It’s pretty disingenuous to discuss the Jordan Neely case without mentioning the failed leadership of Nelson Rockefeller and Ronald Reagan in shuttering institutions that housed and helped the mentally ill. This is what conservatives wanted: to abandon the poor, the indigent, and the ill, leaving them in the hands of the private pharmaceutical industry that promised it could supplant institutions—without any of the safeguards they provided. It's all about saving money and propping up corporations until the suffering of the least comes back to affect everyone else. Maybe this could be a wake-up call to stop offering everything up to private industry. Yes, some asylums were terrible, but they varied throughout history. None of them have to be terrible today, and the streets are a de facto terrible asylum. There's only room for improvement.
SKF, the manufacturer of Thorazine, first advertised the drug not just as a way to improve symptoms but as a means to shorten hospital stays—back in the 1950s. The ads were not aimed at patients or doctors alone but also at policymakers. The appeal to policymakers was clear: save money. It also created a steady revenue stream for drug manufacturers, as they could charge outpatients more than they could charge hospitals that had leverage over prices.
While medications are helpful, they're only helpful if taken consistently. The therapeutic milieu is also important, but drug manufacturers changed the narrative around mental illness, framing it as an entirely biological problem.
This is from The New Yorker:
<<In 1954, the F.D.A., for the first time, approved a drug as a treatment for a mental disorder: the antipsychotic chlorpromazine (marketed with the brand name Thorazine). The pharmaceutical industry vigorously promoted it as a biological solution to a chemical problem. One ad claimed that Thorazine 'reduces or eliminates the need for restraint and seclusion; improves ward morale; speeds release of hospitalized patients; reduces destruction of personal and hospital property.' By 1964, some fifty million prescriptions had been filled. The income of its maker—Smith, Kline & French—increased eightfold in a period of fifteen years.>>
Emphasis: "speeds release of hospitalized patients"
While the medications were and are helpful, the emphasis shifted to a solely biological perspective with input from private corporations.
Even if you accept that faulty premise of an exclusively biological model, putting the onus on people whose very disease is being out of touch with reality to continually take the medication as prescribed under their own volition makes you wonder—who is the one with disorganized thinking, really?
Psychotropics should have made institutions more humane and salubrious, not shuttered them.
A vigilante Marine is not the solution. First of all, it's inhumane to the person with the disease that makes them unable to have insight to give meaningfully informed refusal of treatment that could have prevented them from being in the situation. Second, even if it were somehow "humanistic," it would be a game of whack-a-mole.
This instinct toward privatization and giving corporations a taste of every aspect of life that doesn't need to be a market or industry is the same issue with health insurance. It led to a sclerotic political/corporate system that people have railed against since I was a child. (I remember Roseanne episodes from the 1980s where coverage was denied in emergency medical situations, leading to frustration.)
To suggest that Luigi Mangione was suffering from delusions that just happened to lead him to target someone who brought the country together more than anything I've seen since 9/11 is a huge reach. People with delusions are out of sync with reality. He tapped into something that deeply resonated, and all the writings from him I've seen so far are coherent. I'm not condoning his actions, but he seems more rational than U.S. foreign policy, which takes out strongman despots without even leading to the possibility of improvement. Assisting with the overthrow of, say, Gaddafi—what did that lead to? What was so rational about that?
At the very least, this is a symbolic attack on an industry that doesn't have a reason to exist. Insurance makes sense when the vast majority of people never need to make a claim. But health insurance is like having insurance for food—where you'd have to call your insurance company at the grocery store to get your staples covered. Coverage would vary depending on your job, your income, whether you're poor enough for Medicaid, whether you're in a state that opted out of Medicaid expansion (leaving you too poor for marketplace subsidies but not eligible for Medicaid), or whether you served in the military, and so on. You could argue healthcare should be like grocery stores, but healthcare is inherently expensive (a lot of reasons why, including the AMA limiting residency slots, avarice all around), but to quote Donald Trump, "I won't let people die on the streets."
Even if you believe in an Ayn Rand-style world, you’re going to have worse outcomes for the "top" in an unequal system. No one in the U.S. is motivated to practice primary, preventative care. And even those who "pull themselves up by their bootstraps" and "make it big" are not wealthy over a lifetime. Persistent preventative care, along with entreaties to take care of one's health and access to the resources to do so, over a lifetime, is what results in longer lifespans.
Countries with universal healthcare—whether through a single-payer system or a single-employer model like the NHS—do fewer interventions and diagnostic tests. They aren't exhaustive at the end of life. They are utilitarian. But that means, in general, they have better quality years over a longer lifespan. The exact type of care—focusing on health rather than chasing disease—that people like RFK talk about.
