From nearly all ethical standpoints this murder was unethical and unjust.

Really? I definitely don’t agree with that. The starting base that you’re likely missing is that this man is directly responsible for the preventable deaths of thousands to hundreds of thousands of people. He joined UHC as the CEO in 2021, so has had some time to work and adjust the company. Since he joined, he has changed their policy and implemented measures to deny additional claims (see, chatbot rejecting peoples claims), causing their denial rate to skyrocket to ~30%. Source is here in the XLS files the government provides. UnitedHealtcare claims it pays 90% of claims but hasnt actually provided data showing that.

Since his company posted enormous, increasing profits in every year he was CEO, and the denial rates, I’d argue he’s led the company to deny healthcare claims.

Some easy ethical frameworks where this is acceptable?

Utilitarianism - you could argue that killing him has caused companies to back off other healthcare cuts (see BlueCross and their anaesthesia cuts). The ripples it has caused are likely to impact what decisions CEOs of other healthcare organizations make regarding patient care and denials.

Natural law theory essentially argues that law and morality are separate. An example that might be clearer is slavery - I’d argue killing a slaver is morally correct, because I believe that slavery is immoral, even is slavery is legal in that country. I believe that healthcare should not be a for-profit industry, and that denying people care to prioritize “line goes up” is immoral. Those who are making the decisions to do that are thus directly contributing to the preventable deaths of countless people.

Rousseau talks about the social contract theory, and basically says if a government approves immoral actions (which I count for-profit healthcare as), they forfeit their legitimacy, and thus people have the right to rebel.

Retribuutivism by Kant argues punishment should be proportional to the crime. If you accept that he is responsible for deaths (not legally responsible, but morally), then this is definitely moral, though its worth noting Kant though murder is a serious, irreversible action and recommended other options before murder.

I could keep going, but those are the easy ones.

The problem with your “drop them if they don’t cover you” bit is that people generally won’t find out until something serious happens, and then they’re screwed regardless, OR their employer pays a good chunk of their premiums, so they figure they’re better off to keep that and hope something winds up covered.

Not American, but we studied this in school. The insurance/free market problem is twofold - healthcare is a captive industry, and the knowledge base required to understand what is and isn’t a good plan is well beyond most of the population.

Healthcare is a captive industry in that no one can stop using it entirely. Car insurance? Never get a car, you avoid it. Arguments of car-driven infrastructure aside, that’s not a captive industry. So you, at some point in your life, are going to need healthcare. But, you have no idea how bad it’s going to be, what’s going to be wrong with you, etc. so your needs are extremely unknown. Again, to use a car insurance comparison, your choices are fairly limited here in Canada at least. The govt has set minimum standards that all insurers must provide, and then you can choose to increase above that. But those minimum standards cover enough that you’re very unlikely to be totally screwed with enormous debt after an accident no matter what causes the accident, etc.

This leads to the fact that healthcare is so ridiculously complicated that sorting out what is and isn’t covered by various insurers (who regularly change their plans) is beyond the average person. They have no way of knowing how much a surgery for appendicitis might cost, and if the 2mil max Plan A covers will be enough. Now multiply that by a thousand illnesses.

Healthcare should not be left to the free market - at a minimum, there needs to be a robust, extensive, and functional public insurance to avoid stupidity like bankruptcy from basic, lifesaving surgeries.

Did you read the article? They talk about this one guy who says they should be privatized, then go on to talk about why that isn’t feasible or the problems those examples are already having with their privatized systems, including the drastically different population density. Its pretty clearly a “this doesnt make sense to do” article, even ending with “who would even want to buy it”

Nah things just got bumped till post holiday :(

I always feel a little confused by people using “populism” as a bad thing. The literal definition is “appealing to the masses who feel their concerns are being ignored by those in power.” That is a good thing, provided they aren’t lying about their goals. Cost of living is going up and corporations are raking in record profits, homelessness is on the rise, etc. These are all problems that I feel could be addressed better by non neoliberal policies that actually don’t further entrench those in power.

Populism by itself isn’t bad.

Ha, nope! That’d involve some introspection and realization that they’re partially responsible for the change in Christmas.

