the 1 percent. And the RNC pretends to be for freedom... of working for nothing fucking at all and go drop dead when you get sick, go talk to god. And if you're woman, have that fucking baby no matter what, we need cheap labor, and raise them to get at least a few criminal convictions particularly for pot so we can trap them in cheap labor jobs our buddies need.
since he worked over 20 years, he could be responsible for even a million who knows , at least HUNDREDS of thousands dead bc of Brian Thompson decisions, and def millions of lives destroyed
I'm pretty shocked by how absolutely tone deaf PSA has been post election. Especially when they had Hasan on. The diagnosis of what went wrong with the democratic campaign isn't complicated. Yet they sigh and scoff at the analysis that the dems are throwing the working class pennies, and telling us we should thank them for it.
This discussion is so superficial. Instead of referencing a biased Kaiser family foundation survey, have an independent pharmacist or an MD with his own practice as a guest on your podcast, and they'll paint a picture about these healthcare companies that will make your head explode.
I spent the last year watching Anthem slowly murder my husband for profit by denying the medical necessity of lifesaving surgery, then misfiling (almost certainly intentionally) their own paperwork every step of every appeal process to drag it out as his body fell apart in an excruciatingly painful way. I'm very certain they wanted him to die instead of getting surgery to save money and I had no practical recourse beyond spending 10-20h on the phone every week begging in appeals for them not to make him die. Anyone who's been through anything like that (a disturbing % of Americans) wasn't shocked and understood exactly how this happened.
I'm sorry boys, seems like you are trying to "both side" this issue. Feel bad for his kids, but not for him as countless people died due to this man's decision in the interest of lining his own pockets. CEOs don't deserve an ounce of empathy, as they lack it when the roles are reversed. Ask a parent who lost their child due to insurance denying services if they feel bad for this guy.
I will only feel bad for his kids if they thought their dad was an evil tyrant and were in the fight to get us single-payer govt funded healthcare. Other than that, they’re just asshole rich kids who would privilege their way thru life and contribute NOTHING.
I get what you’re saying, but condoning murder and vigilantism is not the way to effect the large-scale changes that need to happen. We need to have a system that holds the interest of the people over the drive for profit. The murder of one man is not going to change this.
@@lss8713 And yet the same day you saw BCBS roll back a major cut to anesthesia care due to public backlash and concern because of what happened here. Operating in a system has gotten us no where but poorer and sicker. Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
If PSA is actually serious about having a “healthcare debate,” every time a democratic politician comes in to interview ask them about Medicare for all and have a list of their donors flashing on the screen
Insurance companies are not healthcare. Physicians provide healthcare. Insurance companies are for profit, middlemen negatiators. They are not necessary.
I have experienced fantastic healthcare including hospitals in Spain, Italy and Germany - nearly free and higher quality than in the US. The only reason it does not exist in the US is because powerful people do not want it to. A public that lives in fear of getting sick or fired is not likely to rock the boat.
You can't beat a child and expect them not to cry. The US Govt has failed its people by letting them die at the hands of private healthcare companies who sacrificed their lives for shareholder profits and now the American people are upset. A political party that actually wants to win would seize this opportunity to get in line with general sentiment of the American people, by listening to concerns and speaking directly to them with transformative proposals. It's a pity that that political party doesn't exist.
Except, after the trial and the netflix documentary we'll all forget about this and nothing will change, but this dude's kids will still have a dead dad. If it does change someday, it will have nothing to do with the murder of an accountant.
@@cxzact9204he was the CEO who chose to use an AI that denied 90% of claims it processed. he’s not some accountant, he had real power that led to real death.
Everyone is *shrug* about the death of millions of "poors" but one billionaire who causes those deaths? COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE Yo, gentleman we love you and all but you are not capable of understanding our rage
This was a bold man, who did not care how many seniors he sent to their early deaths, he made billions, and the shareholders like that, they don’t give 2 craps about u , me. Or anything else, plus once he died, nd they got all this bd press, their stock dropped 10 points, u can kill all the poor brown black people. But hurt a rich white grifter, no senor,
@@edupunknoob Exactly. Most people don't like murder and don't want to murder but realize when you torture and terrorize hundreds of millions of people, at least one is going to snap. It's a testament to people not wanting violence that this didn't happen years ago.
In three episodes (Dan's interview with the Harris team, Lovett's interview with Hasan, and now this), I have totally shifted my perspective on the Pod Save bros. They are more part of the problem than the solution.
I listened to these guys for a few months after the 2016 election because it was a good space to be in during that time. But after a few months I saw the writing on the wall that these guys are very much supporters of and now part of the machine and stopped listening. I checked back in to the podcast after this election and wasn't surprised to find they are as disconnected from the working class as ever and continue to be mouthpiece parrots of corporate interests. "Pod Save American" has always been "Maintain the Status Quo"
5:07 - "... what if someone applies that rationale to ... abortion rights groups ?..." You're old enough to know better, Tommy, unless you think that it would be worse than murdering abortion care providers. And the implication that the CEO is just a victim of an inherently violent and vile system, like the rest of us, is abhorrent.
Also love how he thinks targeted assassination is a slippery slope, given his former boss loved drones strikes that did just this, including a 16 year old boy, Anwar al-Awlaki, in Yemen.
@@geekthegirl6961 You're not wrong, but i think you're missing the nuance there. let's not conflate a murder hit on the streets of NYC with actions taken by POTUS. every single president has blood on their hands which is awful but this is the world we live in. and if you pretend all of these are the same and paint with a broad brush, you seem to be willfully missing the point.
Seriously. Last time I checked, abortion care providers HAVE been violently attacked and murdered for years by conservative fanatics. How is this even a point to argue?
@@geekthegirl6961 I was thinking the same thing when I read the op.. Are parallels between Obama apologetics and Biden/Israel/CEO alignment? They always want to point to (at best) a systemic problem that we can vote our way out of (even while fronting that they tried to save us from overpriced health care during Saint Obama's tenure, but we were the dummies that didn't vote right). Time and time again they defend people who work within these systems, as though there's no individual culpability. How we feel about this one dead CEO is a metaphor for people who get rich working for oppressive organizations and then want to wash their hands of any responsibility.
No, it's the empathy of people like these that is performative. In 2018 my mother-in-law was diagnosed with fast spreading, advanced breast cancer. A type of cancer that was almost certainly a death sentence if it wasn't treated aggressively and quickly. Her team knew exactly what combination of treatment was most likely to work but she was initially denied some of those treatments because they want them to to "try less expensive methods first to see if they work before moving on to the more expensive treatments." If those treatments the insurance wanted to "try" first didn't work, it would have been too late. She likely have months to live without them. The doctors decide to go forward anyway and fight the insurance company with hopes that that the decision could be reverse and covered. The risk being that it could essentially bankrupt my in-laws if it wasn't. Luckily, after countless hours of phone calls, letters, and paperwork the treatment was approved. And my MiL is still with us. It's absolutely insane that a proven course of treatment was denied knowing it could be a death sentence in order to save money.
@@anthill1510 I agree. The fact is, Brian Thompson presided over a big increase in denied claims, in other words, it was a company policy that he supported. The company is being sued for illegally denying claims to increase profits - this is a company that has YEARLY revenues of over $400 billion! Thompson was also being investigated for insider trading. So I feel for his family, but I have no empathy at all for him. I feel really bad for Luigi Mangione, by all accounts a smart, nice guy, who just threw his life away.
@@TheHauntedKiwiAgreed! I’m reminded of the handful of pearl-clutchers in the U.S. who were *aghast* to hear Dundee United fans singing “Lizzie’s in a Box” when the Queen died. Americans want to pretend to be morally superior while being cool with “collateral damage”
My first adult job was working for a third-party administrator for insurance companies. I paid claims and then when I became a supervisor, I actually got in trouble multiple times for paying too many claims. I was called into the office by my manager and reprimanded because I was the supervisor that consistently paid out more claims than any other supervisor in the building and that was a problem. I was very specifically told, you have a heart you’re in the wrong industry! The mantra that was told to our benefits examiners was, “if in doubt deny, let them appeal!” The average appeal took about 9 weeks because we only had one person per group of clients to handle appeals, but I had 23 benefits examiner’s on the same team denying claims.
Denying coverage to vulnerable people and profiting off their suffering and death is a form of social murder. The UHC CEO was not much different than a serial killer imo, only difference is his crimes are legal 🤷
No. They are NOT the same. You're just doing metaphorical gymnastics. At least be honest. Say that you approve of violence and murder in selective cases that only you get to choose.
I think its a bit of a weak argument to say "the guy was a father" as some sort of defense of his actions that cause millions of people harm and that somehow with his death he or the family deserves sympathy. The family benefitted from that same harm. The mansion they live in and the lives they live are built off human suffering. I'm not advocating for violence but don't ask me for sympathy for those benefitting from a genuinely bad faith actor who oversaw one of the most monstrously oppressively companies in an industry filled with systemic violence against the poor.
History has proven time and time again that when right wing poors and lib poors come together and put aside their differences is never good for the elites..
Talk is all that will happen. It won’t get reformed now because people voted for Republicans. So we will keep waiting and dealing with this mess. It will never get fixed while republicans control everything.
