• Milk_Sheikh@lemm.ee
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    10 days ago

    These dumbfucks are too high on their own self righteousness to see the lasting damage they are causing not only to their own institutions, but the country. Absolutely GLAZING the CEO whilst completely omitting the insider trading charges leveled at him, and ignoring any and all context of UHC’s denial rates whilst pumping ’consumer satifsfaxtion’ surveys as if health insurance is fine and dandy.

    When the fourth branch flips over for belly rubs from the state, people see the base corruption and abandon mainstream media - and turn to alternatives. Twitter, Facebook, Telegram, etc where foreign influence propaganda and misinformation has no gatekeepers.

    • aesthelete@lemmy.world
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      10 days ago

      When the fourth branch flips over for belly rubs from the state, people see the base corruption and abandon mainstream media - and turn to alternatives. Twitter, Facebook, Telegram, etc where foreign influence propaganda and misinformation has no gatekeepers.

      One I’ve been reading is: https://www.kenklippenstein.com/

  • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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    10 days ago

    If both are class traitors than I support the one who didn’t betray my class. But also engineers and tech workers are still working class and nowhere near CEO level.

    I’m an engineer who went to private schools and came from a family of engineers. Doesn’t mean I’ve never been homeless, doesn’t mean my family wasn’t financially fucked by health insurance. The middle class aren’t ceo level even when we’re a shrinking class

    • JovialMicrobial@lemm.ee
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      9 days ago

      It seems that narrative that has been fed to us about wealth classes is breaking down.

      Their worst fear is the day all the classes below the wealthy elites team up and work together. They’ll do and say anything to stop it, including trying the fuel envy or jealousy from the poor people towards the upper middle class.

    • wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      10 days ago

      Apologies in advance, I may have just discovered my personal inner schizo.


      Don’t forget that there is a massive, coordinated campaign to get us to eat our own by overemphasizing life differences in the range of poverty to upper middle class while shrouding the realities of life in the 1% amd underemphasizing the difference between “can send my kid to private school” and “could build a private school for my kid”.

      On its face it sounds absolutely absurd to lump in Ivy League Greg with Trailer Park Steve, but they both have far more in common with each other than they do with multi-millionaires. The knee jerk almost primal rejection of that idea that comes quickly to most people is fucking intentionally taught into us.

      • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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        9 days ago

        Congratulations on taking the red pill, that’s what the concept of the middle class always has been. And it’s a tactic the powerful have always used. They want the middle class thinking of ourselves as fundamentally different from and better than the poor and they want the poor resenting us for it

  • LandedGentry@lemmy.zip
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    8 days ago

    Opinion piece, folks. The NYT is a boot licking rag but opinion pieces are the opinion of the individual writer, sometimes someone not even associated with the paper. I’ve seen wild shit go up there that they’d never agree with.

    • sudo@programming.dev
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      8 days ago

      Brett Stevens is a permanent opinion piece writer at the NYT. This isn’t directly from the editorial board but it is a person they hired directly.

      He is their “pet conservative” though so he’s a professional moron.

    • JcbAzPx@lemmy.world
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      8 days ago

      Opinion pieces are chosen by the editors. They don’t allow any opinions they don’t want to make print.

      • WoodScientist@lemmy.world
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        8 days ago

        Exactly. For example, they have a policy of not allowing trans writers to write opinion pieces on trans issues, as they consider the people most knowledgeable about trans issues to be “biased.”

      • LandedGentry@lemmy.zip
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        8 days ago

        Yes. They put it up because everyone is reading it and seething and sharing it and talking about it.

        Are you not familiar with how media operates? It’s often a cynical business reflecting only one thing: they like money.

  • microphone900@lemmy.ml
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    10 days ago

    Bret Stephens, the author, is not telling the whole story and using the omissions to spin a story of ‘most Americans are happy with the system.’ This [expletive] says the below to defend against the united anger at the health insurance industry

    As for the suggestion that Thompson’s murder should be an occasion to discuss America’s supposed rage at private health insurers, it’s worth pointing out that a 2023 survey from the nonpartisan health policy research institute KFF found that 81 percent of insured adults gave their health insurance plans a rating of “excellent” or “good.” Even a majority of those who say their health is “fair” or “poor” still broadly like their health insurance. No industry is perfect — nor is any health care model — and insurance companies make terrible calls all the time in the interest of cost savings. But the idea that those companies represent a unique evil in American life is divorced from the experience of most of their customers.

