IN LUIGI WE TRUST

Let's talk about the phenomenon of Luigi Mangione and Healthcare Justice

Transcript

Hero, Villain, And Public Sympathy

SPEAKER_00 0:01

The reason why people love Louis Germain Gione is because by him assassinating and taking out this asshole CEO, he represented what people stood for, like healthcare justice. But the only patients who consistently call me a hero are the self-proclaimed straight men. They always have to let me know that they're straight beforehand who ask me to take foreign objects out of their asshole.

Introducing Luigi Mangioni

SPEAKER_01 0:43

Alright, everybody, welcome back to Pit to Punchlines. Today we are going to talk about Luigi Mangioni. Do you remember Luigi Mangioni? If you don't, just to jog your memory a little bit, he is the Italian hearthrob who captured the attention of all Americans and reminded us that what kind of connects us more than free samples of Costco is the hatred of our insurance here in America. We

Shared Frustration With U.S. Insurance

SPEAKER_01 1:15

all hate our healthcare insurance because it honestly sucks, right? Kind of sucks. And it kind of hurts me a little bit to say that he sucked, but he did suck. So let me tell you about my memories of Luigi Mangioni. And I remember that day in of itself. You know, I hear about uh him assassinating this healthcare CEO in New York in broad daylight, and people are like, what the hell is going on? So I immediately went to Reddit because what else do you do to find out? Up-to-date information. And I was, I can't say that I was shocked, but I was a little bit surprised to see everybody hating on the United Healthcare CEO person. Once again, I am not promoting violence in any way, but at the same time, everybody was going in on United Healthcare because everybody has had an experience with their claims being denied, them supposed to having getting certain things covered for either surgeries or something else like that, and having to call and recall and fax and do all these things just to get their basic healthcare needs met and not even extravagant things as well. So when I saw that, I'm like, oh, this is not going how some people expected it to go, but it's going how everyone felt like it was supposed to go. And by everyone, I mean the average American.

Politics, Principles, And Healthcare Values

SPEAKER_01 2:32

All right, guys, let's talk about healthcare and the people. Because I want to say this people who vote Democratic or people who vote for Democrats or Republicans are all still people. We all get sick. We have to deal with this healthcare insurance companies. And I think the truth about all Americans is that regardless of who you are, people want good health care and want good health insurance that gives them the care that they need, that they don't have to pay an arm and a leg for. I think that literally is something that everyone believes. My disclaimer I wanted to say is that I believe in democracy. I'm not a Democrat, nor am I a Republican. Didn't vote for either, honestly. Um, and to be honest, I don't discriminate against one or the other because I care about whoever does what is best for the people. And nowadays in America, based on our leaders, psh, I think they both suck, to be brutally honest. But I will say, as an ER doctor, I am 1,000% socialist. And the reason why I'm that way is because when it comes to healthcare, what I honestly know from studying and looking into different nations' healthcare is that our healthcare sucks. The way we have it set up really, really sucks. And the truth about it is that it's a capitalistic society. People who come or people who live in a socialized healthcare system, they live more peacefully because they don't have to worry about health insurance or having to pay a ton when they get super, super sick. And honestly, when you get really sick, you don't really want to worry about whether you can pay

Why The System Fails Patients

SPEAKER_01 4:06

for it or not, if your insurance is going to deny your claim or not. All right, let's get into I think what is most important about this episode that I want to talk about is essentially health insurance and why Luigi Manjina was such a phenomenon. Uh, was or is, he's still alive, still going through his trials. The government shutdown ended not too long ago. And the reason why the government shutdown happened mainly is because the Democrats refused to allow initially until they fold it, uh, you refused to allow anything to happen unless we continue the subsidies for the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare, depending on what you'd like to call it. And just a side point, I personally think the Affordable Care Act. I say that because it is not something that's new. It is something that just puts patches on a prior system. And the way I see it is that if you have a really shitty car and you just put a patch here, you fix this, maybe fix a little bit something in the alternator or fix a little something in like the uh engine or some other thing without replacing everything, your car is still gonna continue to break down from time to time, pretty often, because you're just patching it, as opposed to buying a brand new Toyota that's gonna last you 10 years without any issues, at least, right? That's the way I see the Affordable Care Act. And not to say it's not something, but