Bingo. in an ideal world people wouldn't be killed on the street. But last I check, we're not in a perfect world. You don't have to endorse the killing to understand that this is making way more people think than any protest, or tweet, or email, or podcast.
As soon as my Dr. saw I was insured by UHC, he told me that when he orders tests or procedures, they will automatically deny the service, but keep the appointment since he has to have a consultation with an actual doctor to get it approved.
I'm an older(89) American who lives in France. All --100%-- of my medical costs, including medicines, are paid by the government. I miss many aspects of my native land, but the American so-called "health care" system is definitely not part of the America that I miss. Indeed my conversations with my American friends leave me shocked and horrified.
And how would you rate the quality of care there? Critics usually point to long wait times for treatment, for example. I spoke recently to a Canadian guy recently who said his mother needed care and had to come to the US to get in a timely manner. Just curious.
@@Sterontohi I am a younger American living in France and I can assure you the wait times thing is a myth. If you live in a rural area, sure, increased wait times but that's the same back home. I live in a major Metropolitan area and I just saw a doctor yesterday after waiting 3 days. I have dental work scheduled next week for less than 60 euros. My appt yesterday was 13. I would choose French Healthcare over American any day.
@@SterontoAhh the “just curious” question… Why medical debt and bankruptcy exist in a richest country in the world, and not in France, medical debt is a whole industry in the US, just curious…
The same here in Germany. It´s crazy that rich America can´t get a healthinsurance covering everyone like we have it. The greed for getting rich in the USA is insane.
Sorry boys, but I highly disagree about the CEOs death. Protesting hasn't seemed to change anything. Just complaining doesn't change anything. We can't vote in enough progressives to change our system to universal healthcare.
@@cxzact9204 I didn't say that. And I get how what I said can come off that way. But we need to come up with some other solution. I don't necessarily mean violence, because I am myself not a non-violent person. But I don't feel bad about the CEO; he has blood on his hands. I'm definitely open to any new/other ideas you might have. What will make this all better? We're stuck with a horrible health "business" at the moment.
Much of the research saying that people like their health insurer actually was done by the insurance companies, specifically to provide the impression that customers are happy. I would love to see some independent research on the issue, but the research I've seen so far looked extremely thin. I am not convinced. And it still wouldn't change the fact that the US has the most inefficient healthcare system in the entire developed world. That fact alone would be killing people, even if the system wasn't profit-driven.
I’m an oncology nurse and I’ve watched countless patients get denied cancer treatment and/or end up bankrupt paying for it out of pocket 💔 Seeing families and patients go through that over and over for years is part of why I don’t work in healthcare anymore. It’s why a lot of people don’t work in healthcare anymore.
My mom passed of dehydration while only being in a nursing home for 3 months; plan was to rehabilitate her injured legs so she could walk and return home where my dad and younger brother live. Anger doesn't describe the disaster that is our for profit racket bullshit non-existent healthcare hustle under a bridge is. I've been lucky with my health, I've had to use our medical system only a few times. And for relatively wimpy stuff, cold sores I take a Rx antiviral because I get severe outbreaks as I gotten older into adulthood. And a few infections here and there. And just those issues, it's a fucking nightmare, having to make repeated trips for follow ups because the quack in box or whoever couldn't spend more than 5 minutes in the exam room to just ask me a few questions and plug a pill to see if that fixed it. Or deny a pill that I unfortunately already self diagnosed because they wanted to await more testing, and didn't like the idea of the extra blood work required... only to eventually go somewhere else to get obvious diagnosis and the pill with blood work and get cured. Or finding out I can't easily buy my Rx from Germany at a fraction of the cost because VISA and MasterCard made a deal with big pharma not to allow purchases from abroad because they maybe "rouge" pharmacies. So forcing me to get it in this bullshit country, and the find out that doc and boxes don't get long term Rx, but require a family doctor, only to go thru 3 family doctors in 1 year. Fortunately, found out my dentist can prescribe the antiviral long term Rx. My dad lucked out for a long period that he had VA cover him for the past 15 years. Our medical system is non-existence. A new word must be created to describe the type of anger.
“He was a tool of the system.” Oh F off. He profited massively off the pain and suffering of people, and he did so WILLINGLY. Even in Nazi Germany many people were following orders because they were afraid for their lives to go against the system. In this case he would have had to… get another job?
He was not a "tool of a broken system." That implies he was somehow "used"; essentially meaning that he was being manipulated or controlled without his full awareness or consent. Come on now, he was a smart, savvy, millionaire, at the top of his career, and he knew EXACTLY what was going on with UHC and didn't give a flying f*ck.
Look how quick his stride is as he hurries in, early to his meeting with investors. It's a lack of humanity that defends these "family men". We are not the ones throwing humans under the bus.
When CEO’s kill us by inaction,greed, and corruption….they laugh all the way to the bank and to their private islands…..so yes I say we should feel however we feel…I for 1 am sick of being f’d over
Every time this podcast fails me, the comment section doesn’t. Lily ass centrist Dems always crying about bipartisanship but the whole country finally unites over something and y’all just want to throw stones and avoid a real conversation about it. This incident actually gives me great relief because maybe, just MAYBE the Trump administration will think twice about repealing the ACA and defunding Medicare. Bernie has been fighting this fight for decades but no one really wanted to pay attention until Luigi stepped in. This isn’t 2008, it’s 2024. I guess modern problems require modern solutions. 🤷♀️
United Healthcare denies 1 in 3, not 1 in 7. Also, the expensive case mentioned involved a middle income family, and insuramce comapnies bank on people not being able to go to court to get the benefits legally owed to them.
They aren't rich. Not "eat the rich" rich. But this is their paycheck. Folks, everyday folks, will do EVERYTHING but the right thing because they want that pay. Unlike the rest of us that live paycheck to paycheck, scrabble, laobor and die for that pay. I do not begrudge ANYONE who has some wealth. I don't point my finger simply at folks that have a bigger house than me. The problem is: they have an audience and they are peddling crap to a hurting audience. But I agree. They are completely WRONG...jabbering about "lowering costs" and how Obama was hobbled. WAHHHHHHHH
Lack of empathy isn’t performative. It’s real and it’s shared by people regardless of political affiliation. Americans are tired and sick and angry and we continue to be ignored.
A lot of people forget that when you change jobs, not only do you change healthcare plans but you usually have to wait 90 days or a probation period before the company lets you enroll in coverage. 3 months isn’t an insignificant amount of time to go with no coverage for you or your family
Thank you! I was thinking this exact thing. I have been getting progressively angrier with this pod for the past year or so and I’m sorry but I’m out. They have no idea what a majority of Americans want. I’ll go find somebody who actually has empathy for us commoners.
Luigi also committed the murder right in front of a camera, left DNA at the scene, got his face pictured while flirting, got recognized in a McDonalds, had searchable social accounts, still had the murder weapon on him when apprehended, apparently almost threw up at cops' first question: been to NY lately? and got caught in a week. Your standards for "legend" are alarmingly low.
Well it's about the class division between the poor and the non-poor ultimately. He's not mentally ill so they can't use that excuse. He's not some sort of deranged psychopath. He was someone who was pushed by this horribly by his system into an action that gives it notice. He's a freedom fighter who was pushed to an extreme means of expressing the desire for freedom from the tyranny of the apathetic Rich.
You guys are so deeply out of touch. But then you probably have enough money that you can afford medical care. Most of us don’t. We had a candidate who was going to address this very urgent need of the people to access healthcare and you guys pushed for the party centrist instead. Why do you condemn a man who killed one person but empathy for a man who denied care and caused the death of thousands?
Don't you mean, those who had their claims denied because of the algorithms? The CEO didn't personally deny anybody! I'm sick of this nonsense that it's ok to murder people!
Plus, remove all the Medicare and Corporate Platinum plans and see what the results are. The only people that like their healthcare have no idea how much it really costs the rest of us.
Almost every point these guys make has them citing some poll. If recent history has shown us anything it's that polls are less and less reliable and the methods of understanding the public consciousness and zeitgeist have to change. Traditional polls no longer work because they aren't accurate. I'm checking out of this podcast. "Pod Save America" has full on transitioned into "Maintain the Status Quo"
Being in the healthcare industry on the provider side, the private payor system here in the US is based on greed. And it's severe. It's impacting lives. The lack of empathy for the CEO's loss is understandable because I have UHC insurance and all my claims get denied first. It's a problem. It's killing lives. People are crying over the one dude, but because of UHC and all the private payors, hundreds of thousands of lives are lost and irreversibly destroyed daily. I think having a government based single payor would solve this where the premiums are based on how much we earn and pay. Profit should NOT be the goal of healthcare.
Who says they’re satisfied with their health insurance? My wife and I are both professionals and do pretty well. Our health insurance is a nightmare. Literally every claim is a fight.
I’m 40 and healthy with supposedly great insurance from my six-figure job. I wasted two hours of my life this week calling around to set up a GP appointment - nowhere except ghetto hospitals was “taking new patients at this time.” What’s the point?
Nah, revolutions are rarely just discourse. Jon, how long have we been talking about insurance and healthcare? What has changed? Let me know what I’m missing.
