Tangle - PREVIEW - The Friday Edition: My response to your criticisms.

Episode Date: December 14, 2024

On today's episode, Isaac responds to comments and criticism on our coverage of the murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Tangle Editor Will Kaback sits in to read Isaac's response. This is a preview of today's Friday edition that is available in full and ad-free for our premium podcast subscribers. If you'd like to complete this episode and receive Sunday editions, exclusive interviews, bonus content, and more, head over to tanglemedia.supercast.com and sign up for a membership. If you are currently a newsletter subscriber, inquiry with us about how to receive a 33% discount on a podcast subscription! You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here. Today's podcast was written by Ari Weitzman and edited and engineered by Jon Lall. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. Our newsletter is edited by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman, Will Kaback, Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, and produced in conjunction with Tangle’s social media manager Magdalena Bokowa, who also created our logo. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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everybody has housing costs on their minds. For free tools and resources to help you manage your home finances, visit Canada.ca slash it pays to know. A message from the Government of Canada. From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle podcast, a place where you get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking and a little bit of our take. This is Will K. back.

I'm one of Tangles editors. And in today's episode, we are going to be sharing reader feedback and criticisms to our coverage of the shooting death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. This was a piece that we published on Monday. And throughout the week, we have been hearing from readers in our inbox, on our social media channels about what we wrote, some criticism, some compliments, but a huge range of response from people who are in the healthcare industry, from people who have been impacted by it. And when we get this kind of response, we like to sometimes dedicate an entire edition

to that feedback. So we'll share some replies to the common emails that we got, but we'll also just let a few of them stand on their own so you can get some different perspectives. Excited to share this one with you all? Let's jump in. ["Isaac's Voice"] A quick note, when I read our responses

to the feedback that we received, I'll be reading it in Isaac's voice. There's a trope in the media that you should never look at the comments and I get why this sentiment exists. Comment sections are generally a bitter place where people fight with each other and offer biting criticisms that they really only would from behind a screen. For whatever reason, I've always found that people replying to our emails do so in a much more measured, thoughtful way than they do in the comment section. My personal hypothesis is that when there isn't a public audience, people don't feel the need to perform for likes and replies. But that doesn't mean the comments aren't worth reading.

I think the comment section is a valuable way for me to take the temperature of my audience and engage with them. So sometimes, you might see me responding to Tangle readers in the comment sections of articles or on social media. Still, I have to be honest. It's not my favorite thing to do. Last week, I was shocked by some of the responses to an Instagram post summarizing my take on the murder of Brian Thompson,

the UnitedHealthcare CEO. Many people totally misconstrued my argument, attacking strawman arguments I wasn't making. Others made vast, sweeping assumptions about my views on war, policing, race, and civil rights because I had an opinion about a story mostly confined to healthcare and vigilante justice. I tried to engage some of those comments, but I didn't get very far. Instead of hearing

my rebuttals, people accused me of being defensive or out of touch. After talking to my wife about the difficulty of interacting with people on social media, I had an idea that I thought was the embodiment of the Tangle spirit. I was going to offer several of my critics in the comments section, who I thought were being particularly harsh, to come on the Tangle podcast and talk out our disagreements. My suspicion was that if I could get them to talk to me in a different medium, we could have more productive conversations. But none took my offer.

There were some glimmers of hope, though. One thing I noticed was that people who left nasty or demeaning comments about my writing immediately changed their tone when I showed up and replied. Mostly they'd go from angry and accusatory to thoughtful, critical, and respectful. I think this reflects the reality that a lot of people say things on social media that they wouldn't say in person, or if they knew the subject of their comment was actually reading it, which I often am. For me, it was another reminder to keep openly addressing people's comments, even and perhaps especially when they don't agree with mine. So I addressed some of the general

feedback we got in Tuesday's newsletter this week, and you can go and read that on our website or go back to the episode on Tuesday if you missed it. But there was a lot more that I wanted to get to. Also, as those of you who have been around for a while know, I love elevating readers' criticisms and feedback. I do not assume I am right about everything, nor do I think my opinion is the best, smartest, most accurate, or most valuable. We have close to 300,000 people on our mailing list.

