There are pretty much 0 people who think healthcare insurance providers should be intentionally engaging in delay, deny, defend as a means of maximizing profit. Passing a law against stands essentially 0 chance of happening. If it was passed, it would intentionally have loopholes aplenty buried in a hundred page document that essentially 0 people, including those who wrote it, could understand.
Modern democracy mostly just doesn't seem to work how it ought.
>Modern democracy mostly just doesn't seem to work how it ought.
It is funny to say this as if every other modern democracy hasn't solved the specific problem that you have given. The issue isn't democracy, it is the American democracy (or republic if you want to be pedantic).
Specifically, the combination of our expansive freedom of speech protections (which make campaign financing restrictions near impossible) and first past the post voting system make it easy for corporations and the rich to shape the government however they want.
This is mostly grass is greener thinking. Here [1] is a relevant poll across the EU, for instance. [1] 65% of people do not think high level corruption cases are sufficiently pursued and 57% do not think efforts against corruption are effective. And everywhere except Scandiland has a majority to vast majority that think corruption is widespread in their country.
The only place it seems to be really working is in Switzerland and in the Scandinavian micronations (notably Sweden is trending more towards the patterns of Europe than Scandinavia).
It is weird to claim it is simply "grass is greener thinking" and then point to opinion polls as if those polls won't suffer the same fate. But either way, that wasn't my point. The "specific problem" I was referring to was the example you gave of health insurers maximizing profit and the government's inability/unwillingness to reign that in. The way all those European countries have addressed that is via universal healthcare.
> The way all those European countries have addressed
They addressed by rationing and limiting access. Of course their systems are generally much more efficient cost wise. However Europe isn’t some Utopian wonderland.
And yet the US trails those European countries in most measures of quality of healthcare including access. It is clear the US pays more for healthcare and receives worse service. That doesn't mean anyone is calling Europe utopian, but the American approach to healthcare is worse by almost every objective measure.
I initially thought the greener grass reference was in relation to their own link. I wonder what a more objective measure of government corruption would be. I suspect it's not possible. The closest measure I could think of it was something along the lines of governmental efficiency, w which would include corruption, incompetence and dysfunction.
I wonder if someone could put together a Time series data on some benchmarks like the government cost to put up a stop sign.
There are groups that try to quantify this sort of stuff. According to one measure, the US was already behind most of Europe in 2024[1] and I would expect us to drop much further in the next iteration of this list.
This isn't the issue. You could get easily get the overwhelming majority of society to agree 'let's criminalize unjustified denials with criminal penalties for the executives of healthcare companies who violate such' and it's simply not going to happen. A handful of corporations' "lobbying" easily trumps the opinion of society.
And getting people elected is no different. Fewer and fewer people identify as either republican or democrat (with independents being the largest 'party' by far), yet lo and behold like 99.9% of politicians at all levels, high and low, are republican or democrat, with basically no independent representation because the system makes it unreasonably difficult to select an alternative. This is further confounded by an utterly worthless media system that further works to entrench the political establishment, and much more.
I dont think it is that easy to define "unjustified denials". People might agree on a vibe, but not detail. What would a bill look like?
Regarding the party and representational system, I agree there is a lot of dysfunction. Same problem. Nobody can agree on alternatives. Even ranked choice, which I think is the tiniest step in the right direction is highly controversial. Ideas like expanding the house to 30,000 representatives [1], seem like a fantasy.
People hate change more than the status quo.
Regarding the media environment, the consumer is the problem. As long as people prefer and seek out garbage, there is no possible solution.
An unjustified denial is obviously a denial that should not have been denied by the terms of your agreement with the insurance company. And we should also add delays and other anti-payment 'strategies' as criminal offenses as well. And as such behaviors would now be criminal in nature, exact offenses would determined by a jury of our peers.
It's obviously not people hating change. People want these things, and many others to change. It's a completely broken political system that is happy to change, but only when it benefits corporations or political, especially geopolitical, interests. Ranked choice won't do anything. Australia has one of the most dysfunctional democracies in the world, and they have both universal voting, obviously 'Australian voting', and even a proportionally elected Senate.
No they couldn't. Getting ballot access is a huge ordeal, and then the media does an excellent job of divide and conquer by not even focusing on the issues, but instead focusing on hate, fear, misrepresentations, and so forth. Make people hate and fear 'the other side' enough and they won't dare "waste" their vote and will happily vote for somebody they don't even like, but dislike less than the alternative.
And obviously you're straw manning things. The reason people screw over other people is because they expect there will be no consequences. Whether this is some thug mugging a guy for $20 on the street corner, or a guy in a suit developing ever more novel strategies to ultimately refuse healthcare to people - it's the exact same issue. When there are consequences, the entire calculus changes.
You are externalizing all of the problems of the electorate and treating them as if they have no agency. As if every other part of the system is a clever actors, and voters are all mindless dolls with no choice in how they vote, what they read, or what they watch.
I agree consequences are a powerful incentive. If you reject updating the law, where does that leave you?
What exactly is your position? Should I go out and shoot people I disagree with or not? Are you going out and shooting people?
I don't think you really believe that edgelord fantasy. Was January 6th far too tame for your liking? How many police and politicians have you lynched?
If I have to read "the tree of Liberty must be refreshed with the blood of patriots" one more time I'm going to claw my eyes out. It is a rhetorical copout when faced with genuinely difficult of how to enact reform. Spend a month in Syria, Libya, or Sudan and then tell me that you support civil war, let alone every generation. If internet posturing ever turns into reality, people will be in for a rude awakening.
I'd encourage you to read the entire letter alongside its context. The reason I link to the letter and not the quote is because the quote, relevant and insightful though it may be, is made exponentially more so by understanding the context in which it was said.
Here's a quiz for understanding: what did Jefferson think of the 'revolutionaries' of whose actions he's directly defending?
The tree of Liberty must be refreshed with the blood of patriots and tyrants is true, that is literally spoken by a founder of the country and person who penned the country's founding document. It is a belief that you materially benefit from but deny. You have so much privilege but deny it's genesis.
You believe in the product of Locke's philosophy, but deny its requirements.
Tyranny is the result of consolidated power. Tyrants aren't going to respond to "please give up your power" or "please follow the law" peacefully. If you challenge power, power will respond. The freedom of speech exists precisely because saying something tyrants don't like will result in tyrants trying to punish you for your speech. Freedom of speech exists in order to protect speaking truth to power because power doesn't like truth spoken to it.
Freedom is solidarity. Solidarity is its price. The word solidarity itself is important to reflect on, because it is solidarity against a force that seeks to break the solidarity by harming individuals acting in solidarity. Labor rights and protection for freedoms were hard won, many individuals were harmed earning them. This country that you enjoy was the result of a revolutionary and civil war.
This is the language the country was literally founded on. This is where the rights you enjoy being protected come from:
These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated. Britain, with an army to enforce her tyranny, has declared that she has a right (not only to tax) but "to bind us in all cases whatsoever" and if being bound in that manner, is not slavery, then is there not such a thing as slavery upon earth.
> Spend a month in Syria, Libya, or Sudan and then tell me that you support civil war
What do you think makes people fight in a war? Why are Ukrainians fighting in what, if you accept Putin's framing, is a civil war?
Modern democracy mostly just doesn't seem to work how it ought.