The Devils Are Here

This week, a deranged 26-year-old anti-capitalist allegedly shot to death the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, Brian Thompson, on the streets of New York. The alleged shooter carried a manifesto with him, decrying the nature of America's health care system: "Frankly, these parasites simply had it coming." The manifesto claimed that America spends more than any other country on health care, and yet "we rank roughly #42 in life expectancy," and that this was due to insurance companies that "continue to abuse our country for immense profit because the American public has allowed them to get away with it. Obviously the problem is more complex, but I do not have space, and frankly I do not pretend to be the most qualified person to lay out the full argument."

It is generally useless to argue with the criminally insane -- and the alleged shooter in this case appears to have experienced a mental break some months ago due to both drug abuse and severe chronic back pain -- but the problem is that the shooter's view has become shockingly common. Many Americans believe that American health care is uniquely deficient; far more disturbingly, a certain cadre of elite Americans now cheer murder because they're upset with the health care system.

The first claim -- that America's health care system is uniquely terrible -- is simply belied by the facts. Health care, like any other service or good, is not free; it obeys the simple laws of economics, which suggest that scarcity is a basic condition of life. Health care is not unlimited, nor can it be made so absent extraordinary spending levels. The United States, as it turns out, follows the same pattern as nearly every other developed country: The more we make, the more we spend on health care. That is just as true for the U.K. or Norway as it is for the United States. Furthermore, spending on health care is subject to the law of diminishing returns: additional moneys spent do not necessarily equate to additional life expectancy. That is true across countries as well. Finally, the United States' population has a uniquely high proportion of overweight citizens, drug abusers and car accident victims. This affects overall life expectancy statistics negatively.

This doesn't mean the American health care system is ideal. Far from it. Employer-based health insurance is a holdover from wage controls decades old; health insurers are not actually insurers at all -- they are not in the business of assessing possible risk and then insuring against it; insurance regulations are abstruse and absurd, and the government's subsidization schemes involve low reimbursement rates and shoddy coverage. The problems are myriad. 

Which is why it is so absurd to lay the problems with American health care at the door of the "profit-driven CEOs." It turns out that removing the profit margins on business does not make products, goods or services either more efficient or better. In fact, that precise ideology has crippled a variety of countries over the course of the last century. 

What's worse is that ideology often excuses murder. Because, after all, if health insurance CEOs are so cruel that they purposefully murder patients in order to earn a buck, why shouldn't they be shot? That's the logic of comedian Bill Burr, who says, "I love that f---ing CEOs are f---ing afraid right now. You should be! By and large, you're all a bunch of selfish greedy f---ing pieces of shit." Or Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who says, "Violence is never the answer, but people can be pushed only so far."

This is the devil's logic. If murder of individuals is justified by dissatisfaction with the system, we no longer live in a republic. We live in an anarchic, Hobbesian world of violence of all against all. It turns out that life is filled with grievances and hardships. If the response to such grievances and hardships is murdering CEOs, what precisely is the limiting principle? Why not shoot bank CEOs for their decision-making? Why not murder oil company executives or hedge fund CEOs? 

The answer to flawed policy is better policy. But if you wish to see the American system torn down from within, you're better off advocating bloodlust and murder. And unfortunately, there are an awful lot of Americans who seem willing to tear down the American system itself rather than attempting to discuss rational solutions to intransigent problems.