Luigi Mangione
We the People Are Troubled
The US government created a health system more than 80 years ago and has been meddling in it ever since, Stephan Soukup informs readers of American Greatness:
Nothing Private about Health Care in the US
The American healthcare system—such as it is—had its origins in the wage caps imposed by the National War Labor Board on American business in 1942. Companies could not lure employees with higher wages, and so they did so with fringe benefits, the most notable of which was health insurance.
The Shocking Use of “BUT “…
The shooting of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson has exposed a level of the Left’s creepy moral degeneracy that is, paradoxically, both shocking and entirely unsurprising. Yes, Senator Warren’s moral weakness is what matters most. Equally “horrifying” to Mr. Soukup is the senator’s unveiling of her ignorance to ever “be taken seriously again.”
Does Elizabeth Warren include herself in those who should be worried about being gunned down?
From Elizabeth Warren:
“Violence is never the answer,” she conceded before adding, “BUT….”
Sen. Warren then went on to explain why she didn’t really mean that violence is never the answer.
Who Would Want Them Gunned Down?
What about AOC and other members of Congress? How about former President Barack Obama?
According to Mr. Soukup, health insurance today is one of the most aggressively micro-managed industries in the country.
In large part because of Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act, insurers are told what they must cover, whom they must cover, when they must provide coverage, and at what price they must do so.
In this sense, the ACA seems like a horrible imposition on health insurers. In truth, however, the companies supported the scheme when it was enacted and are even more enthusiastic about it today. It has been a boon to their operations.
Obamacare Increased the Bottom Line
“Obamacare” mandated by law that every single person in the country become a client of a health insurance company (unless they happened to be covered under one of the government’s own price-setting, cost-cutting programs). It created a massive pool of new customers and, in so doing, enhanced insurers’ bottom lines significantly. Because of the massive amount of regulation involved, the ACA also created significant barriers to entry into the industry. What that means is that, in addition to providing insurers with millions of new customers, the federal government also, essentially, killed any potential new competition for the insurers.
Nice Work, if You Can Get It
Mr. Soukup has spent the last five years of his career mostly focusing on the government and its corporate collusion, which is best described as “corporatism,” which is probably nowhere more developed and burdensome than in the health insurance industry.
Soukup doesn’t mince words when he bluntly advises Mrs. Warren, “Any problems with health insurance are as much the fault of the government as they are of industry.”
What UnitedHealthcare Is
A shocking number of Americans have lionized the death of CEO Thompson. Senator Warren and her cohorts celebrating the death of Brian Thompson’s murder also seem to be more than a little confused about who and what UnitedHealthcare is. They complain about United as though it were a living, breathing entity. United is a company composed of millions of different people.
When UnitedHealthcare earns a profit, for example, that profit doesn’t go to some big, otherwise empty building somewhere, and it doesn’t go to Brian Thompson or any of the other executives in the company. It goes to the shareholders, both in the form of dividends and (usually) higher share prices. Thompson was merely the agent for the shareholders. Everything he did that benefitted “the company” benefitted its shareholders. That’s how publicly traded companies work.
Well then, who are the shareholders? Don’t be alarmed at the truth.
UnitedHealthcare is an S&P 500 company. That means almost anyone who has a 401(k) or an IRA that invests in index funds is a United Healthcare shareholder. Senator Warren joined the Senate in January 2013, making her a member of Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS), which includes a basic retirement annuity, Social Security, and mandatory participation in the Thrift Savings Plan.
What’s up with the popular Thrift Savings Plan, Mr. Soukup? Why is Thrift so in demand?
One of Thrift’s funds – the C Fund – is popular because it generally produces Thrift’s best returns. The C Fund is a common stock fund that is built to “match the performance of the Standard and Poor’s 500 (S&P 500) index.”
Mr. Soukup assumes, and claims “safely,” that Senator Warren, as a member of FERS has some of her TPS money in the C Fund, which means Senator Warren is a shareholder of United Healthcare.
Brian Thompson may have done some things as the CEO of United Healthcare that made people angry or unhappy, but he only did so as the agent of people like Elizabeth Warren. She, not he, was the ultimate beneficiary of whatever the company did to “push people” too far.
Mr. Soukup, your readers assume you are not suggesting Sen. Warren is stupid, BUT…?
Soukup concludes that Senator Warren is 1. incredibly ignorant, 2. incredibly manipulative, or 3. some combination of the two. If he were placing a bet, he would choose option #3.
Stephen R. Soukup is the Director of The Political Forum Institute and the author of The Dictatorship of Woke Capital.
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