You're missing what these guys are about. Ultimately their bread is buttered on the same side as the Brian Thompsons, because they have the same employers. Performativeky woke neoliberalism is still neoliberalism. It's the same as their worthless liberal tears for Palestinians getting eradicated.
Nobody likes their health insurance. Please love their Healthcare. Why do we need this stupid barrier. For you guys to resort to some stupid poll is infuriating.
Almost every point these guys make has them citing some poll. If recent history has shown us anything it's that polls are less and less reliable and the methods of understanding the public consciousness and zeitgeist have to change. Traditional polls no longer work because they aren't accurate. I'm checking out of this podcast. "Pod Save America" has full on transitioned into "Maintain the Status Quo"
My story: I’m an Australian and around 8 years ago I was diagnosed with a blood cancer (Multiple Myeloma). I didn’t even contact my private health insurance provider (I could have gone public, but preferred private as I get to choose my doctors). 16 chemo sessions (via day oncology) - cost me $600. As an “excess” to then get the rest of my treatment free. Stem Cell Transplant (pre-chemo, 2 sessions to capture my stem cells, 1 month in hospital for transplant, 1 month follow up when I got sick) - FREE! I walked into the cancer hospital and signed a form. My private health care insurance just paid it. I feel sorry for Americans who dont realise how bad your system(s) are. You need to travel abroad (NOT to Mexico/Canada…further!) and hear other stories to help guide your thinking.
Sounds about white, and I am white. However, I currently live abroad in a place with universal healthcare. As I own my own small business, I have to have private insurance and everything is still so cheap. I even buy my birth control and anti-depressants over the counter. No prescription or insurance is needed for them. For both medications, I pay less than $50 a month.
It’s important to have both sides of the coin in a movement. The peaceful, logistical groups that offer a promising future and the violent groups that provoke fear and action. There’s no incentive for people abusing their positions of power to stop. They need fear that it could all be taken away. Ideally that comes from a balancing force like the government checking the private sector. When everything is so corrupted, peaceful paths forward can’t succeed on their own. The violence is never good. It’s always sad and the people who carry it out sacrifice their lives as they are rightfully arrested. But its value is real. It shouldn’t be cheered on but solemnly acknowledged. And just because that CEO didn’t gun someone down, doesn’t mean he hadn’t killed people. We have a more critical view of direct violence than indirect violence.
I think calling this theatrics is ignorant to history. The french revolution wasnt performative. The russian and chines communist revolutions weren't performative. The system is broken, lets break it. Im sick of trying to fix this mess.
I don’t think people actually like their health insurance. They’re just thankful for getting healthcare and terrified of what the bills would be without insurance
People who say they love their plan actually love their doctors, not their plan at all. Or their premiums are being subsidized by their employers. Seniors and other folks on the lower end of the income scale aren't so fortunate.
Why is soon to be president of the US hawking cologne online? Good grief, he might as well load his grift in the trunk of his car and pull up to a festival. SMH!! And this is who 50% of America wants to be represented by. It's so sad.
"We aren't going to shoot our way to universal healthcare" -PSA Well, we arent going to all die our way towards universal healthcare and the right won't do anything or even try... So... Options are limited. I feel that Pod Save America is living less and less in 2024 and continuing to live in 2010. We are starving, dying, being squeezed and no one cares. Finally someone did something and we are all hungry for something to be done. Politicians can't/won't do it. Companies won't do it. The people have all been radically under educated, under paid, and under relaxed. This is the natural conclusion of the masses not having access to the modern wonders our society has. Why live in a society if everything we need is behind a paywall we can't scale?
It really annoys me that the person responsible for hundreds of deaths by denying coverage to its own customers. He dies and now we should feel empathy for him!? Sorry thats out of network for me.
Then they also have the right to defend themselves against gun manufacturers, the police, and the alt-right, but also abortion providers, good companies and distilleries. There is no end to this argument that does not include mob rule and arbitrary murder.
Lovett left out (1) crucial step…how instrumental are United Healthcare (& their CEO) in LOBBYING & MAINTAINTING a “broken healthcare system”. We know they profit from it but how do they facilitate it remaining broken.
I think Lovett has an incorrect understanding of the health care system. It is not "broken," and Brian Thompson was not a "tool" of it. The system is working exactly as intended. Its purpose is not to provide health care to everyone. Its purpose is to make as much profit as possible at the expense of people who need health care. And Brian Thompson was a conscious, willing participant in that system of exploitation.
Exactly. This is not a "reform the system" moment. This is a "burn it down" moment.
But Lovett can get HIS Ozempic while people who ACTUALLY have diabetes get denied. The system works just fine for them!
But he can still get HIS Ozempic prescription. Why should he feel any anger that people who ACTUALLY have diabetes can’t afford it?
@@coygraf7897maybe we shouldn’t judge people based on the prescriptions they take….tons of people use GLP-1s for a variety of reasons and are healthier because of it.
@@brianshrode72 and that point right there is what’s wrong. Healthcare should not be for profit
I think you're massively underestimating the rage Americans feel over not just Healthcare in America, but wealth disparity and the feeling that we are totally powerless to change anything. Even if this murder does somehow bring us Medicare for all (which nobody is expecting by the way) it'll come too late for thousands upon thousands of loved ones who didn't have to die, but did directly because of our inhumane, ugly, intentionally cruel system. I have no empathy left over for the ceos who make millions off the suffering of people like me. Nobody in the health insurance system had an iota of empathy when it was my twin sister who couldn't afford insulin and died at 26. So my empathy is reserved for the hundreds of thousands of grieving Americans like me. It didn't have to be this way, but the one percent are the ones who pushed it all this far.
@@foxfirelives6677 I'm so sorry for your loss 💐 😢
So sorry for your loss.
Please allow me to introduce myself
I'm a man of wealth and taste
I've been around for a long, long year
Stole many a man's soul and fate
I was 'round when Jesus Christ
Had his moments of doubt and pain
Made damn sure that Pilate
Washed his hands and sealed his fate
Pleased to meet you
Hope you guess my name, oh yeah
But what's puzzling you
Is the nature of my game
I stuck around St. Petersburg
When I saw it was a time for a change
Killed the Czar and his ministers
Anastasia screamed in vain
I rode a tank
Held a General's rank
When the Blitzkrieg raged
And the bodies stank
Pleased to meet you
Hope you guess my name, oh yeah
What's puzzling you
Is the nature of my game, oh yeah
I watched the glee
While your kings and queens
Fought for ten decades
For the Gods they made
I shouted out
"Who killed the Kennedys?"
Well after all
It was you and me
Let me please introduce myself
I'm a man of wealth and taste
And I laid traps for troubadours
Who get killed before they reached Bombay
Pleased to meet you
Hope you guess my name, oh yeah
But what's puzzling you
Is the nature of my game, oh yeah
Pleased to meet you
Hope you guess my name, oh yeah
But what's confusing you
Is just the nature of my game, ooh yeah
Just as every cop is a criminal
And all the sinners saints
As heads is tails just call me Lucifer
I'm in need of some restraint
So if you meet me, have some courtesy
Have some sympathy and some taste
Use all your well learned politics
Or I'll lay your soul to waste, mmm yeah
Pleased to meet you
Hope you guess my name, mmm yeah
But what's puzzling you
Is the nature of my game, get down
Woo hoo, ah yeah, get on down, oh yeah
Tell me, baby, what's my name?
Tell me, honey, baby guess my name
Tell me, baby, what's my name?
I'll ya one time you're to blame
What's my name?
Tell me, baby, what's my name?
Tell me, sweetie, what's my name?
As a breast cancer survivor, I know first hand how terrible the insurance companies are. I was denied , I had never missed a payment. They fought me for 5 weeks. Until my daughter started to contact news agencies. Finally, my plight was taken up by a local television station . Once my story was aired, the next morning I got a registered letter stating that my insurers had decided to cover my treatment. All well and good, right? While going through chemotherapy, I was only able to work part time due to my reaction to the drugs I was receiving. That insurance company raised my premium every quarter. It got so expensive that I had to move in with my son. My story is just one of millions . Americans are screwed if they need healthcare. The richest country in the world has a criminally corrupt insurance system.
Sorry you had to got through this! It's awful!
And, had you been covered under Medicare, this wouldn't have happened. Or at least it would have been much easier. AND if we did have Medicare For all this murder wouldn't have happened.
"Criminally corrupt" is the correct description.
Your story puts into focus how inadequate the opinions expressed in this episode are. My deepest sympathies and as a citizen I’ll do better to do my small part to get us to a universal healthcare system. Step 1 was to unsubscribe from this channel.
I am so sorry and furious that you and so many others had to endure such an inexcusably inhumane experience. Having to work while fighting cancer (which is more than a full time job in itself) shows how far the cruelty extends. The horrific health system is reflective of our society at large, perpetually heaping additional insult & injury on top of previous layers of insult & injury (often literally).
The trouble with the "Murder is bad, denying healthcare claims... also bad" take is that it's just factually wrong. In 2024 America, you are punished for committing murder, and you are handsomely rewarded for denying healthcare claims. People who have suffered so that others can be made rich by their suffering aren't going to be against punishment for what you call "bad" but the legal system and business community calls "good performance".
