I think this is a good time to remind everyone that the strength of federated social media (and a big reason why we’re all here) is that no private company or country’s laws can have total control over the fediverse.

Everyone who runs an instance is going to have a different risk-tolerance for legal issues however, and I can’t fault anyone for making a judgment call that they feel best protects the server and their users. I don’t know anything about Dutch or Finnish laws, but I’ve seen many recent articles about people arrested in Germany for their social media posts that were considered hateful or violent (which is frankly a culture shock to me as an American), so I can see why some of the posts on Lemmy in the past week would be concerning.

In my interactions with the .World admins, I’ve seen nothing but people trying to run an instance in the most fair and neutral way they can, and I personally trust them to make the hard calls when they come up. That being said, if you’re frustrated with the legal concerns of a host’s country or have had a run-in with a mod that upset you, it only strengthens the fediverse if you spread out or create similar communities elsewhere.

Ooh, that is pricey, but I bet it’s amazing. I don’t often treat myself to the good stuff.

Sounds like good advice, thanks.

Although I probably DO need tea that’s tolerant of poor brewing. I have small children (and ADHD) and am very bad about forgetting that I have tea brewing…

I love Irish breakfast tea, but I don’t think I’ve ever had Darjeeling. Will have to pick some up soon to compare.

I tried pineapple on pizza, and it’s actually pretty good.

Wait, what?!

There’s a purple ranger?

Imagine if this is what gets big corporations to lobby for gun control.

Damn, I did too!

I really didn’t expect this comment section to make me actually want to try it…

You’re entitled to that belief, but I’ve seen the first one work in my field firsthand, as I said. We’ve also seen universal work in multiple countries, and I’m optimistic we’ll see ultimately see it in the US too.

The point was to throw out some ways that one can push for change without murdering people and hoping for the best, not to solve healthcare reform in a Lemmy comment section.

I don’t presume to have the answers, but there are plenty of alternatives if we’re comparing them to murder in the street.

I replied to another comment about one specific way to introduce licensure risk to insurance company doctors as a way to get them to change their policies. It happens all the time, and the more people that know about it, the better. (They rely on people being unfamiliar with how they operate)

Long term, I think our best bet is to keep pushing for universal healthcare that will effectively make health insurance obsolete. It’s a winning message (something like 60% of America already supports it), and we’ve come close at least twice in recent history.

Yup, I think we’re totally on the same page here.

The problem I see, though, is all the most morally defensible and procedural fixes require the healthy functioning of institutions that have been weakened, dismantled and / or perverted and turned against us. And a frightening number of us see that now and feel that normal channels for change are closed. I’m not at quite that point myself, but I know how bad it is for so many and I don’t blame anyone who reads our current situation that way.

Relevantly, I think this also makes a good argument that “how we solve things” as a society is as important the problems we’re solving. When our institutions are weakened or bypassed (through corruption, lobbying, or vigilantism), it’s destabilizing and leads to bigger issues. I hate how much power insurance companies have over care too, and I get it, I just want to urge everyone to be cautious about this familiar type of language that tries to frame violence as the “only remaining option”. It’s almost always pure rationalization coming from people’s anger rather than truly being our only option.

Always two, there are.

tldr: one idea would be challenging their ability to hide behind licensed MDs who are paid to shoulder liability

This is actually my field, and I’ve spent countless hours of my life arguing with these insurance companies on behalf of patients they’ve denied, (losing more often than I’ve won, but you have to try). They suck.

When they’re being exceptionally unreasonable, the bridge-burning hail mary I would throw would be threatening the license of the provider that denied the appealed claim. It has worked a surprising number of times.

Most people don’t realize that it’s not just paper-pushers at insurance companies who are denying claims. Those folks can routinely deny things that policy excludes, but if it’s a judgement call or a challenge that their policy isn’t meeting medical necessity, they hide behind doctors on their payroll who are putting their license on the line when they have to say that the insurance company is justified. Those individuals can be reported to their licensing board or even sued. Short of voting in universal healthcare one day, I think this is the most direct route to challenge this nonsense.

The meme usually ends with them looking at you, the reader, then concluding “it must be 1 in 4” because you’re clearly not ugly.

I’d encourage everyone to be careful with this type of thinking, because I’m seeing it a lot. Characterizing situations as having only two unpleasant options (“two tracks” in this case) is a classic strategy to rationalize violence. Gangs use it, terrorist groups use it, and even governments trying to justify wars use it (e.g. remember Bush’s “You’re either with us or against us”).

It’s a textbook false dichotomy, and it’s meant to make the least unpleasant option presented seem more palatable. This situation is not as simple as “either you’re in favor of insurance companies profiting off of denied healthcare of millions or you’re ok with murdering a CEO”