ACA As A Patch, Not A Fix

SPEAKER_01 5:28

it is not really changing way too much. One positive thing I will say about it is that it did allow for people who have prior health conditions to still be covered, but it still doesn't change the fundamental issue with our capitalistic health care system, in which these insurance companies just try to deny everything, right? And the thing is that, you know, people, or rather, the mantra in the US has always been like, oh, people love the private health insurance because you have the choice to take it to where you want to, or you have the choice to get care when you want as quickly as you want. The truth is that people who I will say this like the idea of private health care is that you get privilege. And who doesn't love privilege? I love privilege in many ways, right? Like, let's say even at the airport, from TSA Precheck to Global Entry, you love being able to cut the line. What's going on, fellas? Well, I'm like no flat. Bet that ass still tight, ain't it? But the truth is that this fallacy about everyone preferring private health care or private health care is so much better than a good socialized healthcare system. It's just that. It's a fallacy. And I say that because people who have private health care or private insurance

The Privilege Myth Of Private Insurance

SPEAKER_01 6:45

still have to wait. The problem with having private insurance is that there are also less, let's say, regulations to where these private insurance companies can do what they want. They can frustrate you once you just give up, right? They can deny your claim or make it difficult for you andor your doctors or health care providers to be able to get you the care that you need. And the truth is that everything was private for a pretty long period of time. Um, but then Medicare came around. And I think the history of how Medicare came around should also help us see to a certain extent why it doesn't make sense to even have a private healthcare system. Or rather, we need to do a lot of changes if we want to keep the system this way it is. So, uh, for those who don't know, uh, we didn't have Medicare for like quite some time. Uh Medicare

How Insurers Win By Wearing You Down

SPEAKER_01 7:36

was signed into law by Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965. And the reason why it came about is because uh after World War II, for a while, a lot of seniors who were retired could not get care under private insurance, right? Private health care insurance.

Medicare’s Origin Story

SPEAKER_01 7:53

Um, because why? They are older, they have a lot of health care issues. The private insurance didn't want to cover them. And the reason why is because at the end of the day, if you have a private insurance company, the goal is to make money, right? It is a capitalistic society. The goal is to have people who don't have as many healthcare problems, and also try as best as you can to deny health care coverage that you should be giving or providing to people, right? Uh but anyway, so they were denying all these seniors, and these people who were retired didn't have any other choice. They didn't know what to do. So uh, of course, there are a lot of lobbyists and people who pushed for Medicare to be uh written into law. And I should also mention they also snuck in Medicaid as well to help the poor. And I say snuck in because it's never something in which people promote to help the poor, it's always something you have to sneak in. But that's another problem. Anyway, so the government created Medicare, and it's now kind of what uh it's the reimbursement rates that you have for Medicare or how much P uh they reimburse Medicare is what the general rate in which they reimburse other insurance is. Now, the thing is that Medicare was not something that was always accepted by a lot of different people. At the very beginning, the people who were actually opposed to and lobbying against Medicare are obviously the private healthcare insurance companies. But then also doctors were lobbying against Medicare. And part of the reason why that is, is because, you know, at that time, going into

Resistance From Insurers And Doctors

SPEAKER_01 9:25

medicine was a very lucrative career. You can charge whatever you want, and they got paid a ton more than they are paid now. So doctors at the time were pushing against Medicare because they were concerned that it was gonna decrease their rate. Here's the thing Medicare is only for people who essentially uh are 65 and above. There are a couple exceptions in which you can get it when you're less than 65, but we won't we won't get into that right now. But this is the lay of the land. People who work are for a certain period of time are guaranteed Medicare when they retire, which essentially gives them a form of universal health care for everyone who's worked in the United States. But imagine having that for all of your life to where even if you lost a job, even if you couldn't be able to work, even if let's say you're in a private, private company that can't give its uh it's not large enough to give its

Imagine Coverage For A Lifetime

SPEAKER_01 10:22

employees health insurance, you don't have to worry about that. You don't have to worry about when you need to go to the hospital and other things as well. Here's the thing there's not gonna be