Well said.
you could not be more right with this. I hated the smug laugh they had while they talked about this. Sure, it's bad. But no one is doing anything about it.
This is so tone deaf and frustrating. It isn't just about healthcare. If you guys will pay attention, it's that people - working class people - are tired of being screwed over. Screwed over by private industry, by government, by the wealthy. THIS IS A CLASS ISSUE.
Are they the same people who just voted in a candidate who promised to junk the ACA?
Most of the people who voted Trump and didn't vote him in to get rid of the Affordable Care Act, they voted him in because he is a challenger to the party that isn't doing well with the economy. All of Trump's baggage is just baggage to the average voter.
Are they the same people who voted for the party that wants to deregulate and let the wealthy capitalists run roughshod over the environment, their enormous employees and their customers-and cut taxes on corporations and the wealthy?!
Geisinger Health Plan is good-run by a nonprofit.
"Those who make peaceful revolutions impossible will make violent revolution inevitable" ~ JFK
Thanks for this post! Hiw true
Except quote. Spot on.
I think what JFK said was "change", not "revolution", but same as.
@@pendorran Idk which is right but I do appreciate you pointing this out (if true lmao) bc it goes a long way to showing how political rhetoric is so often semantic, what resonates with people long-term is the underlying sentiment even if the (superfluous) rhetoric gets fully torn to bits by reactionary conservatives
Thanks JFK
7:50 Lovett, asking someone in America if they like their insurance is akin to asking a hostage if they like their taker while they are actively holding a gun. Yeah, I prefer having insurance over not in America, it just means I'm LESS likely to die penniless and sick. What a stupid argument.
This is arguably the best post on this video.
Well said!
most people like their insurance until they really have to use it and can't ...
Relying on polls seems to be the mainstay of this trio. Not sure I have the same faith in them as they do, speaking as a person who'd rather run my bare knuckles over a cheese grater than take another survey.
I was going to say the same thing! Thank you.
Exactly!
I understand the concern about copycats, but honestly, my feelings arent hurt that rich, powerful, greedy individuals now have to live with the same fear average Americans face each day. The only difference is that a national manhunt takes place when a rich person dies. If you're poor, you're just another case file on a desk.
💯 %!!!!
Amen!
In 2020, the FBI reported that the USA is at an all time high for unsolved murders at about 50%. The disproportionate amount of resources given to this ONE case is a slap in the face to those who haven’t had their cases solved.
They are a member of the establishment that would be threatened by shootings like this, their concerns for copy cats are out of self preservation.
🎯🎯🎯🎯🎯🎯🎯🎯🎯
Don't expect the deer to weep when they are told a hunter has died.
"We're not gonna shoot our way to universal healthcare" Not with that attitude, we're not.
😂
And it clearly might be the case, the fact that inhuman anesthesia policy was reversed right after this happened is VERY telling I think
@@kaylaalbertson6335time to vote with bullets rather than ballots?
Trump's "One really violent day" plan has taken on a bit of a different meaning now.
TRUE, GET ON IT PEOPLE (sarcasm)
"Murder is wrong, but also dismantling this evil system is next to impossible. We know. We tried."
This is why people are reacting the way they are. The Audacity of Hope has been replaced with the Timidity of the Possible, and timidity isn't good enough when your loved one is dying of cancer.
The hope is gone. The idea of things getting better feels impossible. Of course there would be a celebration of someone lashing out at this. What else is there to do?
@@DCBruinsMedia nailed it
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable” -JFK
The trying was certainly half-hearted, especially since Bernie was the only one really trying and he got shot down at every turn. Whatever you might think of Glenn Greenwald today, read his series in Salon from 2010. Explains exactly who was getting what out of the ACA.
Everyone, contact your representative and senators. Voice your frustration and demand change.
@RenzoTx my rep is a literal pharma exec...
Do you guys hear yourselves? Last week, you were going on and on about how you need to listen to the base and meet people where they are so the democratic party can win elections. The people are telling you where they are at. Its time you get with the program or stop claiming to be progressive when the only people defending Johnson are the people who have a vested interest in the safety of the billionaire class.
Yup, I unsubscribed from PSA. They are still out of touch.
This
@@nancychandler367same! It’s become so apparent how out of touch and elite they are in their post election breakdowns. They are still so welded on to the Democratic Party machinery. Lovett’s interview with Hasan, was especially galling for me.
It really might be over for PSA. It's been almost nothing but bad takes ever since the election. Namely because the results of the election have proven that their classical brand of centre left liberalism is no longer a solution.
People are either giving up and tuning out, or shifting further left and leaving this lot behind.
Not when the left advocate murder because the victim was a CEO.
All due respect to Lovett, but this guy is not just a "tool in a broken system" he was an active participant in keeping the system in place, and in exploiting it for his own personal gain.
@@kevinturner5844 all due respect for this ghoul is none.
It's okay, he really not due much respect.
Right, a tool in a broken system would be some random health insurance worker who has a job with United Health just to pay the bills. This guy was a major architect who decided how the tools are used for one of the companies that uses the tools more cruelly than any other (most denials). To imply otherwise is disingenuous.
@@rusk3986 Agreed. I think Jon's point is not entirely invalid, and is meant to point out the failures of the government to act in the face of this harmful system, but is missing the part where these CEO's actively work to push the government to benefit themselves over the best interests of the people as they should be representing. It's a failure of many systems, but to dismiss the CEO's part in it and redirect the blame solely on the government is not telling the whole story.
Correct. He was a key player in optimizing the system to deny as much health care as possible and to line the pockets of shareholders with the highest costs possible.
I’m a nurse and i can tell you the insurance companies have been going HOG WILD with their BS more than ever before in recent months.
I think everyone was scratching their heads on the how much anesthesia a patient was limited to - that is a crazy notion . One can only imagine that more of those types of constraints put on all the time.
@@pjpredhomme7699 And then the recovering patient is met with a giant medical bill while they have to keep making their premiums. And this dude is living large in five-star hotels eating at New York's fanciest restaurants.
This man made a choice to work for a company that kills thousands. For 3 years I worked for a for-profit health insurance company. I was required to lie to patients and providers. I couldn’t live with myself and quit cold turkey. I’m poor and decided I rather live in my car than continue to lie. I took the high road. This man was part of the problem. His family will never do without. They live a life based on the tragedy and misfortune of others. He took a gamble and lost.
Thank you for not being complicit. There are so few people motivated by any sense of personal dignity anymore.
Ironically, he probably had a great life insurance policy.
Best comment I have read on UA-cam
I am SO sick of the, this guy had kids line!!! SO did all the people he KNOWINGLY let die by denying their claims…those people had kids too.
And were almost certainly better people
That's some kind of socially regressive metric that over values anyone who reproduces; some kind of weird tip of the hat to "family values". If the CEO was a childless cat lady, would the shooting be easier to accept?
Also is the implication is those without kids are not as sympathetic. It's like the father of daughter line actually meaning women weren't important until you had one.
Right? This guy was a killer even if he didn't pull a trigger. I don't remember these people crying over Osama bin Laden's death just because he had a family. This CEO is probably responsible for killing more people than him too.
Be sick of American gun violence & how Americans keep voting for Republicans who only destroy healthcare & are funded by billionaires. Btw, Luigi was a killer rich kid.
One CEO was shot and killed, the NYPD spent tens of millions of dollars to find the killer. In that same span of time hundreds of Americans died from lack of insurance. Brian Thompsons' company has denied healthcare to children with cancer, often using AI to approve or deny claims, this was reported to have upwards of 90% failure rate. AND the icing on the cake is this man was on his way to a shareholders meeting, a health insurance company being privatized and dependent on shareholders not its ability to help people is the real crime. The fact that we are expected to feel bad for a man who was the face of a monstrous insurance company who is directly responsible for thousands of Americans pain, suffering and even death is laughable.
Thank you for admitting Obamacare is a failure.
Someone said he was going to be part of DOGE too. Figures. We want to cut waste from the government and put it in our pockets!
"hundreds of millions" - sez who??
Absolutely 💯 correct
@@Marcel_Audubon "hundreds of Americans" certainly looks like "hundreds of millions" when you can't read.
I didn’t come here expecting to hear a defense of the shooter. But this is such an institutionalist view.
No one (as far as I’ve seen) thought we were gonna get healthcare for all through violence. I don’t think anyone believes we will get that period. But when two other corps. reverse their anesthesia policies after this happens, it’s pretty obvious this did more in an instant than voting has done in years.
If anything, I’d like to see a dem politician say “this was murder and it was wrong, and I’d like create a world where Machiavellian anesthesia limits are curtailed by rules, not crime. This is proof that regular people feel as though they have nowehere else to turn but violence. We need more robust systems that affect change as quickly as this violence did, so that we have no need for that violence.”
Like a general strike?
Well said!
This proves they are part of the problem
I've nearly completely stopped listening to these guys, they have no political imagination or courage, and say trite and predictable things
@@SofistacationOof, same. They are as out of touch as Democratic leadership. If we don’t use this bipartisan outrage to wake the red-pilled working class up and become the Democratic Party again, we don’t deserve to win elections.