    This [expletive] looked at the report’s top and only positive point and ignored the rest. The next very next point is

    • Despite rating their insurance positively, most insured adults report experiencing problems using their health coverage; people in poorer health are more likely to report problems. A majority of insured adults (58%) say they have experienced a problem using their health insurance in the past 12 months – such as denied claims, provider network problems, and pre-authorization problems.

    Here are the other points on the report:

    • Nearly half of insured adults who had insurance problems were unable to satisfactorily resolve them, with some reporting serious consequences. Half of consumers with insurance problems say their problem was resolved to their satisfaction.
    • Affordability of premiums and out-of-pocket costs are a concern, particularly for those with private health coverage, and for some, contributed to not getting care. About half of adults with Marketplace plans (55%) or ESI (46%) rate their insurance negatively when it comes to premiums, compared to 27% of people with Medicare and 10% of Medicaid enrollees. Four-in-ten insured adults say they skipped or delayed some type of care in the past year due to cost. One in six insured adults (16%), including larger shares of those at lower income levels, say they had problems paying medical bills in the past year.
    • Insured adults overwhelmingly support public policies to make insurance simpler to understand and to help them avoid or resolve insurance problems. **About nine in ten say they support requirements on insurers to maintain accurate and up-to-date provider directories, provide simpler, easier-to read EOBs, disclose their claims denial rates to regulators and the public, and provide in advance, upon request, information about whether care is covered and their out-of-pocket cost liability. **

    [Expletive] this disingenuously written story, [expletive] Bret Stephen for not telling the whole story, and [expletive] the New York Times for time after time publishing BS and propaganda that sets us all back.

    • ikidd@lemmy.world
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      10 days ago

      Your nanny state instance admins redact naughty words to “[expletive]” before it federates out. It’s pretty funny when you use it a bunch of times to help get your anger across.

      • microphone900@lemmy.ml
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        10 days ago

        It does? Hahahaha, that’s great, I’m trying to swear less in general, but good to know I didn’t have to redact myself on here. I’m curious to see what happens.

        Shit fuck.

        Edit: did the instance filter it? It’s still showing up for me.

        • aasatru@kbin.earth
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          10 days ago

          Shows in this post. I guess it censores it when used to describe people, like “these fucking healthcare CEOs and their piece of shit allies”.

    • shalafi@lemmy.world
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      10 days ago

      I’m sure many are happy with their plans given that they have no real choice.

      I’d be happier with a plan that punches me in the face twice a year rather than one that punches me monthly.

      • Eranziel@lemmy.world
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        10 days ago

        Yeah, people rating their insurance as “excellent” obviously comes with the implied “compared to other US healthcare insurance options,” if you read the rest of it or spend even 5 seconds thinking about it.

  • solsangraal@lemmy.zip
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    10 days ago

    LOL it says all it needs to say that this guy felt that this article needed to be written, in order to spin reality into something it’s not

  • TheDemonBuer@lemmy.world
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    10 days ago

    Here’s the article, for anyone interested.

    It basically boils down to: Brian Thompson grew up in a working class family in Iowa, while Luigi Mangione came from wealth and went to private schools. He compares Mangione to Osama bin Laden, and other “Angry rich kids jacked up on radical, nihilistic philosophies,” who “cause a lot of harm, not least to the working-class folks whose interests they pretend to champion.”

    The author then mentions some polling that says people like their health insurance provider, actually. And then finally he says this:

    Thompson’s life may have been cut brutally short, but it will remain a model for how a talented and determined man from humble roots can still rise to the top of corporate life without the benefit of rich parents and an Ivy League degree.

    Without a stitch of irony. Thompson may have come from working class roots, but that ain’t where he ended up. So if it’s ok to become rich, but it’s not ok to be born rich, then I guess this author supports a 100% inherence tax? Yeah, somehow I doubt it.

