The Ethics of Healthcare Vigilantism

Last week, a big public uproar forced the health-insurance carrier Anthem to backtrack on a plan to cut reimbursements for anesthesia. Then, an assassin—suspected to be a 26 year old ivy league graduate named Luigi Mangiano—murdered Brian Thompson, the CEO of United Healthcare.

In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss:

* Why there such widespread progressive interest in both of these stories;

* How the progressive backlash against Anthem, driven by the American Society of Anesthesiologists, underscores just how thorny the politics of Medicare for all would be in practice;

* Whether either of these developments would have played out differently under a better-conceived health-care finance system.

Then, behind the paywall, why the differences between public and private health insurance really do matter, both in policy terms and as lightning rods for public anger. Would people left of center have been angry at Medicare for cutting payments to anesthesiologists? (Spoiler: Medicare already did this.) How badly do the profit and brand-management motives private insurers operate under warp patient care, relative to public payers like Medicare? Is it fair to be angrier at private health insurance companies than public providers for rationing services?

All that, plus the full Politix archive are available to paid subscribers—just upgrade your subscription and pipe full episodes directly to your favorite podcast app via your own private feed.

Further reading:

* Lisa Beutler, from the archive, on the solidarity-based case for Medicare for all.

* Matt Bruenig on why private health insurers actually are the worst bad guys in the health-care system, despite being middle men.

* Noah Smith on why, actually, no, it’s the doctors and hospitals and such.