I won't be a centrist about it. Healthcare in the US will never change. Realistically this murder is the only smidgeon of justice the public will ever get.
So it's performative when people are disgusted and have no sympathy, but not people talking about all their sympathy for the family?
Way to dismiss people.
What about sympathy for the families of all the people that that CEO indirectly killed?
He was paid to kill people for money. but because he does it from behind a desk, he's called a CEO, and not a hitman.
When do we hold people accountable?
The lack of empathy was not performative. It was real. You guys are as out of touch as Ben Shapiro. Please for the love of God, have a person who makes under 100,000 a year on
Exactly, 100k is dirt poor to the CEO crowd
"I am sorry, I do not know anyone like that" would be their answer if we asked why they never interview MIDDLE class people, let alone us worki g class bums.
Right on!
Pfft, even being in healthcare with a good salary ppl know this doesn't work. Other than value based care, which is driven to invest in keeping patients out of the hospital, for profit models don't work. And while some ppl outright celebrated the CEOs murder, I saw way more people saying they couldn't shed a tear because that industry takes advantage of people at their lowest and most vulnerable point in life. That the chattering class can't get that is ridiculous. For profit health insurance is pro-suffering.
I'm continually amazed at how bad your takes are. We have been utterly and completely denied ways of fixing this issue so naturally this happened. This is not surprising, it is inevitable
On this subject I agree they are wrong.
Exactly, especially since the system is set up so the proletariat gets zero justice. These guys would buy their way out of accountability and go full speed ahead. The anesthesia BS got reversed all the sudden.
Review bombing much? If you actually watched, you would know they agreed with the premise of your point regarding the hurdles of reforming healthcare.
These guys are part of the political class that's in an encestuogs relationship with corporate America.
They are not on your side.
They never have been.
If you don't get it by now you never will & the rest of your life is going to be full of confusion & surprises.
@@darkmoneyinwi Almost all of these political commentators from both sides of the political spectrum don't seem to understand why a lot of people do not care that a rich CEO is dead.
So disappointed in where this show has gone since the election. Basically every American has a horror story about themselves or others being denied care many of which involved the death of someone who did not have to die or did not have to die in such terrible circumstances. The reason people equate this with "Medicare for All" or other forms of Universal health care is because that is the solution. Downplaying that is absolutely insane. Do better.
I've watched pod save since 2016. Today I unsubscribed. Between the interview with the Harris team post election and this... these guys aren't committed to "saving America." They're committed to maintaining the establishment. I'll keep watching Ben and Tommy because their guided by morals and consistently express that commitment. The Jons are completely out of touch and it's going to fuck us over.
@@ZachOY committed to the establishment AND their own paychecks AND they are stuck in the past.
And yet they voted for republicans who most definitely will NOT fix this. So apparently even though most Americans are affected by it, they didn’t vote like it was a top priority of theirs.
Every time I click on a Pod Save video, I am at least a little bit disheartened by the content. Then I read the comments, and I am a little bit re-heartened.
Then you need your head examined, or at least a solid course of ethics and logic.
@@EdwardLindon Some crimes, by some people, are rewarded. Some crimes, by some other people, are punished.
Maybe you have a different kind of ethics or logic than mine. But I don't think your social class or status should be the line of demarcation for the consequences of your behavior.
7:28 "This system is stupid"
No, it's not "stupid". It's inhumane and evil. Jesus this milquetoast framing.
All I know is Luigi is hot.
PSA just wringing their hands and wondering "why won't someone do something!". Well, Luigi did, and they can't fathom it was more effective than decades of Dem bullshit.
Isn’t this the system they helped get in? The ACA?
People might go after abortion rights groups? You mean like they've been doing for decades? You're acting like people haven't already been firebombing abortion clinics and using violence against their workers. The thing you're worried about is already happening.
Yep, where have these guys been living?
Should stop killing babies then
@@whyarepeoplecrazythey live in a rich bubble and are card carrying democrats
@@stavros.g.halkias Just like goof ball card carrying republicans who are anything but the landed elite. That gets me. The poorest of the poor voting for the party that treats them as chattel.
But you're right, the DNC has become nothing but the same, as it was anyway. FDR literally only made his new deal laws and had to get new supreme court justice, as it was initially struck down, to get social security, 40 hour work week with 1.5 over time, collective bargaining rights, unemployment insurance, etc. was just to keep the hoard of world war 1 vets that were camping just outside DC from doing what the folks in Russia did to the Czar, or what Germany and Italy did.
The two parties are bullshit. Hedged oligarch. I mean their names literally mean nothing, might as well call them a color... oh wait we do that too... red and blue.
Other countries actually have the name of the platform on what they support as the name of their party... like a labor party. Or green party. Etc. Because their 1 percent is just that, these other countries to obscure their primary oligarch party with platitude names like Nationalist party or Conservative ABCD Party etc. To appeal to the needed more than 1 percent that party policies that party stands for.... the 1 percent always has to dupe the general public just a small fraction is needed, 20 percent to maybe 30 percent if you can pull that off you got a majority enough to do whatever the hell you want. NAZI party only needed 20 percent to then thug others into obeying their disaster evil rules.
Hence why we got a convicted felon awaiting sentencing is now going to be president, and a sitting president just pardon his convicted son.
But it's rich to say the DNC in particular being in a "rich" bubble, when for so long and even still even though it appears they just feign supporting unions and other labor working class policies. While the RNC is outright just for the rich. It's rich. But again, they're both phony. The DNC is paid to lose and never get much of anything passed for the people, the working class, essentially 90 percent of us, as the top 10 percent of which the 9 percent are the hired thugs for the 1 percent.
And the RNC pretends to be for freedom... of working for nothing fucking at all and go drop dead when you get sick, go talk to god. And if you're woman, have that fucking baby no matter what, we need cheap labor, and raise them to get at least a few criminal convictions particularly for pot so we can trap them in cheap labor jobs our buddies need.
They’re Democrats that have Nannie’s and fly in Private Jets to talk shows. They ARE rich male establishment.
One man killed its murder but thousands killed its just business.
since he worked over 20 years, he could be responsible for even a million who knows , at least HUNDREDS of thousands dead bc of Brian Thompson decisions, and def millions of lives destroyed
Social murder is celebrated when it’s in the name of profit
🎯🎯🎯
Well but its thousands of "poors" to be fair
The old quote, "a single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic."
@@generalizedidiocy3040 Fun Fact - Josef Stalin said that.
They dither over $25 billion to give Americans better health care. They dropped $700 billion on banks in '09 without batting an eye. Think about that.
Passed measly trillion to Israel for genocide no big deal
Exactly this!
Plus the bombs all over the world.
Never forget
THIS, every dang day, THIS!
I'm pretty shocked by how absolutely tone deaf PSA has been post election. Especially when they had Hasan on. The diagnosis of what went wrong with the democratic campaign isn't complicated. Yet they sigh and scoff at the analysis that the dems are throwing the working class pennies, and telling us we should thank them for it.
"Pod Save American" has become "Maintain the Status Quo"
This discussion is so superficial. Instead of referencing a biased Kaiser family foundation survey, have an independent pharmacist or an MD with his own practice as a guest on your podcast, and they'll paint a picture about these healthcare companies that will make your head explode.
PSA is all about whatever corporate data they can cherry pick. Favreau has a $10 million house in Malibu for a reason....
I spent the last year watching Anthem slowly murder my husband for profit by denying the medical necessity of lifesaving surgery, then misfiling (almost certainly intentionally) their own paperwork every step of every appeal process to drag it out as his body fell apart in an excruciatingly painful way. I'm very certain they wanted him to die instead of getting surgery to save money and I had no practical recourse beyond spending 10-20h on the phone every week begging in appeals for them not to make him die. Anyone who's been through anything like that (a disturbing % of Americans) wasn't shocked and understood exactly how this happened.
Very sorry for your loss and the pains you had to go through. ❤
God that sounds so harrowing.
I'm so sorry
God! I’m so sorry this suffering was inflicted on you and your husband 😢
John Favreu doesnt care about you or anyone you associate with.
I'm sorry boys, seems like you are trying to "both side" this issue. Feel bad for his kids, but not for him as countless people died due to this man's decision in the interest of lining his own pockets. CEOs don't deserve an ounce of empathy, as they lack it when the roles are reversed. Ask a parent who lost their child due to insurance denying services if they feel bad for this guy.
It's like asking the French peasantry to feel bad for King Louis
I will only feel bad for his kids if they thought their dad was an evil tyrant and were in the fight to get us single-payer govt funded healthcare.
Other than that, they’re just asshole rich kids who would privilege their way thru life and contribute NOTHING.
They love being the finger wagging scolding liberal. "Um guys we need to settle down and continue to vote while you all suffer in silence"
I get what you’re saying, but condoning murder and vigilantism is not the way to effect the large-scale changes that need to happen. We need to have a system that holds the interest of the people over the drive for profit. The murder of one man is not going to change this.
@@lss8713 And yet the same day you saw BCBS roll back a major cut to anesthesia care due to public backlash and concern because of what happened here. Operating in a system has gotten us no where but poorer and sicker. Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
If PSA is actually serious about having a “healthcare debate,” every time a democratic politician comes in to interview ask them about Medicare for all and have a list of their donors flashing on the screen
PSA is not actually serios about this. They literally worked for the ghouls that created ACA
I like this idea - let's get tough on this issue
Very real
Won't ever happen.
