Developments

About the UHC CEO Assassination

As US assassins go, Luigi Mangione seems more intelligent than the others; in particular, he can articulate his thoughts.*  Some ladies seem to find him attractive.  If I were the authorities in PA and NY, I wouldn't rush the extradition, but rather bring forward the gun charges for which he was arrested--those are a slam dunk. I don't doubt that Alvin Bragg (my choice for Person of the Year, over Dickhead 2.0) will eventually get some kind of conviction in Manhattan, too, but going for the maximum might be a reach too far.  Mangione should have access to good lawyers and will have some kind of painful story to tell that might work to some extent. 

What I really want to talk about, though, is United Healthcare.  Yes, I'm a customer, I think--it's just Medicare's Part D, it costs little and currently provides comparably little benefit but whatever. Mangione is way off-base if he was pissed that he couldn't get all the treatment he wanted; that's such a First-World problem.  There is rationing of healthcare in all systems.  On the other hand, if it was the insurers who made his pain worse because they induced him to get sub-standard care--the result of which didn't look so hot on that X-ray associated with his back--then he had some beef with them.  But a gangsta approach does no one any good.  And, frankly, he was more Bernie Goetz+ than Unabomber material, but he might do well on the witness stand.

There's a real, enduring problem with our healthcare system, and it's called the profit motive of the middlemen involved.  UHC is probably the worst offender, though statistics can be biased easily depending on what is measured.  They are sucking the value out of the whole process with their relentless pursuit of more money.  They need to be more like--gasp!--utilities, with profit levels basically guaranteed but limited, strict measurement of reliability of customer treatment, and some mandatory regulatory oversight.  In fact, they should be utilities, full stop. We don't have to go all the way to eliminate them as profit-making enterprises, which was the real mistake of the Medicare for All movement.  The pharma/insurance lobby got its back up.  Not to mention all the jobs.

Trump's Cabinet and Other Nonentities

I don't get too worked up about the fate of the crappy nominees Trump has chosen, even for his Cabinet Secretary positions.  For the most part, anyway:  I do think RFKJr is the one who must be stopped, and I think his non-conforming policy positions on some subjects (not vaccines, but more like on corn oil, abortion pills, etc.) could end up sinking his chances with enough Republicans to deny him.

The ones like Gabbard or Hegseth, if they get the votes, it won't change things all that much.  There are overly well-developed organizations beneath them that will go around them, if they are too flaky. And can you imagine a Cabinet meeting of the clowns?  On the one hand, it would be a joke--a bad one--and wouldn't be a good use of time.  On the other, though, it would flatter POTUS--it better--so he might want to have more of them this time around. The betting notion would be the over/under on the number of Trump Cabinet meetings Rubio attends.  Preliminary line: 3.    

I don't mean to minimize the damage Trump will do, but he's got four years--two, really. This joke will get old, while still young.  And by "joke" I mean "scam". 

Playoffs:  College and NBA

I give some credit to the NCAA planners who have come up with a viable expansion of their college playoffs, which they roll out this year.  They are going from 4 teams (the critical cut happening at the #4/5 ranked team) to 12 teams (as it happens, that will be a cut from #10/11).  There is still not a great deal of satisfaction, particularly from the SEC, though their teams muddied up the waters by beating each other up somewhat randomly in the big games. Alabama is the team that gets gored this year, #11.  Seems strange, but Alabama did lose three games in its regular season.   

The correct answer is 14, as in 14 teams in the playoffs.  Two conference champions deserve byes, the SEC and the "Big Ten"+.  (The other two teams getting the byes were bad jokes I won't recite.) Those are the only two conferences that matter, and all the best football programs are migrating to them if they can. (Except Notre Dame, of course--they are special.)   Anyway, with 14 teams in the mix, the two losers from the conference championships get home field vs. #13 and #14, then the other eight teams play in neutral bowl locations and are seeded #5-#12.   That is where they will likely go before too long.  They are learning the lessons from the NCAA's other marquee event, the basketball championships (now both men's and women's), which have maximized participation to great effect. 

The NBA has hedged completely that critical cut by making two of them, one more absolute and the other more real.  Every competitive team's goal has to be to get into at least the top 6 of their conference, though 10 teams make the postseason in some form.  Teams 7-10 still have a shot in brief playoffs, though they will be disadvantaged.  It's a good design.  

They also seem to have done well, so far anyway, with their new early-season event the NBA Cup, now progressing through its second season.  It's created enthusiasm and the players have mostly bought in.  The result has been a lot of close, meaningful games with near-playoff atmosphere.  It's only the second season, though; the relationship between NBA Cup success and success in the real thing, the playoffs, has yet to be demonstrated convincingly.  The Lakers did win the Cup and reach the conference finals, though, last year; the latter was a surprise.  The Oklahoma City Thunder are the top team left in the final four, judging by regular season record; they will also likely be favorites in the playoffs, along with the Celtics, who did not make the final four, in the East. .

 

*So to speak. I thank Ken Klippenstein for printing the manifesto in its entirety in his Substack, which the big boys chose not to do, though they selected quotes to support their hot takes. 

+ I will seek to refer to all college conference names other than the SEC in shock quotes, to draw attention to their transparent greed-seeking behavior. And because their names are such lies. Repeatedly.