27 December—In the last (i.e., most recent, although with the ominous sale to Hearst you never know) Sunday Republican, columnist Chris Powell, likely having seen columnist Ben Shapiro’s typically nasty post on Facebook, attacks Senator Christopher Murphy for attacking medical insurers on Facebook:

“The assassination of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan on Dec. 4 has sparked political hysteria, most of all from Connecticut U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy. In a video he posted on social media two weeks later, citing the assassination, Murphy, a Democrat re-elected in November, turned vulgar, asserting that the medical insurance industry ‘mostly doesn’t give a ——’ [shit] about sick people and that people are angry about their coverage.

“The senator added: ‘The business model of the health care industry is to deny care to people who need it and force them into bankruptcy, or, worse, let them die in order to grow profit.’

“Is Thompson’s assassination really evidence for these accusations?”

Fair question. But Chris Powell knows damn well that, all things considered and even given Luigi Mangione’s questionable mental state, the assassination of the boss of the country’s biggest health insurer really is evidence for these accusations. As for the vulgar part, it’s common knowledge that “shit” has never passed Brother Powell’s virgin lips or been typed by his virgin fingers. But that’s irrelevant.

“Flawed as the medical insurance system may be,” Powell continues, “most people seem satisfied with what they have, especially government employees like the senator, whose policies are goldplated.” Chris is wrong there. Because government employees like the senator have policies that are solid gold.

And that’s the sort of health insurance and care everybody should have. And it won’t come cheap for taxpayers. And that’s not irrelevant.

Then Brother Powell goes on to essentially agree with The Monitor’s 22 December disquisition, Defending medical insurers, which pontificated that insurers, like any other businesses, were just in it for the profit and that not-for-profits and government agencies were really no better. And then some typically pithy and well-pointed Powellian observations, including:

“Their burgeoning welfare state is conditioning Americans to think that someone else should pay for everything they want, but until people are angels, insurance will remain a racket in which providers, policyholders, and their lawyers scheme to beat each other out of every cent possible.”

Chris Powell isn’t wrong about any of it. He very rarely is. But neither is Christopher Murphy. So it’s more genteel to say: Because the insurance industry, like any other industry, worships the bottom line above everything else, it’s only logical and natural for it put profit above sick people.

To wax philosophical, then, commerce—including but in no way limited to the insurance industry—is an extension of the individual, the person. Unlike so-called lower animals, persons—people—are naturally greedy. Capitalism is the embodiment of greed and couldn’t exist without it. Conversely, that’s precisely why a voluntarily cooperative, benevolent society—true socialism—can never succeed. And the welfare state, rather than being benevolent socialism, is merely a defense mechanism to forestall revolt of the welfare recipients.

In all events, Christopher Murphy is wrong in one respect. Because there’s no mostly about it. The medical insurance industry is all about profit—all about the bottom line—and clearly and totally doesn’t give a shit about sick people. And it never has given a shit about sick people and never will . . .