@@AlbertoGarcia-wd7scThe ACA isn't great but it's a lot better than what we had before. They passed what they had the votes for.
Insurance companies are not healthcare. Physicians provide healthcare. Insurance companies are for profit, middlemen negatiators. They are not necessary.
PSA thinks they're policy wonks and elected celebrities. They don't know anything but polls and speeches.
I have experienced fantastic healthcare including hospitals in Spain, Italy and Germany - nearly free and higher quality than in the US. The only reason it does not exist in the US is because powerful people do not want it to. A public that lives in fear of getting sick or fired is not likely to rock the boat.
You can't beat a child and expect them not to cry. The US Govt has failed its people by letting them die at the hands of private healthcare companies who sacrificed their lives for shareholder profits and now the American people are upset. A political party that actually wants to win would seize this opportunity to get in line with general sentiment of the American people, by listening to concerns and speaking directly to them with transformative proposals. It's a pity that that political party doesn't exist.
Except, after the trial and the netflix documentary we'll all forget about this and nothing will change, but this dude's kids will still have a dead dad. If it does change someday, it will have nothing to do with the murder of an accountant.
@@cxzact9204 Don't forget about all the dead moms and dads from denied health coverage at this "one accountant's" hands.
@@cxzact9204he was the CEO who chose to use an AI that denied 90% of claims it processed. he’s not some accountant, he had real power that led to real death.
Corporations are the government. Senators, congressmen and the president are the employees of the corporations.
The Working Families Party is actually building towards a larger presence in New York and beyond I believe
Everyone is *shrug* about the death of millions of "poors" but one billionaire who causes those deaths?
COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE
Yo, gentleman we love you and all but you are not capable of understanding our rage
This, this, this. Guys, you missed the point of this.
We _know_ murder is wrong and *that's why we're so angry!*
100%
This was a bold man, who did not care how many seniors he sent to their early deaths, he made billions, and the shareholders like that, they don’t give 2 craps about u , me. Or anything else, plus once he died, nd they got all this bd press, their stock dropped 10 points, u can kill all the poor brown black people. But hurt a rich white grifter, no senor,
Ideally we'd be able to redress this peacefully through the political process, but considering how powerful interests keep blocking that...
@@edupunknoob Exactly. Most people don't like murder and don't want to murder but realize when you torture and terrorize hundreds of millions of people, at least one is going to snap. It's a testament to people not wanting violence that this didn't happen years ago.
PSA get serious about healthcare. When you refuse to hold politicians accountable you represent the same evil as this CEO
PSA can't. They're stuck in 2008. Deep down, they think that rich people should be in charge, because they got rich.
The Comments section is proving a better podcast than the pod. ❤
In three episodes (Dan's interview with the Harris team, Lovett's interview with Hasan, and now this), I have totally shifted my perspective on the Pod Save bros. They are more part of the problem than the solution.
I listened to these guys for a few months after the 2016 election because it was a good space to be in during that time. But after a few months I saw the writing on the wall that these guys are very much supporters of and now part of the machine and stopped listening. I checked back in to the podcast after this election and wasn't surprised to find they are as disconnected from the working class as ever and continue to be mouthpiece parrots of corporate interests. "Pod Save American" has always been "Maintain the Status Quo"
5:07 - "... what if someone applies that rationale to ... abortion rights groups ?..." You're old enough to know better, Tommy, unless you think that it would be worse than murdering abortion care providers.
And the implication that the CEO is just a victim of an inherently violent and vile system, like the rest of us, is abhorrent.
Also love how he thinks targeted assassination is a slippery slope, given his former boss loved drones strikes that did just this, including a 16 year old boy, Anwar al-Awlaki, in Yemen.
@@geekthegirl6961 You're not wrong, but i think you're missing the nuance there. let's not conflate a murder hit on the streets of NYC with actions taken by POTUS. every single president has blood on their hands which is awful but this is the world we live in. and if you pretend all of these are the same and paint with a broad brush, you seem to be willfully missing the point.
Seriously. Last time I checked, abortion care providers HAVE been violently attacked and murdered for years by conservative fanatics. How is this even a point to argue?
@@geekthegirl6961 I was thinking the same thing when I read the op.. Are parallels between Obama apologetics and Biden/Israel/CEO alignment? They always want to point to (at best) a systemic problem that we can vote our way out of (even while fronting that they tried to save us from overpriced health care during Saint Obama's tenure, but we were the dummies that didn't vote right). Time and time again they defend people who work within these systems, as though there's no individual culpability. How we feel about this one dead CEO is a metaphor for people who get rich working for oppressive organizations and then want to wash their hands of any responsibility.
Yeah, I remember when they were killing doctors and bombing abortion clinics. Surely he do not think these situations are the same. 🤬
I don’t think all of the lack of empathy was performative.
It's the "Oh, poor evil man with a family" that's performative. Not the organic groundswell of "womp womp"
Definitely. I can assure you that my lack of empathy in this case is not at all performative, it`s very real. The empathy is just not there.
No, it's the empathy of people like these that is performative. In 2018 my mother-in-law was diagnosed with fast spreading, advanced breast cancer. A type of cancer that was almost certainly a death sentence if it wasn't treated aggressively and quickly. Her team knew exactly what combination of treatment was most likely to work but she was initially denied some of those treatments because they want them to to "try less expensive methods first to see if they work before moving on to the more expensive treatments." If those treatments the insurance wanted to "try" first didn't work, it would have been too late. She likely have months to live without them.
The doctors decide to go forward anyway and fight the insurance company with hopes that that the decision could be reverse and covered. The risk being that it could essentially bankrupt my in-laws if it wasn't. Luckily, after countless hours of phone calls, letters, and paperwork the treatment was approved. And my MiL is still with us. It's absolutely insane that a proven course of treatment was denied knowing it could be a death sentence in order to save money.
@@anthill1510 I agree. The fact is, Brian Thompson presided over a big increase in denied claims, in other words, it was a company policy that he supported. The company is being sued for illegally denying claims to increase profits - this is a company that has YEARLY revenues of over $400 billion! Thompson was also being investigated for insider trading. So I feel for his family, but I have no empathy at all for him. I feel really bad for Luigi Mangione, by all accounts a smart, nice guy, who just threw his life away.
@@TheHauntedKiwiAgreed! I’m reminded of the handful of pearl-clutchers in the U.S. who were *aghast* to hear Dundee United fans singing “Lizzie’s in a Box” when the Queen died. Americans want to pretend to be morally superior while being cool with “collateral damage”
You’re lecturing the Iraq war generation about violence? We invaded countries that had nothing to do with attacking us……
THIS!!!!
My first adult job was working for a third-party administrator for insurance companies. I paid claims and then when I became a supervisor, I actually got in trouble multiple times for paying too many claims. I was called into the office by my manager and reprimanded because I was the supervisor that consistently paid out more claims than any other supervisor in the building and that was a problem.
I was very specifically told, you have a heart you’re in the wrong industry!
The mantra that was told to our benefits examiners was, “if in doubt deny, let them appeal!” The average appeal took about 9 weeks because we only had one person per group of clients to handle appeals, but I had 23 benefits examiner’s on the same team denying claims.
Denying coverage to vulnerable people and profiting off their suffering and death is a form of social murder. The UHC CEO was not much different than a serial killer imo, only difference is his crimes are legal 🤷
No. They are NOT the same. You're just doing metaphorical gymnastics. At least be honest. Say that you approve of violence and murder in selective cases that only you get to choose.
I think its a bit of a weak argument to say "the guy was a father" as some sort of defense of his actions that cause millions of people harm and that somehow with his death he or the family deserves sympathy. The family benefitted from that same harm. The mansion they live in and the lives they live are built off human suffering. I'm not advocating for violence but don't ask me for sympathy for those benefitting from a genuinely bad faith actor who oversaw one of the most monstrously oppressively companies in an industry filled with systemic violence against the poor.
The number of particularly evil people that were also fathers is actually pretty high... We can pity the kids without pitying you.
Perfectly put, thank you.
History has proven time and time again that when right wing poors and lib poors come together and put aside their differences is never good for the elites..
And it shows volumes how the establishment on BOTH SIDES are not are condemning this and condemning us for our outrage.
These guys are foot soldiers of the elites.
Everyone wouldn't be talking about insurance reform if the CEO had not been shot.
Sadly true
@@leilap2495but it's true
Talk is all that will happen. It won’t get reformed now because people voted for Republicans. So we will keep waiting and dealing with this mess. It will never get fixed while republicans control everything.
Bingo. in an ideal world people wouldn't be killed on the street. But last I check, we're not in a perfect world.
You don't have to endorse the killing to understand that this is making way more people think than any protest, or tweet, or email, or podcast.
@@leilap2495 I think it's just true
As soon as my Dr. saw I was insured by UHC, he told me that when he orders tests or procedures, they will automatically deny the service, but keep the appointment since he has to have a consultation with an actual doctor to get it approved.