Privatization works better for heroic measures—the Hail Mary medical interventions, which are, not incidentally, more necessary after a lifetime of lacking persistent preventative care. Maybe you could reserve that for the private sector somehow.
I digress.
Jordan Neely was mentally ill and should, many lifetimes ago, have been in a public institution. Luigi Mangione, while wantonly violent, was rational in his aims to publicize the fact that making shareholders money has zero to do with optimizing healthcare outcomes. That brings me to the same conclusion I did about Neely: Some things are better public than private.
If you can point to a country where private insurance is a panacea and where releasing the seriously mentally ill to comply with the pharmaceutical companies' offerings is working, I am all ears.
John, you spent a lot of time on your narrative so you deserve a thoughtful reply...You write:
(1) "It’s pretty disingenuous to discuss the Jordan Neely case without mentioning the failed leadership of..."
(A) You can claim this as "disingenuous" but in fact, the transfer of responsibility from the individual to prior policies is "disingenuous." Do a simple mental exercise. A man from the year 1800 kills someone. Is it okay since he never had rehabilitation? Or never had a drug to help him? No. He is still responsible. The diatribe that follows is irrelevant. It is unfortunate some men are bad. That they are "sick." Or sickos. That is not at dispute. But it does not trump personal responsibility. It does not take bad actors off the hook.
(2) You write later: "A vigilante Marine is not the solution. First of all, it's inhumane to the person with the disease...
(A) Once again, you put no responsibility on the perp. FYI, this does not make you enlightened. Helping perps is a good thing but not at the expense of victims and a proper society. But I digress.
You use the term "vigilante" but he was coming to the defense of others. Is spiderman a vigilante too? What about the car full of innocents? Fuck them? Defending the innocent against bad guys is okay and, in this case, commendable.
(Summary) Your excuse of criminality is fundamentally hogwash. It is likely born in your feeling for all people. It might even make you feel like the good-guy, more enlightened, superior, and better than others. I do not know since I do not know you. But you spent a lot of effort writing this. The concept of personal responsibility appears vacant from your world view. And your world view likely omits the need to protect the innocent-- whether they be by police, military, or individuals. Your world view lacks these elements and, as such, I suppose you also defend thieves, rapists, terrorists, murderers, etc. in this same manner. After all, these people are all sick in some way. And yes, they are all people. And they can be kind. And yes, we as a society can do better. That all that does not change the fundamentals. In the final analysis, the fundamental you miss is "responsibility." You should stand with society, the innocent, and the law-abiding. Your stand against society and the innocent, in favor of criminality is likely due to some fantasy you have. FYI, there have been bad guys and good guys for eternity. That is not about to change. That would be fantasy.
(3) Regarding the rest of your diatribe. You bounce around like a jack rabbit looking for justifications to defend this poor black man. You should stop over-analyzing. Your mind needs to focus on what is obvious. The basics. This man went wild and payed the penalty. He was held down by white and blacks to protect the innocent. You fell for the dem mischief. The arrest was political-- designed to support the narrative that blacks are always victims of whites. The country is not falling for it anymore. Nor should you. People, all people, can be good and bad. We are moving to color-blindness, meritocracy, and support for the law-abiding. Ya aught to get with the program. You're rumination on this subject can only be solved by accepting that criminals are responsible for their actions.
John made a distinction between Luigi Mangione and Jordan Neely. He stated that Luigi Mangione is responsible for his actions because he is not severely mentally ill. He acted rationally and in keeping with his beliefs about the insurance industry.
Those whose thinking is seriously impaired due to severe mental illness are not responsible for their actions and it is society's failing to help such people which lead to tragic consequences. Contrary to your belief, mental illness does trump responsibility.
As Freddie DeBoer has written: "I said what the research, experience, and common sense say: that the severely mentally ill are significantly more dangerous to the people around them than those without severe mental illness are. And there is not one of my critics who does not know that viscerally and intuitively when they’re not talking shit on the internet. I promise, these people get scared if a psychotic person gets on a subway train with them and starts screaming. I promise. Their peacocking lack of concern online does not impress me."
So we know that the severely mentally ill are more dangerous than those who are healthy. You and I, being heathly, are responsible for our actions. If I hurt someone, I should be held accountable. The severely mentally ill do not have the same ability to think rationally and in an orderly fashion as you and I.
As Freddie DeBoer has written regarding those refusing involuntary treatment due to their illness: "No, here’s where they’ll end up: living in a state of constant suffering and danger on the streets, in prison, or dead. That’s where they’ll go. There is no magical sanitarium in the mountains where they’ll go, voluntarily. They’re just going to end up like Jordan Neely did - deranged, constantly abusing dangerous drugs, emaciated, experiencing repetitive respiratory illnesses and minor infections, and subject to the endless threat of violence and arrest. That’s not freedom. That’s not autonomy."
