I discovered his Substack only tonight and I was shocked at the amount of fallacies in his post. He writes in the voice of an arrogant expert in several topics, the US healthcare industry included, and yet, he has very little understanding of many of those topics. He just regurgitates other people's points without checking their accuracy, researching the matter for himself and trying to come up with an, ideally, objective point of view.
I was curious if this post this was an outlier in his "stack", but digging deeper it seems to be more of a pattern of biased perspective presented as objective, rational journalism.
Sad to see that so many people buy into his flawed, biased narrative.
What is interesting to consider is that Mangione was one of those people who found Gurwinder's perspective worthy of attention, and that just underscores the complexity of the "riddle" of who Mangione is. As for me, I am always interested in different perspectives, even or especially when they are different from mine--so long as those perspectives are informed by facts. We cannot be operating on different sets of facts and expect to have an honest, fruitful conversation about the same topic, and that is where Gurwinder fails, in my opinion. I only decided to write this when I realized how many people had commented upon his post and indicated it was "the best post I've read on this topic." Facts matter.
I totally agree with you, the article seems to be very much one sided. Being trapped in our own echo chambers will not lead us to a solution.
His article is peppered with logical fallacies and cognitive bias and his replies to any comment that did not align with his point of view were so condescending, that for the first time ever, I felt compelled to comment on his post.
I respectfully suggested that he perhaps should do a deeper analysis on both corporate governance and the operations and outcomes of the US healthcare system prior to quoting numbers that seemed cherry picked. Furthermore, his hasty generalizations were pretty atrocious.
Sadly, he both deleted my comment and blocked me. Which, to be honest, was sort of a relief because prior to him doing this, I kept wondering how come the majority of his comment section was such a perfect fit to this perspective and I started questioning my own reasoning.
Hi Ashley, thank you for writing this piece and for sharing your thoughts, I appreciated you dispelling some of the points that Gurwinder made in his essay that he uses to inform his perspective (points which some of his readers in his comments are eating up blindly). He employs a "holier than thou" attitude in his writing which he defends by selectively dropping data points that are taken out of context to inform his thesis. It's easy to google a few financial metrics and dismiss the "human costs" that contribute to the returns insurance companies reap the benefits of year after year.
I clapped when you touched on the "game of chicken" that the insurance companies play. This "game" has a high opportunity cost that isn't easily measured or quantified, but that doesn't mean it doesn't contribute to the frustration and anguish people feel toward American health insurance companies. For example, how can you measure the "what-ifs" of a person's life if they didn't have a lasting disability that could have been prevented through timely treatment, had bureaucratic pre-authorization approvals not been drawn out (e.g going blind while waiting for treatment or the lost time with a loved one whose death could have been prevented with timely treatment)? Not to mention the anxiety of having a condition worsen but being helpless (especially if paying out of pocket isn't an option) as the insurance companies (and their AI algorithms) take their time to decide if a patient's treatment aligns with reaching their profit targets. I'm glad that, over the past few weeks, people have been sharing the true costs that contribute to the profits of insurance companies.
All in all, great article, you gained a new subscriber!
Thank you for this piece. I was truly disappointed by Gurwinder’s essay. You wrote exactly what I was hoping someone would write.
That's really kind--thank you so much for reading.
Thank you for this article!
I discovered his Substack only tonight and I was shocked at the amount of fallacies in his post. He writes in the voice of an arrogant expert in several topics, the US healthcare industry included, and yet, he has very little understanding of many of those topics. He just regurgitates other people's points without checking their accuracy, researching the matter for himself and trying to come up with an, ideally, objective point of view.
I was curious if this post this was an outlier in his "stack", but digging deeper it seems to be more of a pattern of biased perspective presented as objective, rational journalism.
Sad to see that so many people buy into his flawed, biased narrative.
What is interesting to consider is that Mangione was one of those people who found Gurwinder's perspective worthy of attention, and that just underscores the complexity of the "riddle" of who Mangione is. As for me, I am always interested in different perspectives, even or especially when they are different from mine--so long as those perspectives are informed by facts. We cannot be operating on different sets of facts and expect to have an honest, fruitful conversation about the same topic, and that is where Gurwinder fails, in my opinion. I only decided to write this when I realized how many people had commented upon his post and indicated it was "the best post I've read on this topic." Facts matter.
Thank you so much for reading.
I totally agree with you, the article seems to be very much one sided. Being trapped in our own echo chambers will not lead us to a solution.
His article is peppered with logical fallacies and cognitive bias and his replies to any comment that did not align with his point of view were so condescending, that for the first time ever, I felt compelled to comment on his post.
I respectfully suggested that he perhaps should do a deeper analysis on both corporate governance and the operations and outcomes of the US healthcare system prior to quoting numbers that seemed cherry picked. Furthermore, his hasty generalizations were pretty atrocious.
Sadly, he both deleted my comment and blocked me. Which, to be honest, was sort of a relief because prior to him doing this, I kept wondering how come the majority of his comment section was such a perfect fit to this perspective and I started questioning my own reasoning.
Anyway, thank you for sharing your perspective!
Hi Ashley, thank you for writing this piece and for sharing your thoughts, I appreciated you dispelling some of the points that Gurwinder made in his essay that he uses to inform his perspective (points which some of his readers in his comments are eating up blindly). He employs a "holier than thou" attitude in his writing which he defends by selectively dropping data points that are taken out of context to inform his thesis. It's easy to google a few financial metrics and dismiss the "human costs" that contribute to the returns insurance companies reap the benefits of year after year.
I clapped when you touched on the "game of chicken" that the insurance companies play. This "game" has a high opportunity cost that isn't easily measured or quantified, but that doesn't mean it doesn't contribute to the frustration and anguish people feel toward American health insurance companies. For example, how can you measure the "what-ifs" of a person's life if they didn't have a lasting disability that could have been prevented through timely treatment, had bureaucratic pre-authorization approvals not been drawn out (e.g going blind while waiting for treatment or the lost time with a loved one whose death could have been prevented with timely treatment)? Not to mention the anxiety of having a condition worsen but being helpless (especially if paying out of pocket isn't an option) as the insurance companies (and their AI algorithms) take their time to decide if a patient's treatment aligns with reaching their profit targets. I'm glad that, over the past few weeks, people have been sharing the true costs that contribute to the profits of insurance companies.
All in all, great article, you gained a new subscriber!