I really didn’t expect this comment section to make me actually want to try it…

That sounds familiar. I knew lots of folks whose motivation was highest at the start of college and then the grind started wearing on them by the end.

My lopsided experience was mostly due to undiagnosed ADHD. “Gifted” when young, distracted by girls and unknown ADHD as a teen, then finally diagnosed at 20 and my grades came back around.

Unfortunately as long as there’s a profit to be made, some corpos will always buy your favorite IP out and wear it like a skin suit.

Absolutely. My grades definitely dipped in high school but then were appropriately geeky again by college and through grad school.

You’re entitled to that belief, but I’ve seen the first one work in my field firsthand, as I said. We’ve also seen universal work in multiple countries, and I’m optimistic we’ll see ultimately see it in the US too.

The point was to throw out some ways that one can push for change without murdering people and hoping for the best, not to solve healthcare reform in a Lemmy comment section.

I don’t presume to have the answers, but there are plenty of alternatives if we’re comparing them to murder in the street.

I replied to another comment about one specific way to introduce licensure risk to insurance company doctors as a way to get them to change their policies. It happens all the time, and the more people that know about it, the better. (They rely on people being unfamiliar with how they operate)

Long term, I think our best bet is to keep pushing for universal healthcare that will effectively make health insurance obsolete. It’s a winning message (something like 60% of America already supports it), and we’ve come close at least twice in recent history.

Yup, I think we’re totally on the same page here.

The problem I see, though, is all the most morally defensible and procedural fixes require the healthy functioning of institutions that have been weakened, dismantled and / or perverted and turned against us. And a frightening number of us see that now and feel that normal channels for change are closed. I’m not at quite that point myself, but I know how bad it is for so many and I don’t blame anyone who reads our current situation that way.

Relevantly, I think this also makes a good argument that “how we solve things” as a society is as important the problems we’re solving. When our institutions are weakened or bypassed (through corruption, lobbying, or vigilantism), it’s destabilizing and leads to bigger issues. I hate how much power insurance companies have over care too, and I get it, I just want to urge everyone to be cautious about this familiar type of language that tries to frame violence as the “only remaining option”. It’s almost always pure rationalization coming from people’s anger rather than truly being our only option.

Always two, there are.

tldr: one idea would be challenging their ability to hide behind licensed MDs who are paid to shoulder liability

This is actually my field, and I’ve spent countless hours of my life arguing with these insurance companies on behalf of patients they’ve denied, (losing more often than I’ve won, but you have to try). They suck.

When they’re being exceptionally unreasonable, the bridge-burning hail mary I would throw would be threatening the license of the provider that denied the appealed claim. It has worked a surprising number of times.

Most people don’t realize that it’s not just paper-pushers at insurance companies who are denying claims. Those folks can routinely deny things that policy excludes, but if it’s a judgement call or a challenge that their policy isn’t meeting medical necessity, they hide behind doctors on their payroll who are putting their license on the line when they have to say that the insurance company is justified. Those individuals can be reported to their licensing board or even sued. Short of voting in universal healthcare one day, I think this is the most direct route to challenge this nonsense.

I’d encourage everyone to be careful with this type of thinking, because I’m seeing it a lot. Characterizing situations as having only two unpleasant options (“two tracks” in this case) is a classic strategy to rationalize violence. Gangs use it, terrorist groups use it, and even governments trying to justify wars use it (e.g. remember Bush’s “You’re either with us or against us”).

It’s a textbook false dichotomy, and it’s meant to make the least unpleasant option presented seem more palatable. This situation is not as simple as “either you’re in favor of insurance companies profiting off of denied healthcare of millions or you’re ok with murdering a CEO”

It makes you go blind.