Our podcast does half a million downloads a month, and a lot of our listeners and readers are very smart, thoughtful, and have various expertises. So today I'm gonna share comments from those readers who were critical of my take on the shooting to best ensure that Tangle subscribers can get a wide range of perspectives on the issue. I've let many of these criticisms stand on their own

without my responses, so you can take them or leave them as you like. However, there was a few that I couldn't help but respond to. One reader wrote in and said, I've enjoyed the pragmatism generally found in your content since a friend hooked me in a few weeks ago. As of today though, I'm out. Isaac's gross defense of the status quo seems to show a substantial misunderstanding of the entire problem. Isaac writes, improving our health care system and our society more broadly is not going to start by shooting corporate leaders in the back. It's going to take fastidious work from consumer advocates, legislators and corporations. It'll require grassroots movements and political

pressure. It will happen slowly, deliberately, with a checkered history of wins and losses. That is always how this goes. And anyone trying to convince you otherwise is selling snake oil. The reader writes, improving our healthcare system isn't happening in terms of benefits provided or costs incurred. Putting your faith in the idea that corporations would even pay lip service to the idea of fastidious work against their own fiduciary goals would suggest you don't understand their role in the mess we have allowed ourselves to end up in. Your take seems to echo the long-held trope about one death being a tragedy and one million a statistic.

There is no political pressure coming for the free market healthcare status quo. Legislators who attempt to hold them accountable or reduce dependence on a broken system are branded socialists or communists and their positions treated as noise. Meaning your appeal for people to focus on slow incremental improvement suggests you're entirely comfortable with propping up the status quo as an industry siphons money upwards and ensures the bodies flowing into the burgeoning funeral industry will remain a constant. All while our first-world counterparts enjoy longer lives obtained with lower personal expense to maintain their lives. Your content has some value with your curated media takes but I think you're out of touch with the needs

and frustration of the people. In response to this comment, Isaac writes, First of all, I'll offer my standard response to people who approach their dialogue this way. Deciding to cancel your subscription because you encountered an argument you didn't like means you are pretty much missing the entire point of this newsletter and this community. If you're seeking a safe space where you will always read arguments from me or the commentators we feature that fit your worldview, then yes, Tangle is not the place for you. But we are a big tent news organization built for people who are interested in being challenged, exploring arguments out of their comfort zone and learning. No, not everyone agrees with me on this issue, but my view on this issue is held by millions

of other Americans, so it's odd to me that you are so blithely intolerant of it. Second, to respond to your actual argument, which I would have gladly done if you simply wrote in with your criticism too, it wasn't so long ago that people in our country who had pre-existing conditions or were barely above the poverty level couldn't get insurance. That major hurdle was overcome by fastidious work from consumer advocates, legislatures, and grassroots political movements and pressure. It didn't happen fast, but it happened. That's my point. Changing this system in a meaningful and permanent way is not going to come about through murdering people in cold blood. If you

can't see that, I really don't know what to tell you. Even if I accepted that violence is necessary to affect change, I haven't heard many clear answers about what this change would look like. Instead, I've heard a lot of arguments that boil down to, the shooting was effective because it got people talking and put a spotlight on this issue. I hear this refrain a lot from activists who put a lot of stock in raising awareness with little thought to what they would do once their issue gains attention. Personally, I think it's far more likely that further violence against health insurance executives would just result in those executives going out in public less often and having their information scrubbed from the internet, which is already happening.

Less plausible to me is that these companies would be scared into making significant changes in short order. I'm open to arguments to the contrary, but if there are truly changes as a result of this, I think there'll be more PR band-aids than true reforms. Third, I'll add that some things about the system have been getting better. More people are being insured today than ever before. The Affordable Care Act is steadily growing in popularity. 71% of adults consider the quality of the health care they receive to be excellent or good.

And 65% say the same about their insurance coverage. Older Americans, who often need health care the most, tend to be the most satisfied. President Biden made major moves in office negotiating lower prices for drugs, something Trump might and should build on. Just recently, Senators Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat from Massachusetts, and Josh Hawley, a Republican from Missouri, two of the most opposed people you'll find on Capitol Hill, co-sponsored a bill to require pharmacy benefit managers and insurers to divest from pharmacies they own.