All of it basically boils down to “Christmas used to be fun and have seasonal stuff and now it doesn’t”. Most of the genuinely decent sounding points they make about things they miss seem to be more attributed to a lack of social network in the area (ie no caroling, no groups of neighbours out around a fire, etc) or to a lack of time/money in the school system OR desired by the parents (ie less christmas concerts, etc).

They come VERY close, for NatPo, to commenting on the commercialization of christmas, but manage to swing it back around to being our fault (not the corps), so its still a blah, uninspiring article.

Even then, that would not make that businessman the most knowledgeable in the world about medicine

Good for them! That’s one of the big moves to try and break up unions - a two tier system that pits the union against its own members

Every letter still requires paid postage. The problem is, if you set the cost to be actual cost incurred, then anywhere remote or rural will be ridiculously expensive, and no one will send stuff, making the packages/letters that do need to be sent even more expensive, and creating a death spiral. It’s no different than a million other public services that we pay for despite not using (public rec centers are sponsored in part by taxes despite charging admission/membership fees, daycare facilities get partially paid by the government, universities get some tax money despite the crazy fees we pay, etc).

But regarding the pension, I disagree - I believe that every job should be sufficient for someone to live comfortably on - why do we have jobs if someone can’t live on them? And the reason they pay well and have pensions is because they’re unionized, aznd have fought for the pay and pension they have.

Side note, but I always hate how it’s described as “losses”. No shit providing mail delivery is a service. It’s nice to aim to reduce the cost as much as possible, but when you’re looking at something like Canada where there are countless remote and difficult to reach communities, regular communication and parcel delivery is going to cost money

I don’t know if I’m naive and this happens all the time, but it feels like an import of our neighbours base partisanship against ANYTHING the liberals propose based on it coming from them and not from the cons.

Disappointed, but unfortunately not surprised.

Jensen said the ministry is also investigating a claim that Ma paid volunteers “20% of the total claim and pocketed the remaining amount.” However, the ministry would not provide further details about the allegation.

I mean this part sounds sketchy to me. Are you allowed to pay volunteers?

I feel like asking her to account for the cost is not ridiculous. She deserves to be paid for the work she says went into it, including training and organizing, but is that $600,000 worth?

That being said them reaching for this bulletin they provided seems like a stretch. Like the article says, if they had specifically asked for the bulletin to be waived during COVID, I’m sure the govt would have waived it, so that part feels like a big reach.

Canada is the same, just single payer (ie instead of hospitals billing the insurance company, they bill OHIP). There’s still complicated codes, though for what it’s worth they don’t change much, if at all. If you’re billing thousands of shots you’d probably want to double check you’re using the right codes.

Imagine that’s all it took - just use personal email to commit illegal acts and the government can’t do anything!

In all seriousness, hopefully the OPP investigation is, in fact, ongoing and will be able to subpoena the emails, assuming he hasn’t already deleted them.

This shouldn’t be a surprise, but I’m glad we have the data to prove it.

Home prices have skyrocketed recently. Home owners whos earner is boomer-aged obviously bought long ago, and the housing prices have beaten investments in that time period (Assuming houses bough 30-40yrs ago). Anyone who rented and invested the difference is obviously not going to compete.

Additionally, given the insanity of the rental market, anyone under 35 who has enough income to afford the monthly payments on a house has purchased in the last few years, so those who are still renting are likely those at the bottom, unable to purchase a house, and their income is likely the lowest, exacerbating this issue.

I have yet to see anyone who can give me a good reason we don’t have laws preventing:

• Corporate ownership of land zoned residential
• Increasing property tax rates for each additional residential property (ie any property not classified as primary residence). It still leaves loopholes (my wife lives at house A full time, I live at house B full time), but seems like an easier way to try and shore up the speculators.

Overall, the survey found the median net worth of Canadian households was $519,700, up 57 per cent from 2019 when it was last conducted.

How big can a bubble get if its being artificially inflated and supported by government and businesses?-

Our 200 kyr track record of survival **cannot rule out much higher extinction probabilities **

I mean the video shows him going into an abandoned mining town they’re now using as a military training ground, not like he walked into a military base

My understanding was always that Canadian media is dominated by American creations in the art world. The regulations were put in place to subsidize the Canadian artists to help create a national identity separate from the US.

I could be off, but I seem to remember that the requirements for ventilation are less if there is no combustion engine + exhaust fumes present. I’ll see if if I can dig up the actual design standards.