Never thought about the Schizophrenia angle. I had three high school friends, all from upper income families all fell ill to Schizophrenia. Two died from natural causes, the other beat an 85yr old woman to death and is locked up forever.
Yes they do. Criminals are their army,their muscle for the radical world of their dreams.
Ann do you remember the Handbook for Radicals ? Written in the 60's. Bottom up, top down? Turn the criminals, the media and low information voters against st the middle class. The middle begs the government for help, and boy oh boy does government want to help. The law abiding become criminals. The criminals become heroes, aka Bonnie andClyde
Biden looks to be softening the US up for commutation protection of the entire Biden family crime syndicate, the Jan 6 inquisition / Kangaroo court and all Demoncrat election cheating! Have I missed anything?
The interesting part is how much he has to confess to ensure his commutations sufficiently describe the crimes to make sure all the criminal offences are excused!
Luigi Mangione may well have been suffering from a drug induced psychosis when he gunned down United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, but as Ann has alluded to before, Mangione may also be grappling with latent homosexuality. I bet he likely pleads insanity.
I am physicist, not a doctor, so when I saw a picture of his back x-ray, I saw two pins into one of his vertebrae but the second pin, presumably meant for the other vertebrae appeared to have gone in between his pinned vertebrae and another. If so this would leaving the second vertebrae and the pin free to move around near the spinal column / nerves. I am purely speculating, but he may have been in a great deal of agony and would his insurance have covered the cost of fixing his back problem and continuing to investigate and fix it? I have zero knowledge of US health insurance!
Thank you also Ann for the information re: birthright citizenship and the 40% figure of Blacks succumbing to abortion procedures. (for healthcare welfare benefits, too, I opine). Sad to note the racial component and geopolitics of this issue. Further complicating is anchor babies and birthright citizenship also includes white female pre-marriage entrapment and Chinese ongoing demands and entitlements.
Thank you Ann for the link to Ricochet and the crime blotter. Godspeed to President Trump.
It’s pretty disingenuous to discuss the Jordan Neely case without mentioning the failed leadership of Nelson Rockefeller and Ronald Reagan in shuttering institutions that housed and helped the mentally ill. This is what conservatives wanted: to abandon the poor, the indigent, and the ill, leaving them in the hands of the private pharmaceutical industry that promised it could supplant institutions—without any of the safeguards they provided. It's all about saving money and propping up corporations until the suffering of the least comes back to affect everyone else. Maybe this could be a wake-up call to stop offering everything up to private industry. Yes, some asylums were terrible, but they varied throughout history. None of them have to be terrible today, and the streets are a de facto terrible asylum. There's only room for improvement.
SKF, the manufacturer of Thorazine, first advertised the drug not just as a way to improve symptoms but as a means to shorten hospital stays—back in the 1950s. The ads were not aimed at patients or doctors alone but also at policymakers. The appeal to policymakers was clear: save money. It also created a steady revenue stream for drug manufacturers, as they could charge outpatients more than they could charge hospitals that had leverage over prices.
While medications are helpful, they're only helpful if taken consistently. The therapeutic milieu is also important, but drug manufacturers changed the narrative around mental illness, framing it as an entirely biological problem.
This is from The New Yorker:
<<In 1954, the F.D.A., for the first time, approved a drug as a treatment for a mental disorder: the antipsychotic chlorpromazine (marketed with the brand name Thorazine). The pharmaceutical industry vigorously promoted it as a biological solution to a chemical problem. One ad claimed that Thorazine 'reduces or eliminates the need for restraint and seclusion; improves ward morale; speeds release of hospitalized patients; reduces destruction of personal and hospital property.' By 1964, some fifty million prescriptions had been filled. The income of its maker—Smith, Kline & French—increased eightfold in a period of fifteen years.>>
Emphasis: "speeds release of hospitalized patients"
While the medications were and are helpful, the emphasis shifted to a solely biological perspective with input from private corporations.
Even if you accept that faulty premise of an exclusively biological model, putting the onus on people whose very disease is being out of touch with reality to continually take the medication as prescribed under their own volition makes you wonder—who is the one with disorganized thinking, really?
Psychotropics should have made institutions more humane and salubrious, not shuttered them.
A vigilante Marine is not the solution. First of all, it's inhumane to the person with the disease that makes them unable to have insight to give meaningfully informed refusal of treatment that could have prevented them from being in the situation. Second, even if it were somehow "humanistic," it would be a game of whack-a-mole.