Despite the infuriating and broken elements of the system that I personally have experienced, it is always changing in ways big and small. Meanwhile, we have some of the best doctors and facilities in the world. Perhaps more to the point, you seem to believe healthcare insurance companies are the main villain in this plot.

I think there's a very good argument that they play a minor role in why things are actually so broken. Finally, I'll just say that I resent the accusation that I am out of touch simply because I don't believe murdering healthcare CEOs is going to get us what we want. The proverbial we being any Americans who want better, more affordable, more accessible care. Indeed, I suspect this will be an albatross around the neck of activists doing the real work to make change, who will now be labeled and lumped in as extremist radicals because

of people like this shooter. As I wrote in my piece, I've had numerous health care problems of my own that I've had to address in this broken system. My mom is a three-time breast cancer survivor, my father received social security and government-provided health insurance. Numerous friends, family members, and people I care for are fighting to survive in the system as it exists now, some with debilitating disabilities or diseases. You seem to think we need a revolution, while I think there are more pragmatic ways to accomplish a more affordable and accessible healthcare system. We can disagree

about that without you pretending I lack the empathy or experience to care about my loved ones and my fellow Americans. We'll be right back after this quick commercial break. Timothee Chalamet transforms into the enigmatic Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown, a cinematic captivation that explores the tumultuous life of a musical icon. This mesmerizing film captures the essence of Dylan's rebellious spirit and his relentless pursuit of artistic innovation. From the director of acclaimed films, Walk the Line and Logan, this extraordinary cinematic experience is a testament to the power of music and the enduring legacy of a true visionary. Watch the trailer now and secure your tickets for a truly unforgettable cinematic experience. A Complete Unknown. Only in theaters December 25th.

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Find comfort this season with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com to learn more and save 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp.com. The Next Reader wrote in and said, I heard this recently. Why is it we only recognize murder when it comes in the form of a bullet? Hundreds are murdered by paperwork

every day and we don't bat an eye. Denying healthcare based on arbitrary criteria is violence all the same. Allowing people to die in order to protect profits is murder all the same. Allowing people to die in order to protect profits is murder all the same. I think that your take on this lacks critical class analysis, but you know that, don't you? Isaac responds. To really think about this critically, I think you have to make it personal. How many people

do you know who might work in jobs many people in our country deem morally tenuous? Lobbyists? Politicians? Cops? Oil executives? Weapons manufacturers or prison wardens? Or selling products that don't do what they're built to do? What about journalists who regularly get things wrong? Maybe even misreporting life or death issues like vaccines or natural disasters? What about drug dealers who sell drugs to feed their families? How many of them do you think deserve to be killed? The moment that you start identifying powerful people operating in systems that could be deemed negligent for certain deaths, the list of people deserving to be executed on the street starts to grow alarmingly fast.

And there is an obvious difference between negligence and intent, one that is spelled out in pretty much every developed justice system on the planet. Speaking of systems, we have all sorts of systems in our country that are designed to do one thing and fail to do it. And in a country of hundreds of millions, you unfortunately have to expect some degree of failure in those massive systems. For instance, we have a system of laws and regulations to make driving a car safe, yet tens of thousands of people die every year in car accidents. Even very, very good systems that operate on that scale, like the number of people with health insurance in America. Those will be fraught

with numerous horror stories, tragedies, and yes, death. Our healthcare system is not well designed, and I agree with you there. Systematic issues or even gross inefficiencies in a system of its size can be tragic, but those kind of failures are simply not the same thing as inflicting intentional harm on an individual person. The idea that deaths caused by things like treatment delays or denials are functionally similar to walking up to a person and shooting them to death is self-evidently silly and the idea that believing so or viewing these things differently lacks critical class analysis is snarky and absurd to the point of being irritating.

I think if you asked your average Joe about the moral equivalence between, say, a vigilante shooting a rich CEO in the back and a corporate CEO in a system that causes a lot of harm, that person would judge the vigilante more harshly. The next reader writes, 30% of all claims. That's how many Brian Thompson denies. More than any other health insurance provider actually, and United is the biggest one. Think of how many lives that is a day.

