NEW YORK, Dec 11 (Reuters) - In the days since Luigi Mangione was charged with murder for gunning down a top health insurance executive, more than a thousand donations have poured into an online fundraiser for his legal defense, with messages supporting him and even celebrating the crime.
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Most of the messages on the crowd-sourced fundraising site GiveSendGo reflect a deep frustration shared by many Americans over the U.S. healthcare system - where some treatments and reimbursements can be denied to patients depending on their insurance coverage - as well as broader anger over rising income inequality and soaring executive pay.
Saying the crime was "broadly condemned" in the same article about the flood of money and support he's received, with a large section of said article being about the praise given online, is an interesting way to frame things.
"They've made him a martyr for all the troubles people have had with their own insurance companies," said Rodriguez "I mean, who hasn't had run-ins with their insurance? But he's a stone-cold killer."
It happens to everyone, once a doctor prescribed a medicine off-label and my Krankenkasse (german non-profit health insurance) refused to cover all of it. I had to pay 10 euros out of my own pocket.The pharmacist was super apologetic about the whole thing. /s
As an American living in Germany I find it hilarious how Germans complain about the smallest cost of their prescriptions. I got some basic blood work done before my insurance kicked in and the doctor was going over the cost like I was going to flip my shit hearing it. I told him I was American and laughed. €25 for blood work and zero cost for just speaking to you? Sign me the fuck up. I paid $100 for a consultation about sinus infection that lasted 5 minutes at a general practice i Washington DC. You don't scare me!
I was talking to a friend of mine in Canada about this recently. He has some minor gripes, but nothing like what I have. I told them my recent ER visit approached $15k in charges and they were aghast. They couldn't even comprehend it. Like, their brain just broke and shut off. It made no sense to them.
It shouldn't make sense to us, either. We should have a similar reaction, but I think we've been slowly boiled so long that we don't.
This whole thing has been excellent for countries with public healthcare systems under threat of the private sector trying to crack the armour. It sends a message to political careers, when the centre of the world's capitalism clearly hates their current setup. It underscores to the most selfish of politicians that public support is more valuable than whatever form of "lobbying" deal a private company may bring to the table they don't fundamentally belong at.
Tbh, it’s probably a really weird week to be Canadian. Here’s confirmation about the importance of socialized hc, but also a bunch of uncomfortable “jokes” from your very unstable and militarily powerful southern neighbor.