Why not enroll EVERYONE into the Congressional Health Care Plan?
I'm an older(89) American who lives in France.
All --100%-- of my medical costs, including medicines, are paid by the government.
I miss many aspects of my native land, but the American so-called "health care" system is definitely not part of the America that I miss. Indeed my conversations with my American friends leave me shocked and horrified.
And how would you rate the quality of care there? Critics usually point to long wait times for treatment, for example. I spoke recently to a Canadian guy recently who said his mother needed care and had to come to the US to get in a timely manner. Just curious.
So having been in both countries, how would you judge the "quality" of both?
@@Sterontohi I am a younger American living in France and I can assure you the wait times thing is a myth. If you live in a rural area, sure, increased wait times but that's the same back home. I live in a major Metropolitan area and I just saw a doctor yesterday after waiting 3 days. I have dental work scheduled next week for less than 60 euros. My appt yesterday was 13. I would choose French Healthcare over American any day.
@@SterontoAhh the “just curious” question… Why medical debt and bankruptcy exist in a richest country in the world, and not in France, medical debt is a whole industry in the US, just curious…
The same here in Germany. It´s crazy that rich America can´t get a healthinsurance covering everyone like we have it. The greed for getting rich in the USA is insane.
Sorry boys, but I highly disagree about the CEOs death. Protesting hasn't seemed to change anything. Just complaining doesn't change anything. We can't vote in enough progressives to change our system to universal healthcare.
Yeah, we can't persuade a majority of voters to agree so F democracy atp, amirite? 💀
would add the enormous amount of money politicians receive in donations from these entities and affiliates
@@cxzact9204 I didn't say that. And I get how what I said can come off that way. But we need to come up with some other solution. I don't necessarily mean violence, because I am myself not a non-violent person. But I don't feel bad about the CEO; he has blood on his hands. I'm definitely open to any new/other ideas you might have. What will make this all better? We're stuck with a horrible health "business" at the moment.
Also, they don't actually stay "progressives" once those checks start stacking up.
Much of the research saying that people like their health insurer actually was done by the insurance companies, specifically to provide the impression that customers are happy. I would love to see some independent research on the issue, but the research I've seen so far looked extremely thin. I am not convinced. And it still wouldn't change the fact that the US has the most inefficient healthcare system in the entire developed world. That fact alone would be killing people, even if the system wasn't profit-driven.
Thompson wasn't some clerk, accountant or salesman in the insurance business, he was a CEO. He wasn't a tool, he was the whole gearbox
SO HOW MUCH DO WE HAVE TO BEG TO GET HEALTHCARE WITHOUT VIOLENCE, POD BROS??? How much do we talk before enough of us die to get to the next level?
You cannot discuss cancer and the fear of being bankrupted even with insurance until you have lived it. Anger doesn't describe it.
😢
I’m an oncology nurse and I’ve watched countless patients get denied cancer treatment and/or end up bankrupt paying for it out of pocket 💔 Seeing families and patients go through that over and over for years is part of why I don’t work in healthcare anymore. It’s why a lot of people don’t work in healthcare anymore.
My mom passed of dehydration while only being in a nursing home for 3 months; plan was to rehabilitate her injured legs so she could walk and return home where my dad and younger brother live.
Anger doesn't describe the disaster that is our for profit racket bullshit non-existent healthcare hustle under a bridge is.
I've been lucky with my health, I've had to use our medical system only a few times. And for relatively wimpy stuff, cold sores I take a Rx antiviral because I get severe outbreaks as I gotten older into adulthood. And a few infections here and there.
And just those issues, it's a fucking nightmare, having to make repeated trips for follow ups because the quack in box or whoever couldn't spend more than 5 minutes in the exam room to just ask me a few questions and plug a pill to see if that fixed it.
Or deny a pill that I unfortunately already self diagnosed because they wanted to await more testing, and didn't like the idea of the extra blood work required... only to eventually go somewhere else to get obvious diagnosis and the pill with blood work and get cured. Or finding out I can't easily buy my Rx from Germany at a fraction of the cost because VISA and MasterCard made a deal with big pharma not to allow purchases from abroad because they maybe "rouge" pharmacies. So forcing me to get it in this bullshit country, and the find out that doc and boxes don't get long term Rx, but require a family doctor, only to go thru 3 family doctors in 1 year. Fortunately, found out my dentist can prescribe the antiviral long term Rx.
My dad lucked out for a long period that he had VA cover him for the past 15 years.
Our medical system is non-existence.
A new word must be created to describe the type of anger.
“He was a tool of the system.”
Oh F off. He profited massively off the pain and suffering of people, and he did so WILLINGLY. Even in Nazi Germany many people were following orders because they were afraid for their lives to go against the system. In this case he would have had to… get another job?
yeah he could have easily gotten a job where he wasn’t participating in murdering tons of people. he made that choice!
He was the system. I believe he introduced AI to deny claims.
@@Idela905yes, that is what has been reported.
He was not a "tool of a broken system." That implies he was somehow "used"; essentially meaning that he was being manipulated or controlled without his full awareness or consent. Come on now, he was a smart, savvy, millionaire, at the top of his career, and he knew EXACTLY what was going on with UHC and didn't give a flying f*ck.
Look how quick his stride is as he hurries in, early to his meeting with investors. It's a lack of humanity that defends these "family men". We are not the ones throwing humans under the bus.
Pod Save America, Sponsored by United Healthcare
"Pod Save American" has always been "Maintain the Status Quo"
When CEO’s kill us by inaction,greed, and corruption….they laugh all the way to the bank and to their private islands…..so yes I say we should feel however we feel…I for 1 am sick of being f’d over
Every time this podcast fails me, the comment section doesn’t. Lily ass centrist Dems always crying about bipartisanship but the whole country finally unites over something and y’all just want to throw stones and avoid a real conversation about it. This incident actually gives me great relief because maybe, just MAYBE the Trump administration will think twice about repealing the ACA and defunding Medicare. Bernie has been fighting this fight for decades but no one really wanted to pay attention until Luigi stepped in. This isn’t 2008, it’s 2024. I guess modern problems require modern solutions. 🤷♀️
United Healthcare denies 1 in 3, not 1 in 7. Also, the expensive case mentioned involved a middle income family, and insuramce comapnies bank on people not being able to go to court to get the benefits legally owed to them.
Y'all are just wrong on this one, how rich are you guys anyway?
Plenty rich pampered pets.
They aren't rich. Not "eat the rich" rich. But this is their paycheck. Folks, everyday folks, will do EVERYTHING but the right thing because they want that pay. Unlike the rest of us that live paycheck to paycheck, scrabble, laobor and die for that pay. I do not begrudge ANYONE who has some wealth. I don't point my finger simply at folks that have a bigger house than me. The problem is: they have an audience and they are peddling crap to a hurting audience. But I agree. They are completely WRONG...jabbering about "lowering costs" and how Obama was hobbled. WAHHHHHHHH
They go to parties with these same billionaires.
@@sammonicuslux They were obama staffers. These guys are definitely 1%ers or atleast ideologically align themselves with that group.
Lack of empathy isn’t performative. It’s real and it’s shared by people regardless of political affiliation. Americans are tired and sick and angry and we continue to be ignored.
Some real condescending "we know better" energy when he said that.
A lot of people forget that when you change jobs, not only do you change healthcare plans but you usually have to wait 90 days or a probation period before the company lets you enroll in coverage. 3 months isn’t an insignificant amount of time to go with no coverage for you or your family
There is no debate in the comment section. Even right wing fans of Ben Shapario turned on him.
Thank you! I was thinking this exact thing. I have been getting progressively angrier with this pod for the past year or so and I’m sorry but I’m out. They have no idea what a majority of Americans want. I’ll go find somebody who actually has empathy for us commoners.
Luigi escaped on a city bike, literally took public transportation. Legend.
Legend! 🏆
Um I think it was a Citi Bike
Luigi also committed the murder right in front of a camera, left DNA at the scene, got his face pictured while flirting, got recognized in a McDonalds, had searchable social accounts, still had the murder weapon on him when apprehended, apparently almost threw up at cops' first question: been to NY lately? and got caught in a week. Your standards for "legend" are alarmingly low.
@@cxzact9204 lol probably
I think it's more then just about healthcare. It's about the huge disparity between the mega rich and the rest of us.
Well it's about the class division between the poor and the non-poor ultimately. He's not mentally ill so they can't use that excuse. He's not some sort of deranged psychopath. He was someone who was pushed by this horribly by his system into an action that gives it notice.
He's a freedom fighter who was pushed to an extreme means of expressing the desire for freedom from the tyranny of the apathetic Rich.
He came from privilege.
@@Collageartist69the “privileged” are still small fry compared to billionaires
@@jj947 you think the guy killed was a billionaire? You people are so dumb
Yes, but the criminal healthcare ststem is plenty to focus on at the moment.
Murder is bad. Death by neglect is horrific. I think the internet reactions reflect the difference between those two words accurately.
You guys are so deeply out of touch. But then you probably have enough money that you can afford medical care. Most of us don’t. We had a candidate who was going to address this very urgent need of the people to access healthcare and you guys pushed for the party centrist instead. Why do you condemn a man who killed one person but empathy for a man who denied care and caused the death of thousands?
