[OT] Murder in New York

A few days ago, I had read in the news that the CEO of a major health
insurer was gunned down. This was shocking; it seemed to mean that no
one
was safe from crime.
Then I came across the following information on a web site: that the
health care insurer of which he was the CEO had used an AI system to
process claims; this system rejected 90% of all claims, including many
valid ones.
Maybe this site is a leftist one, and this claim is not true, I don't
know for sure. But if it is true, my sympathy for this homicide victim
basically evaporated. After all, if someone's health insurer doesn't
pay out on valid claims... that person might not get health care. That
kills people. But the legal system wasn't in the process of prosecuting
him as aggressively as any other murderer.
In Canada, Air Canada decided to ban smoking on its flights. In
response,
several major Canadian cigarette companies decided to stop flying on Air
Canada, giving all their business to its competitors.
Our government's response? Immediately passing legislation to ban
smoking
on all flights of all airline carriers.
So I don't just wish the U.S. government would aggressively force that
company to pay off on all the claims it fraudulently refused to pay.
Instead, I expect more than that: specifically, since when the
government
brought in the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) which allowed private
health insurers a role, so that they wouldn't go out of business as the
result of it, it certainly wasn't expecting them not to conscientiously
provide the service it was their role to provide...
The fact that _one_ health insurer took measures to avoid paying on
valid
health insurance claims should result in the immediate repeal of the
Affordable Care Act, with its replacement by a single-payer national
health
care system.
That would send a very clear lesson to any other private businesses that
might in future offered the opportunity to offer services to the public
in partnership with the government. No fooling around that would make
the
government look bad will be tolerated for one moment.
John Savard