This instinct toward privatization and giving corporations a taste of every aspect of life that doesn't need to be a market or industry is the same issue with health insurance. It led to a sclerotic political/corporate system that people have railed against since I was a child. (I remember Roseanne episodes from the 1980s where coverage was denied in emergency medical situations, leading to frustration.)
To suggest that Luigi Mangione was suffering from delusions that just happened to lead him to target someone who brought the country together more than anything I've seen since 9/11 is a huge reach. People with delusions are out of sync with reality. He tapped into something that deeply resonated, and all the writings from him I've seen so far are coherent. I'm not condoning his actions, but he seems more rational than U.S. foreign policy, which takes out strongman despots without even leading to the possibility of improvement. Assisting with the overthrow of, say, Gaddafi—what did that lead to? What was so rational about that?
At the very least, this is a symbolic attack on an industry that doesn't have a reason to exist. Insurance makes sense when the vast majority of people never need to make a claim. But health insurance is like having insurance for food—where you'd have to call your insurance company at the grocery store to get your staples covered. Coverage would vary depending on your job, your income, whether you're poor enough for Medicaid, whether you're in a state that opted out of Medicaid expansion (leaving you too poor for marketplace subsidies but not eligible for Medicaid), or whether you served in the military, and so on. You could argue healthcare should be like grocery stores, but healthcare is inherently expensive (a lot of reasons why, including the AMA limiting residency slots, avarice all around), but to quote Donald Trump, "I won't let people die on the streets."
Even if you believe in an Ayn Rand-style world, you’re going to have worse outcomes for the "top" in an unequal system. No one in the U.S. is motivated to practice primary, preventative care. And even those who "pull themselves up by their bootstraps" and "make it big" are not wealthy over a lifetime. Persistent preventative care, along with entreaties to take care of one's health and access to the resources to do so, over a lifetime, is what results in longer lifespans.
Countries with universal healthcare—whether through a single-payer system or a single-employer model like the NHS—do fewer interventions and diagnostic tests. They aren't exhaustive at the end of life. They are utilitarian. But that means, in general, they have better quality years over a longer lifespan. The exact type of care—focusing on health rather than chasing disease—that people like RFK talk about.
Privatization works better for heroic measures—the Hail Mary medical interventions, which are, not incidentally, more necessary after a lifetime of lacking persistent preventative care. Maybe you could reserve that for the private sector somehow.
I digress.
Jordan Neely was mentally ill and should, many lifetimes ago, have been in a public institution. Luigi Mangione, while wantonly violent, was rational in his aims to publicize the fact that making shareholders money has zero to do with optimizing healthcare outcomes. That brings me to the same conclusion I did about Neely: Some things are better public than private.
If you can point to a country where private insurance is a panacea and where releasing the seriously mentally ill to comply with the pharmaceutical companies' offerings is working, I am all ears.
John, you spent a lot of time on your narrative so you deserve a thoughtful reply...You write:
(1) "It’s pretty disingenuous to discuss the Jordan Neely case without mentioning the failed leadership of..."
(A) You can claim this as "disingenuous" but in fact, the transfer of responsibility from the individual to prior policies is "disingenuous." Do a simple mental exercise. A man from the year 1800 kills someone. Is it okay since he never had rehabilitation? Or never had a drug to help him? No. He is still responsible. The diatribe that follows is irrelevant. It is unfortunate some men are bad. That they are "sick." Or sickos. That is not at dispute. But it does not trump personal responsibility. It does not take bad actors off the hook.
(2) You write later: "A vigilante Marine is not the solution. First of all, it's inhumane to the person with the disease...
(A) Once again, you put no responsibility on the perp. FYI, this does not make you enlightened. Helping perps is a good thing but not at the expense of victims and a proper society. But I digress.
You use the term "vigilante" but he was coming to the defense of others. Is spiderman a vigilante too? What about the car full of innocents? Fuck them? Defending the innocent against bad guys is okay and, in this case, commendable.
(Summary) Your excuse of criminality is fundamentally hogwash. It is likely born in your feeling for all people. It might even make you feel like the good-guy, more enlightened, superior, and better than others. I do not know since I do not know you. But you spent a lot of effort writing this. The concept of personal responsibility appears vacant from your world view. And your world view likely omits the need to protect the innocent-- whether they be by police, military, or individuals. Your world view lacks these elements and, as such, I suppose you also defend thieves, rapists, terrorists, murderers, etc. in this same manner. After all, these people are all sick in some way. And yes, they are all people. And they can be kind. And yes, we as a society can do better. That all that does not change the fundamentals. In the final analysis, the fundamental you miss is "responsibility." You should stand with society, the innocent, and the law-abiding. Your stand against society and the innocent, in favor of criminality is likely due to some fantasy you have. FYI, there have been bad guys and good guys for eternity. That is not about to change. That would be fantasy.