Those who were murdered by UHC CEO also had families.
Don't you mean, those who had their claims denied because of the algorithms? The CEO didn't personally deny anybody! I'm sick of this nonsense that it's ok to murder people!
But it is much easier for these rich podcasters to empathize with and put themselves in the shoes of that CEO.
@@Nathan-jk2gnMaybe they should have shown their empathy with the working class by voting in a candidate who promised to junk the ACA?
The poll asking "Do you like your health insurance?" is ridiculous.
What other options do we have to compare?
Plus, remove all the Medicare and Corporate Platinum plans and see what the results are. The only people that like their healthcare have no idea how much it really costs the rest of us.
Almost every point these guys make has them citing some poll. If recent history has shown us anything it's that polls are less and less reliable and the methods of understanding the public consciousness and zeitgeist have to change. Traditional polls no longer work because they aren't accurate. I'm checking out of this podcast. "Pod Save America" has full on transitioned into "Maintain the Status Quo"
This Media group needs to find some identity and actual politics and not just find post hoc justifications for democratic leadership.
The CEO earned $80000/day, yet the reward to catch his killer was only $40000.
Half a day's work for a CEO.
Think about that.
Being in the healthcare industry on the provider side, the private payor system here in the US is based on greed. And it's severe. It's impacting lives. The lack of empathy for the CEO's loss is understandable because I have UHC insurance and all my claims get denied first. It's a problem. It's killing lives. People are crying over the one dude, but because of UHC and all the private payors, hundreds of thousands of lives are lost and irreversibly destroyed daily. I think having a government based single payor would solve this where the premiums are based on how much we earn and pay. Profit should NOT be the goal of healthcare.
Who says they’re satisfied with their health insurance? My wife and I are both professionals and do pretty well. Our health insurance is a nightmare. Literally every claim is a fight.
I’m 40 and healthy with supposedly great insurance from my six-figure job. I wasted two hours of my life this week calling around to set up a GP appointment - nowhere except ghetto hospitals was “taking new patients at this time.” What’s the point?
@@NarrowShouldersOpenMind "ghetto hospitals"? Wtf.
Nah, revolutions are rarely just discourse. Jon, how long have we been talking about insurance and healthcare? What has changed? Let me know what I’m missing.
You're missing what these guys are about.
Ultimately their bread is buttered on the same side as the Brian Thompsons, because they have the same employers.
Performativeky woke neoliberalism is still neoliberalism.
It's the same as their worthless liberal tears for Palestinians getting eradicated.
Nobody likes their health insurance. Please love their Healthcare. Why do we need this stupid barrier. For you guys to resort to some stupid poll is infuriating.
Almost every point these guys make has them citing some poll. If recent history has shown us anything it's that polls are less and less reliable and the methods of understanding the public consciousness and zeitgeist have to change. Traditional polls no longer work because they aren't accurate. I'm checking out of this podcast. "Pod Save America" has full on transitioned into "Maintain the Status Quo"
My story: I’m an Australian and around 8 years ago I was diagnosed with a blood cancer (Multiple Myeloma). I didn’t even contact my private health insurance provider (I could have gone public, but preferred private as I get to choose my doctors).
16 chemo sessions (via day oncology) - cost me $600. As an “excess” to then get the rest of my treatment free.
Stem Cell Transplant (pre-chemo, 2 sessions to capture my stem cells, 1 month in hospital for transplant, 1 month follow up when I got sick) - FREE!
I walked into the cancer hospital and signed a form. My private health care insurance just paid it.
I feel sorry for Americans who dont realise how bad your system(s) are. You need to travel abroad (NOT to Mexico/Canada…further!) and hear other stories to help guide your thinking.
For what it’s worth, I’ve talked to some people who work for insurance companies and even they think we should have a single payer system.
Wealthy white podcasters have no idea how angry the average person in America is, or what we have to deal with.
Sounds about white, and I am white. However, I currently live abroad in a place with universal healthcare. As I own my own small business, I have to have private insurance and everything is still so cheap. I even buy my birth control and anti-depressants over the counter. No prescription or insurance is needed for them. For both medications, I pay less than $50 a month.
Yeah they are extremely out of touch with reality. No idea why they’re so smug TBH.
The average person just voted to get rid of the ACA. I have a feeling the average person is confused.
Did they have any idea when they were fighting for the ACA for years while the average person did fuck all and then voted in a fascist TWICE?
Sorry guys. Empathy is out-of-network.
The question is not will the CEO's killer be charged with murder. The question is when will the CEO be charged with murder.
Actually the big question is where in the world are they going to find people who actually might find him guilty...
Shocker take from the guys who helped kneecap single-payer health care in this country.
It’s important to have both sides of the coin in a movement. The peaceful, logistical groups that offer a promising future and the violent groups that provoke fear and action. There’s no incentive for people abusing their positions of power to stop. They need fear that it could all be taken away. Ideally that comes from a balancing force like the government checking the private sector. When everything is so corrupted, peaceful paths forward can’t succeed on their own. The violence is never good. It’s always sad and the people who carry it out sacrifice their lives as they are rightfully arrested. But its value is real. It shouldn’t be cheered on but solemnly acknowledged. And just because that CEO didn’t gun someone down, doesn’t mean he hadn’t killed people. We have a more critical view of direct violence than indirect violence.
I think calling this theatrics is ignorant to history. The french revolution wasnt performative. The russian and chines communist revolutions weren't performative.
The system is broken, lets break it. Im sick of trying to fix this mess.
Hell! Even the American revolution like. Do these guys forget the literal founding of the country was violent revolution.
The system isn't broken, it's working precisely as intended. We need to change the system.
Remind me how those three revolutions worked out in the short and medium terms...
I don’t think people actually like their health insurance. They’re just thankful for getting healthcare and terrified of what the bills would be without insurance
🎯
People who say they love their plan actually love their doctors, not their plan at all. Or their premiums are being subsidized by their employers. Seniors and other folks on the lower end of the income scale aren't so fortunate.
Trusting a healthcare company saying “80% of people are happy with their insurance” might be the most gullible y’all have ever looked.
they mean they like their doctors lol
They are quoting statistics. Or weren't you listening? Try listening again. That's not the only statistic they quoted.
The remaining 20% are still alive.
The problem is most people don't even answer these surveys, so that number is very off.
Why is soon to be president of the US hawking cologne online? Good grief, he might as well load his grift in the trunk of his car and pull up to a festival. SMH!!
And this is who 50% of America wants to be represented by. It's so sad.
This is not a healthcare only issue. This is a CEO/Billionaire issue.
"We aren't going to shoot our way to universal healthcare" -PSA
Well, we arent going to all die our way towards universal healthcare and the right won't do anything or even try... So... Options are limited.
I feel that Pod Save America is living less and less in 2024 and continuing to live in 2010.
We are starving, dying, being squeezed and no one cares. Finally someone did something and we are all hungry for something to be done.
Politicians can't/won't do it. Companies won't do it. The people have all been radically under educated, under paid, and under relaxed.
This is the natural conclusion of the masses not having access to the modern wonders our society has. Why live in a society if everything we need is behind a paywall we can't scale?
It really annoys me that the person responsible for hundreds of deaths by denying coverage to its own customers. He dies and now we should feel empathy for him!? Sorry thats out of network for me.
Why won't anyone think of the Super Rich? They're just normal Yacht and Jet owners like everyone else.
i am sad he was caught. i don't care if people think I'm awful. the CEO was a serial killer and my dad was one of his victims,
I’m so sorry
I’m with you.
you ARE awful
I agree
Fauci and his Wuhan lab pals are serial killers too
People aren't "happy" with their health insurance, they're "grateful" for what they have and that their situation is not worse.
This
IT IS NOT A BROKEN SYSTEM. IT IS WORKING EXACTLY AS INTENDED.
Before I listen to this, I just wanna say i fully expect Lovett to be on his decorums and norms shit and not call a spade a fucking spade
ding ding ding
This man was a driver of a broken system, not a tool of it. He wasn’t a victim.
Right? An abhorrent take. "Pod Save America" has full on transitioned into "Maintain the Status Quo"
The American people have the right to defend themselves against health insurance
All insurance is a mob game
❤🔥
Then they also have the right to defend themselves against gun manufacturers, the police, and the alt-right, but also abortion providers, good companies and distilleries.
There is no end to this argument that does not include mob rule and arbitrary murder.
@@EdwardLindon Mob Rule and Arbitrary Murder is Democracy. Where have you been living?
“There is no justification for violence” this is objectively untrue.
They justify Israel's violence all the time, and they worked for a president who was famously fond of dropping bombs on the Middle East.
Justifications are not objective, so propositions about justifications cannot be objective.
Right? Pretty rich coming from a group of guys who's former boss used drone strikes.
Lovett left out (1) crucial step…how instrumental are United Healthcare (& their CEO) in LOBBYING & MAINTAINTING a “broken healthcare system”. We know they profit from it but how do they facilitate it remaining broken.
The media has been and continues to be really out of touch on this one. The disconnect between media, politicians, and the working class is wild.
IDK, I think the media knows exactly what it's doing. So do the politicians.