Not every claim is life-threatening, but enough are. How many people did Brian kill a day, you think? 100? 1000? Isaac writes, interestingly enough, I think it's pretty hard to substantiate the idea that thousands or hundreds of thousands of people die every year due to denied health insurance claims. I've seen this accusation leveled over and over again in the last few weeks, but always with very little in the way of supporting evidence. This is in part because many insurers

are not transparent about their denials. But I think it's worth actually asking if we know this to be true. The most relevant study I could find came from 2006, which estimated that 26,260 Americans aged 25 to 64 died in 2006 because they lacked health insurance. This number drew headlines because it was more than the number of people murdered. However, the percentage of people who had health insurance in 2006 was around 84 percent,

while the percentage in 2023 was 92 percent. But that's uninsured people. What about those who have had their claims denied? was around 84%, while the percentage in 2023 was 92%. But that's uninsured people. What about those who have had their claims denied? A 2021 KFF survey found that major medical insurers in the healthcare.gov marketplace rejected roughly 17% of in-network claims on average. And a 2023 KFF survey found slightly higher percentages among people with private insurance in the past year.

We also know that most people who are denied coverage for care do not take the insurer's decision to appeal, where they are often reversed. The most troubling figure I came across in my research comes from a 2024 Commonwealth Fund report, which found nearly half of adults who experienced care delays because of a denial of coverage

said their health problem worsened as a result. Furthermore, nearly one in six said the denials delayed the diagnosis of a serious health problem. Crucially though, worsened health outcomes due to claim denials are not the same thing as murdering someone. Instead, these claim denials may reduce the number of years someone could live. That's not some morally neutral thing, but a system that contributes to poor health outcomes is obviously different from premeditated murder. Again, I'll agree that claim denials play a big role in worsening people's health outcomes, but it's simply difficult to substantiate the oft-repeated claims that people like Thompson are responsible for thousands of deaths a year.

The next reader writes, While I doubt we will ever agree on the overall take you provide, that's not my concern. My problem lies in your framing of this as left versus right. You presented the left as generally being more sympathetic to the murderer and the right more condemning of it. Even your take specifically calls out the left as needing to sign off the internet and spend more time outside. Yet from everything I've been viewing, while reporters on the right may be more likely to defend the CEO, the actual people who make up the right are not. Major

right-wing pundits like Ben Shapiro have been getting pushback from their audiences when they try to frame it as the left cheering for the murderer, while the right have moral high ground. I know many on the right who are just as angry and eager to villainize the CEO as those on the left. I've seen pretty evenly bipartisan unity in the response to this murder from the populace, and yet when I listened to your story, I was given the impression that it was only those radical lefties. This just felt deeply detached from reality.

Isaac responds, that's fair. Our work always creates the challenge of delineating between left and right pundits and the audiences they serve. Interestingly, I made this exact point on several of the podcasts I hosted or appeared on to discuss this issue that a lot of people on the right were celebrating or lionizing the shooter too. I even tweeted this to someone a few days ago and I tweeted, I don't think this is a left-right issue unfortunately. I've seen

a lot of conservative and right-wing folks also supporting him or at least not condemning him. So it's a fair call out that this sentiment wasn't expressed or didn't appear clearly in the newsletter. We'll be right back after this quick commercial break. Timothee Chalamet transforms into the enigmatic Bob Dylan in a complete unknown, a cinematic captivation that explores the tumultuous life of a musical icon. This mesmerizing film captures the essence of Dylan's rebellious spirit and his relentless pursuit of artistic innovation.

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As a non-history buff, I think there's some examples where violence, unfortunately, has been an answer. I'm not trying to assign moral value to any of these, but with regards to ending slavery in America, declaring independence from England, or trying to take down ISIS, violence has been the answer. slavery in America, declaring independence from England, or trying to take down ISIS, violence has been the answer. Or at least, we've frequently shown by our government and foreign governments that violence is an answer. Hell, with everything from Kyle Rittenhouse to killing Nazis in World War II, there will always be someone celebrating some form of violence. I guess I'm curious why for so

many the idea of killing Hitler is good and premeditated killing of a CEO is bad are so clear. I'm certainly not equating the two, nor am I justifying either myself, but at least I'm trying to figure out where the line is between the two, such that I think so many people would firmly agree on both. Is it just that there's some level of supposed influence or intention that make the two so different? I'm very interested in your belief on this. A last thing that I feel you've touched on with your writing is people feeling like maybe violence is their only option. I think that's fairly disassociated from reality and we mostly just have a very complex political

system where people have a hard time figuring out what channels are available for them to create change. But still, I'm curious why you're so confident that positive change will happen through grassroots efforts and time. With the capability for companies to basically spend as much money as they want on candidates and for people like Elon Musk to seemingly buy themselves a government appointment, I don't see how Blackstone's monopoly or healthcare's profiteering will necessarily be boarded by public resistance.