Goals Of Care vs Goals Of Profit

SPEAKER_01 10:31

any perfect system. But what I do know is that based on Luigi's met Luigi's message and also what these insurance companies are still doing, our current system is not it. It just isn't it. Okay, let me give you a couple anecdotes, or actually maybe one major anecdote. I have a friend who works as a hospitalist. Hospitalists, for those who don't know, are people who, when you get admitted to the hospital, they take care of you while you are admitted to the hospital. This colleague of mine was telling me a story about how one of her colleagues had a patient who came in through the emergency department, who was very sick, got admitted to the hospital, and died during their stay. Could you believe it that their insurance company denied the claim for this patient being admitted? Right? A patient is a very sick who's admitted because they're very sick. They denied this claim initially. This doctor had to get on the phone and say that this patient died. This patient was sick and admitted to the hospital and died. And then they reverted their denial, right? It doesn't make sense for me as a healthcare provider that we have

A Denied Claim After A Patient Died

SPEAKER_01 11:39

a capitalistic society because the goals will never align. My goal as a doctor is to do what is best for a patient's health care, to do what's best to be able to save a patient's life. That is what I'm focused on. Do what's best overall. Insurance company, a private insurance company specifically, their goal at the end of the day, because they are a private company that have stakeholders and other things, is to make as much money as possible, right? These two things do not align because when you're thinking about saving someone's life, you're not thinking about, oh, is this gonna be something that's gonna make this insurance company money? It should never be something that comes across your mind when you think about people's health. And the thing is that I fundamentally believe in any society, especially in a developed society, and I guess the US is the developed country, we'll come back to that later. People shouldn't go bankrupt for having to pay their medical bills. And the thing is that the truth is that we

No One Should Go Bankrupt For Illness

SPEAKER_01 12:45

cannot control everything that all the decisions that adults make, right? I'm not prop like promoting a society where you control everything. Like we have gambling and people are allowed to gamble and gamble away their life savings or whatever. People are allowed to make bad decisions. But what people shouldn't be penalized for is just getting sick, right? I think about this because I think about a good friend of mine who is Canadian.

A Canadian Cancer Story Without Bills

SPEAKER_01 13:14

She had a gynecological cancer when she was in her early 20s. And when I think about the story she told me about when she was diagnosed, when she got to the hospital, when she had her surgery, when she got chemo, and all the other things, she didn't pay anything. At the time, she was also didn't have a great paying job. But in the Canadian healthcare system, it is a universal health care. And you don't pay very much into the system if you don't make that much, or if you're not working, you don't have to pay anything at all, right? And it is crazy, and I said it before early on this podcast, the most sick people should not have to worry about bills when they're sick and then with when they just get out of the hospital. It just makes it doesn't make any sense. And the way our current healthcare system is, that's not how things are for the most part. You have to deal with these insurance companies who are literally trying to deny you here and there and other places. In conclusion, of all the things I've said so far, in any developed society that

What A Wealthy Nation Should Prioritize

SPEAKER_01 14:17

makes a lot of money, and we make a lot of money, we are one of the wealthiest nations in the world. What you choose to prioritize in terms of what the services you give to your people is important because it shows what you ultimately stand for as a nation. We pay a lot into taxes, and it's crazy because probably the poorer people probably pay more of the percentage of what they make into taxes than they're super, super wealthy, especially based on the way the current taxes and like the bills that were passed have gone. But what's crazy is that we as a society, or rather maybe not as a society, because I think what Luigi Mangioni showed is us as a society actually value the idea that we should have good health insurance and we should not be scammed by these health insurance companies. But ultimately the people who are in power don't want to change it because at the end of the day, we live in a live in a very capitalistic society. And no, let's say

Power, Policy, And The Public Will

SPEAKER_01 15:19

universal healthcare system is perfect in any way. But what I think that they have understood is that there are some basic human rights, or rather, things that we all deserve as a developed society. And I think there's a disconnect between what Americans truly feel and what our government truly, or rather, the people who are running our government are trying to withhold.

Imperfect Paths And Urgent Change

SPEAKER_01 15:42

And ultimately, I don't really know what the best solution is to change things, but what I do know is things cannot be the same as they are now. Because ultimately, the people who are gonna lose out the most are the average citizens.

Closing Thoughts And Sign Off

SPEAKER_01 15:58

All right, guys, that's been Pitta Punchlines. Thank you for listening to me go off and rain a little bit today. Uh, we will see you next time. Peace.