Rather than choosing a villain to point our fingers at, it would be more productive to regard both Mr. Mangione and Mr. Thompson as just two more victims of our lethal health-care system, a for-profit system that exists nowhere else in the modern world.
The fact that many foreign countries have single-payer systems is used as clear proof that such a system is by definition un-American and won’t work in America. Such self-flattering screwball logic has resulted in a system that rewards the denial rather than the provision of care.
We need to get over the idea that Americans are unique when it comes to our bodies and not just like people in other countries who bleed blood, occasionally and unpredictably get sick, and need health care they can afford.