And from my limited knowledge, I see things like the 2008 housing bubble being an example where things couldn't be changed, and even after all the companies fell and had to be bailed out by the public, the people who caused the issues didn't face consequences, meaningful regulation wasn't put in place, and thousands of normal folks paid the price. I'm not an expert on that crisis or on this topic, so I guess I'm just looking for more understanding of why you feel confident of these things that they'll be fixed with time and effort.

I appreciate you writing your anecdote about your mother. I'm sure that was awful to experience and hard to write about for your audience. I feel like it was important for me to read and I hope people in the industry see more stories like yours. Isaac responds, I have a couple of stories from my time at Tangle that I want to share here that I think can relate. On one of our first Sunday podcasts, managing editor Ari Weitzman and I discussed the concept of lies we tell ourselves for the sake of civilization. One of those lies was that violence is never the answer. History is overflowing with examples,

like the ones you give, that easily prove that not to be the case. Instead, the better question is, when can violence be justified? That question's not so simple. If a kid stands up to his bully by punching him in the mouth, isn't that justifiable? The second story is a little more of a walk, so bear with me. When I first started hiring our full-time staff a few years ago, I was dealing with this problem of rushing every day to get the newsletter out. It felt like each morning was a stressful race against the clock where we had to blitz everything just to get Tangle out on time. The process created errors and it was burning me out fast. I tried to write things faster or

even just write less, but it became obvious that I was just using a system I no longer had to. I used to write Tangle by myself every day while holding down a full-time job, starting with researching the topic the day before, then writing everything from 6am to 10am. Instead, I started having my team help me out by sharing the load with research, summarizing, and extra features. What I learned was that I had a process problem, and I was trying to solve it with focus and effort. In our society, we need systemic solutions to solve system problems.

Violent solutions won't solve them. In the example I gave of a kid punching his bully in the mouth, that's a violent solution to a violent problem. Most historical examples of violence being the right choice. If you are not currently a newsletter subscriber or a premium podcast subscriber and you are enjoying this content and would like to finish it, you can go to readtangle.com to sign up for a newsletter subscription or you can go to tanglemedia.supercast.com and sign up for our premium podcast membership, which will unlock this complete episode as well as ad

free daily podcasts, more Friday editions, Sunday editions, bonus content, interviews, and so much more. We are working on trying to get together a bundled membership package where you're able to sign up for both the newsletter and the podcast. In the meantime, if you sign up for a newsletter subscription and you'd like to receive the podcast subscription as well or vice versa, we will offer you a 33% discount to sign up for the other. This is the best we can do in the short term while we work on a long term bundling solution. Most importantly, we just want to say thank you so much for your support.

We're working hard to bring you much more content and more offerings. So stay tuned. Isaac and Ari will be here for the Sunday podcast and I will join you for the daily podcast on Monday. For the rest of the crew, this is John Law signing off. Have a fantastic weekend, y'all. Peace. Our podcast is written by me, Isaac Saul and edited and engineered by John Law. The script is edited by our managing editor, Ari Weitzman, Will Kavak, Bailey Saul and Sean Brady. The logo for our

podcast was designed by Magdalena Bokova, who is also our social media manager. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. And if you're looking for more from Tangle, please go to reettangle.com and check out our website. Recently, I felt like I was getting sick, but I downloaded Maple, an app that lets you see a real doctor on your phone in minutes 24-7. You can even get a prescription if needed. So I quickly got to see the doctor, discussed my symptoms, and she prescribed medication.

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From the director of acclaimed films, Walk the Line and Logan, this extraordinary cinematic experience is a testament to the power of music and the enduring legacy of a true visionary. Watch the trailer now and secure your tickets for a truly unforgettable cinematic experience. A complete unknown. Only in theaters December 25th.