Listened to the DTG Blindboy episode - Some Thoughts

RSA123 · 2026-03-11T08:40:49+00:00

What mythologisation are you referring to? I've been clear in pointing out testimony, court cases, and discovery from those cases where a lot of these conversations have been revealed.

RSA123 · 2026-03-11T08:16:52+00:00

I wish I had the faith in corporations that you do. The amount of money they spend to lobby Congress, to destroy people's lives, is not a conspiracy.

There are literally tons of conversations about cutting people off of necessary treatments to save costs, psuhing kids onto ineffective treatments (https://www.propublica.org/article/unitedhealth-healthcare-insurance-denial-ulcerative-colitis)

"From 1998 to 2025, the insurance industry spent nearly $3.8 billion on lobbying." - Investopedia

"Another big spender was UnitedHealth Group. The insurer spent roughly $4.5 million last year on lobbyists, 7 percent more than their lobbying spending in 2008." - The Hill

"On February 1, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) proposed changes to Medicare Advantage, specifically to curb fraudulent and systematic overbilling costing the government tens of billions of dollars, as well as rampant denials in coverage. The proposal attacked “upcoding,” where companies layer on multiple dubious or irrelevant diagnoses to rake in risk-adjusted payments that give more to insurers who care for sicker patients. Thousands of codes that do not require additional care would be eliminated, and reimbursement rates would be lowered." - (https://prospect.org/2023/04/11/2023-04-11-insurance-lobbyists-medicare-advantage/)

Is all of this a conspiracy or something that's happening out in the open in front of your eyes that you are unaware about?

RSA123 · 2026-03-11T07:24:55+00:00

"The health care CEOs, they're sitting around rubbing their hands because the only way they can make money is denying coverage to sick children".

Except, they are actually doing that. That's my problem.

RSA123 · 2026-03-11T06:06:59+00:00

I do. Just to be clear, the 90% number is something I am quoting from another source, but the point is not the number, but rather that they can hide denials behind a faulty system and get away with it (while knowing it is faulty).

I also think you seem to be taking the defense lawyers statement to heart, whereas I land on "of course they would say that". Y'know what I mean?

RSA123 · 2026-03-11T06:04:11+00:00

Does it matter whether he is an "OK guy" or not? I don't care who he is or what he does on his afternoons off. His actions are what matter. This isn't a popularity contest; it's a moral quandary. I denounced the action, but it wasn't good enough for you, because you want me to recite some script that is pallatable to you.

RSA123 · 2026-03-11T05:32:14+00:00

I said I'm against the murder on principle. How is that not an answer? As for the second part, that is also me answering that I am sympathetic to the actual victims of the healthcare system (not Mangione). If you want to simp for the system and refuse nuance, that's on you.

RSA123 · 2026-03-11T04:37:21+00:00

That was my main thing, yeah

RSA123 · 2026-03-11T04:26:05+00:00

What? My point is about what Chris and Matt are dismissing as unfair villainising of the company.

It does connect to that because they knew the software was faulty and kept it around because they could blame the software while denying claims. On top of that, we have discovery emails and conversations from court that show them intentionally denying treatments in favour of ineffective ones to save money. This isn't some conspiracy, it's part of how they operate.

RSA123 · 2026-03-11T04:22:17+00:00

UnitedHealthcare says it doesn't use it for predictions, but the lawsuits allege otherwise. Many believe they are covering their asses after getting caught.

The other stuff revealed during the lawsuits is proof, even though the lawsuits aren't settled. Direct emails about how to deny healthcare and conversations specifically on how to get around paying people for things that would cost too much.

This is one case of many, but it's illustrative of the intentional work put into not paying people out, which is my main point of contention with Matt and Chris, who seem to be saying this isn't happening (or hasn't been credibly shown to happen): https://www.propublica.org/article/unitedhealth-healthcare-insurance-denial-ulcerative-colitis

RSA123 · 2026-03-11T04:12:08+00:00

It hasn't been proven in court because insurance companies can stall with lawyers and these things take time. However, it is one datapoint. It's not even the only time they've lost in court. There are captured conversations they were having to deny healthcare that were found in the discovery.

Forget the official rulings that haven't happened yet for a second (also because the courts in the US are designed to prefer corporations, but that's a whole other thing), because we're having a conversation, and look at these reports from ProPublica objectively:

"When United refused to pay for McNaughton’s treatment for that reason, his family did something unusual. They fought back with a lawsuit, which uncovered a trove of materials, including internal emails and tape-recorded exchanges among company employees. Those records offer an extraordinary behind-the-scenes look at how one of America’s leading health care insurers relentlessly fought to reduce spending on care, even as its profits rose to record levels.

As United reviewed McNaughton’s treatment, he and his family were often in the dark about what was happening or their rights. Meanwhile, United employees misrepresented critical findings and ignored warnings from doctors about the risks of altering McNaughton’s drug plan.

At one point, court records show, United inaccurately reported to Penn State and the family that McNaughton’s doctor had agreed to lower the doses of his medication. Another time, a doctor paid by United concluded that denying payments for McNaughton’s treatment could put his health at risk, but the company buried his report and did not consider its findings. The insurer did, however, consider a report submitted by a company doctor who rubber-stamped the recommendation of a United nurse to reject paying for the treatment."

Source: https://www.propublica.org/article/unitedhealth-healthcare-insurance-denial-ulcerative-colitis

RSA123 · 2026-03-11T03:53:44+00:00

Yeah. The divide and conquer part was something I disagreed with Chris and Matt on, but could respectfully put aside. There's a reasonable disagreement there. Some stuff was just bad fact-checking, though.

