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WBrentWilliams 7 hours ago

The quickest way to rile up an existing mob is to make them fear their livelihood is being reduced or removed. The _robot_ is not taking away healthcare, but the effect of the robot existing hit directly at the livelihood of the masses.

In the US, health insurance is largely tied to employment. Health insurance, in a personal economic sense, reduces to being able to pay for healthcare. This policy is largely a left-over of World War II era employment policies. No one is taking healthcare _away_ from anyone (strictly speaking), but the ability to be able to _pay_ for healthcare is reduced to zero when employment ceases. Accessing the safety net is a separate skillset. This skill set becomes more difficult to achieve because the political class does not want to provide healthcare for everyone, only the worthy (their loyal voters).

I grew up in and am still a member of the precariat. I am educated and doing well, but I wear a well-polished pair of golden handcuffs due to how my ability to afford healthcare for myself, and my family, is tied to employment. Politically, I _do not_ like being tied to my employer by such a chain, but my arguments to change the system have been met with quite firm push-back.

stvltvs 7 hours ago | parent [-]

Insurance companies are using AI (whatever that means in this case) to make coverage denial decisions. That can be reasonably summarized as robots are taking away our healthcare.

whimblepop 5 hours ago | parent [-]

Link, please? I 100% believe this but I'm curious about the reporting by which you discovered this

daveguy 5 hours ago | parent [-]

Google this and take your pick:

ai decisions health insurance

Also, to be clear, I don't think violence is the way to confront the oligarch sociopaths. There is clearly enough momentum to fix a lot of the monopoly / anti-consumer issues over the next 4-8 years. Assuming Trumpty Dumpty doesn't try to put our military at polling places or some other anti-democracy putinesque bullshit like that.

apothegm 4 minutes ago | parent [-]

That’s quite the assumption.