    • MacN'Cheezus@lemmy.today
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      10 days ago

      Siddartha Gautama (better know as the Buddha) was literally born a prince and gave up his life of privilege in order to live as a beggar. Sure, he never killed anyone (except his own future life as a king), but he still became a saint. Meanwhile, Jesus may have come from more humble roots but he could have become a king had he chosen to do so.

      All I’m saying is Reuters clearly knows where their bread is buttered.

      • frostysauce@lemmy.world
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        10 days ago

        The article in question was an opinion piece published by the New York Times. Why are you bringing Reuters into this?

            • MacN'Cheezus@lemmy.today
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              10 days ago

              Nah, probably just a carryover from some other thread (I’ve been seeing a LOT of them on this topic obvs).

              Also I might be slightly drunk if that helps.

              • frostysauce@lemmy.world
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                10 days ago

                Also I might be slightly drunk if that helps.

                Always helps me! I’m getting into some vodka after I get home from work in a few hours. Cheers!

      • peopleproblems@lemmy.world
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        10 days ago

        As a side note, I recommend reading a lot of Buddhist writings for everyone!

        It’s cool how something so old has found its way to being useful in modern clinical psychology.

    • BetaBlake@lemmy.world
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      10 days ago

      Came from working class roots…and then decided that those same people get to die so he can make a buck.

      Insurance companies are run by sociopaths

      I don’t give a fuck where someone came from, only where they CHOSE to end up.

    • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
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      10 days ago

      People aren’t responsible for how they’re born. Being born into a family that’s benefitted from human suffering is out of their control.

      Choosing to harm people in order to join a class of societal leeches is different.

      • naught101@lemmy.world
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        10 days ago

        Staying in that position of privilege you were born into is also a choice.

        (I agree with you while people are young though)

        • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          10 days ago

          Staying in that position of privilege you were born into is also a choice.

          is it? You can just undo like 15 years of child rearing in that privileged position? Seems factually incorrect to me.

          • naught101@lemmy.world
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            10 days ago

            Undo? No?

            But it doesn’t take that much effort to do some minimal self-education about power structures and injustice and see the patterns. I’d say given how mainstream those discussions are on much of social media these days, it probably takes active work to avoid a basic understanding…

            • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              5 days ago

              But it doesn’t take that much effort to do some minimal self-education about power structures and injustice and see the patterns.

              yeah, and my point is, that it doesn’t change anything, it just makes you aware of it.

              The human ability to be conscious of it’s own existence brought us untold intelligent never before seen. And an unparalleled fear of death, that will never be sated. Neither of these things will ever change in human history, i don’t see why this matters in this context either.

              At the end of the day, it is what it is, what really matters is whether people are objectively bad people or not.

    • samus12345@lemm.ee
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      10 days ago

      The fact that he came from working class roots and chose to become a massive piece of shit makes him even worse than someone who was born into privilege.

      • Sauerkraut@discuss.tchncs.de
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        10 days ago

        Yes! Brian Thompson and Luigi were both class traitors for completely different reasons. Thompson betrayed the working class for his own selfishess while Luigi was like Engels in that he walked away from extreme privilege because he was disgusted by what his class was doing to us.

      • aasatru@kbin.earth
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        10 days ago

        Likewise, Luigi Mangione came from a background of privilege, yet gave it all up in the fight for the rights of all Americans.

        Turns out you can be born into the working class and still be a piece of shit, and you can be born well off and still be a decent person.

        The people writing these opinion pieces should be thrilled to hear that there is still hope for their children.

        • theangryseal@lemmy.world
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          10 days ago

          And THIS is one of the many reasons we love him.

          I don’t remember the dead class traitor’s name and I don’t care to.

        • TheDemonBuer@lemmy.world
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          10 days ago

          Likewise, Luigi Mangione came from a background of privilege, yet gave it all up in the fight for the rights of all Americans.

          That’s very true. Mangione sacrificed his upper class life to fight back against the system, whereas Thompson used the opportunities afforded him by the system to enrich himself at the expense of others.

          • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
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            10 days ago

            to enrich himself at the expense of others.

            You didn’t finish your sentence properly.

            to enrich himself at the expense of others lives.