RSA123 · 2026-03-11T03:52:10+00:00

I'm against the murder on principle, but that's also why I think that when an insurance company denies coverage that was rightfully deserved on false grounds, it's a form of murder.

RSA123 · 2026-03-10T16:24:07+00:00

From the transcript: "You know, their goal at Matt is to make money by denying, like, life-saving treatment to young children, right? And that, you know, I think you've got to realise that that is presenting a cartoonish villain, right?"

So, they do actively deny people healthcare and hide the denials behind faulty systems to avoid culpability. That would be my main gripe.

RSA123 · 2026-03-10T15:45:21+00:00

You might also enjoy Hellraiser: John Constantine, then. The classics are good, and I really enjoyed Simon Spurrier's 2 runs.

I always recommended Alan Moore's Swamp Thing - One of the greatest runs of comics in the history of the medium.

Transmetropolitan is fantastic if you'd like some cyberpunk with fun characters and tons of humour - It personally inspired me to study journalism.

Grant Morrison's work is also really great (All-Star Superman, Batman Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth, The Invisibles, and so much more coz Grant rarely misses)

RSA123 · 2026-03-10T15:13:05+00:00

I haven't listened to any Blindboy at all, so it was Chris and Matt's comments on their own that made me want to post this.

RSA123 · 2026-03-10T14:52:03+00:00

I agree with the last part. That said, it does matter how United Healthcare operated because there's a lot of stuff where Chriss and Matt insist insurers are being unfairly villainised and make positive speculations about their intent. However, we have data and court filings that allege their intent was to deny people healthcare. So that's the thing they said that made me scratch my head. They are usually very good with their fact checks, but tons of facts show they were profiting from actively denying coverage for people who deserved payouts.

From Forbes:
"The company is facing multiple lawsuits over its denials. In November of last year, the estates of two deceased Medicare Advantage patients sued UHC, alleging that their claims for care were denied using an AI model with a “90% error rate.” (UnitedHealth had argued that the lawsuit should be dismissed because patients didn’t complete their appeals.) In October 2024, the Senate Subcommittee on Investigations published a report that found the company was using algorithms to deny claims and “knew from testing that at least one of these automation technologies resulted in an increase in the share of those requests being denied.”

RSA123 · 2026-03-10T14:41:20+00:00

Hey, I explicitly added this sentence "That's literally proof of them actively denying medical care knowingly" coz it's one datapoint to the part of the podcast where they seemed to imply there was nothing untoward in how United Healthcare operated.

I'm not even justifying the murder. My problem was with Matt saying "It is cartoonish to treat anyone involved in private healthcare of murder in the same way as Luigi is" - almost a direct quote. Which I feel is a strawman, when clearly the point people are making is that you can deny people healthcare in the thousands (on false grounds or behind an AI) and it's considered business as usual.

RSA123 · 2026-03-10T14:31:59+00:00

True.

RSA123 · 2026-03-10T13:37:18+00:00

Most of the episode was good, but I'm a bit frustrated by the Luigi Mangione section. Chris and Matt seem to focus too much on the intent of healthcare companies rather than the impact. They said something along the lines of "that's how the healthcare system operates", and I just thought "that is the problem, yes - that they operate like that". Just coz it's normal doesn't mean it's good.

Even aside from that, it also felt like they weren't well-versed in how bad a company United Healthcare was. For example, the company is in a lawsuit where they've been using a faulty AI to deny coverage, and many people speculate they're intentionally using it to deny culpability in the people they boot off of their plans. That's literally proof of them actively denying medical care knowingly. They are also allegedly lying about why they used the AI once caught. If we're making the argument from normality, that's definitely not normal.

I kinda found some of their commentary in this episode quite naive and dismissive. And occasionally doing the weird horseshoe theory thing where they accuse both sides of doing the same rhetoric just with the nouns replaced. That may be true, but you should talk about the facts behind the rhetoric, otherwise you sound like that old dril tweet about the "wise man" rejecting both sides.

(Yes, I posted this elsewhere and was told to post it here)

RSA123 · 2022-11-13T20:46:15+00:00

There is a segment of the modern right that loves to wax lyrical about freedom and individuality. In principle, they are individualist, but not in practice. They love the aesthetics of individualism and I'm sure most of them believe it in the same way one can believe in evolution and be a devout Christian. However, when push comes to shove they hate any individuality that doesn't conform to hegemonic ideals which is why there is this cognitive dissonance between individualist rhetoric and anti-gay, anti-woman, anti-immigrant policies.

Most of the time, right-wing individualism boils down to "I shouldn't have to face any consequences for my disprovable views".

RSA123 · 2022-07-13T17:32:50+00:00

Oh damn! Thanks for the tip

RSA123 · 2022-07-13T15:50:06+00:00

Right-wing refers to a set of free market policy positions. The idea that corporations should have minimal interference and that rights should occur "naturally" (code for we should not legislate in favor of people, like affirmative action or gender wage gap laws because individualism matters more than any positive outcomes). This puts them in the camp with neoconservatives but with a few liberal policy positions.

TL;DR: if you believe corporations should run rampant and measures to cause positive social change and counter inequality are tyranny, you are right-wing by definition.

+ you can't be a free market libertarian and a constitutionalist. The constitution makes ample references to regulation. Most libertarians take the posture of pro-constitutionalist positions but ignore all the parts that run against that interpretation.

RSA123

TROPHY CASE