(3) Regarding the rest of your diatribe. You bounce around like a jack rabbit looking for justifications to defend this poor black man. You should stop over-analyzing. Your mind needs to focus on what is obvious. The basics. This man went wild and payed the penalty. He was held down by white and blacks to protect the innocent. You fell for the dem mischief. The arrest was political-- designed to support the narrative that blacks are always victims of whites. The country is not falling for it anymore. Nor should you. People, all people, can be good and bad. We are moving to color-blindness, meritocracy, and support for the law-abiding. Ya aught to get with the program. You're rumination on this subject can only be solved by accepting that criminals are responsible for their actions.
John made a distinction between Luigi Mangione and Jordan Neely. He stated that Luigi Mangione is responsible for his actions because he is not severely mentally ill. He acted rationally and in keeping with his beliefs about the insurance industry.
Those whose thinking is seriously impaired due to severe mental illness are not responsible for their actions and it is society's failing to help such people which lead to tragic consequences. Contrary to your belief, mental illness does trump responsibility.
As Freddie DeBoer has written: "I said what the research, experience, and common sense say: that the severely mentally ill are significantly more dangerous to the people around them than those without severe mental illness are. And there is not one of my critics who does not know that viscerally and intuitively when they’re not talking shit on the internet. I promise, these people get scared if a psychotic person gets on a subway train with them and starts screaming. I promise. Their peacocking lack of concern online does not impress me."
So we know that the severely mentally ill are more dangerous than those who are healthy. You and I, being heathly, are responsible for our actions. If I hurt someone, I should be held accountable. The severely mentally ill do not have the same ability to think rationally and in an orderly fashion as you and I.
As Freddie DeBoer has written regarding those refusing involuntary treatment due to their illness: "No, here’s where they’ll end up: living in a state of constant suffering and danger on the streets, in prison, or dead. That’s where they’ll go. There is no magical sanitarium in the mountains where they’ll go, voluntarily. They’re just going to end up like Jordan Neely did - deranged, constantly abusing dangerous drugs, emaciated, experiencing repetitive respiratory illnesses and minor infections, and subject to the endless threat of violence and arrest. That’s not freedom. That’s not autonomy."
Here is Mr. DeBoer's history of deinstitutionalization: https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?pli=1#label/Freddie+deBoer
Never thought about the Schizophrenia angle. I had three high school friends, all from upper income families all fell ill to Schizophrenia. Two died from natural causes, the other beat an 85yr old woman to death and is locked up forever.
Did he have a father present in his life or did the government raise him?
Good callout of Gov. Stitt. He's also weak on......immigration.
Yes they do. Criminals are their army,their muscle for the radical world of their dreams.
Ann do you remember the Handbook for Radicals ? Written in the 60's. Bottom up, top down? Turn the criminals, the media and low information voters against st the middle class. The middle begs the government for help, and boy oh boy does government want to help. The law abiding become criminals. The criminals become heroes, aka Bonnie andClyde
Thanks Ann, you speak intelligently and forcefully for the democratic process.
Biden looks to be softening the US up for commutation protection of the entire Biden family crime syndicate, the Jan 6 inquisition / Kangaroo court and all Demoncrat election cheating! Have I missed anything?
The interesting part is how much he has to confess to ensure his commutations sufficiently describe the crimes to make sure all the criminal offences are excused!
Luigi Mangione may well have been suffering from a drug induced psychosis when he gunned down United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, but as Ann has alluded to before, Mangione may also be grappling with latent homosexuality. I bet he likely pleads insanity.
I am physicist, not a doctor, so when I saw a picture of his back x-ray, I saw two pins into one of his vertebrae but the second pin, presumably meant for the other vertebrae appeared to have gone in between his pinned vertebrae and another. If so this would leaving the second vertebrae and the pin free to move around near the spinal column / nerves. I am purely speculating, but he may have been in a great deal of agony and would his insurance have covered the cost of fixing his back problem and continuing to investigate and fix it? I have zero knowledge of US health insurance!
Thank you also Ann for the information re: birthright citizenship and the 40% figure of Blacks succumbing to abortion procedures. (for healthcare welfare benefits, too, I opine). Sad to note the racial component and geopolitics of this issue. Further complicating is anchor babies and birthright citizenship also includes white female pre-marriage entrapment and Chinese ongoing demands and entitlements.