Handwriting analysts try to figure out if something was written by forger who carefully studied their victim. This is not that.

You don’t need an expert to prove that the manifesto was written by someone who never knew Mangione.

They found a handwritten manifesto on him. It would be very easy to prove that it’s not his handwriting, if it actually were planted.

Sure, it’s possible someone present at the murder could identify him. But it’s not necessary. He wouldn’t be the first person found guilty based on video footage.

That’s all circumstantial evidence.

But then again, circumstantial evidence simply means “not eyewitness evidence”. It does not mean “unreliable evidence”, and people are convicted all the time based on circumstantial evidence.

Apparently not.

They didn’t use GoFundMe.

They had to use GiveSendGo, which is basically GoFundMe for fascists.

GoFundMe also removed fundraisers for Rittenhouse’s legal defense.

The ban was only lifted after he was acquitted.

incentivizing the company to do what it can to make ALL COSTS go up, and raise premiums to match

Sure, but the problem is that they can’t control ALL costs, only their own.

If another insurance company manages to reduce their own costs (e.g. by paying anesthesiologists less), then that company will have an opportunity to lower premiums instead of raise them. And since insurance customers are extremely price sensitive, those companies that are trying to get to premiums to $1000 will see their customers switch to the one that keeps premiums at $100 or better yet $80.

All the insurance companies know this, which is why they are all trying to reduce own costs rather than raise them.

they spend 80% of all premium revenue on care

True. Actually, large insurance companies need to spend 85%.

an incentive for insurance companies to pay higher costs for care so they can make more profit

That doesn’t make sense. Insurance companies have to pay health care providers for care. The more care costs, the less money is left for insurance companies. In fact, if health care costs are too high then the insurance company can go bankrupt.

That said, the converse is not true: insurance companies don’t directly profit by cutting health care spending. That’s because they need to use 80% or 85% of their revenue on care. However, cutting health care spending (by delay, denial, etc) allows insurance companies to lower their premiums.

And since people often want the cheapest possible insurance, lower premiums means more customers, which means more total revenue, which ultimately does mean higher profits.

Of course, the key assumption here is that customers will accept worse care if it means lower premiums. This is one of the few industries where you literally get what you pay for.

Oops, I read “generic medicine” as “genetic medicine”. I thought you were suggesting that hospitals start competing with pharma over new mRNA designs!

Yeah, you don’t need a clinical trial to make generic medicine. But you do need special facilities, which most hospitals probably would be unwilling to pay for.

Neither UHC nor Anthem have anywhere near a 90 billion dollar net profit.

GTFO with that. Lmao

Anthem’s policy wasn’t going to leave patients in agony. It was going to cap how much anesthesiologists could bill.

There are already plenty of billing caps in medicine. Medicare has a cap for every single patient in the hospital.

When a patient reaches the cap they aren’t dumped to the curb in agony, that would be an instant malpractice lawsuit. Instead, the hospital works for free. The same thing (in principle) happens when your plumber offers a flat rate for a job but it takes a lot longer than expected.

That’s why a large number of hospital patients actually lose money for the hospital, but the hospital (and presumably these anesthesiologists) make up for it on the other patients. In the end it all averages out.

how come they are so fucking profitable.

UHC has a profit margin around 6%, whereas Anthem’s is around 3%. Those are not particularly high. For comparison, Toyota (8%) and Home Depot (10%) are both more profitable.

Insurers already divide providers into in-network and out-of-network. They deny or pay very little for out-of-network providers, because they want their policyholders to stay in-network. The reason they prefer in-network providers is that they negotiate reduced/discounted rates with those providers.

Sure, they could outright hire those providers as employees, but that means they would have to start paying their entire salaries rather than just discounted fee-for-service. And that’s not necessarily a good idea, because health care clinics are not very profitable. Basically, this is the same question facing everyone who has to choose between hiring an employee and paying a subcontractor.

That said, some insurers do run their own clinics and hospitals, notably Kaiser Permanente.

Well, when you deny a claim from a clinic you own then it’s very likely your “savings” are losses for your clinic.

instead of getting together and building a non profit co-op

The Blue Cross Blue Shield insurers are either nonprofits or mutuals (the shareholders are the policyholders). So are many smaller insurers.

But nonprofit insurers are subject to many of the same pressures as other insurers. They need to keep premiums low, and they would go bankrupt if they paid every claim.

Likewise, the vast majority of hospitals are nonprofits. But nonprofit hospitals have to pay for medicines, doctor salaries, etc too. Most are barely scraping by and can’t fund clinical trials into novel genetic medicines.

They’ll take the savings and issue a stock buyback.

They can’t do that.

The ACA requires large health insurers to spend 85% of their income on health care providers. If they don’t (eg because they start paying less to anesthesiologists) then the savings must be used to reduce premiums or give rebates to customers.

Panama, Colombia, Bolivia, Venezuela, Cuba

Of those, American troops only invaded Panama.

Meanwhile, Russian troops invaded not only Poland but Finland, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Hungary, Czechoslovakia…

Weaker than expected growth is not an “economy in shambles”.

It is absolutely clear cut.

Ukraine is a sovereign country. Russia violated its sovereignty.