Indigenous Peoples’ Day in Maskachusetts

An excerpt from an “About Me” web page created in the Land of Science (TM):

I currently reside with my family on the ancestral and occupied lands of Nonantum of the Indigenous Massachusett people, whose name was appropriated by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. I commit to being LGBTQIA2S+ affirming and anti-racist in my personal and professional life. My pronouns are she/her/hers.”

Happy Indigenous Peoples’ Day to those who celebrate!

Speaking of celebration, the heavily regulated Massachusetts health insurance market is apparently a fantastic place to make a profit. From LinkedIn:

After digging through more Medicare Advantage numbers, there’s such blatant corruption that defies not just economic principles, not just healthcare principles, but somehow lets MA insurers make 3 TIMES the gross profit margins when compared to normal private insurance margins.

Using KFF’s analysis of insurer financial filings, I looked at gross margin per enrollee, meaning premium revenue minus the medical claims insurers actually paid out. In 2024, Medicare Advantage insurers kept $1,655 per enrollee. Individual market plans kept $987. Fully insured employer plans kept $846. Medicaid managed care kept $608.

What makes no sense is that, like Medicare Advantage, Medicaid runs through private insurer contracts. 78% of Medicaid beneficiaries, more than 66 million people, are enrolled in private managed care plans, and five publicly traded insurers, Centene, UnitedHealth, Elevance, Molina, and CVS/Aetna, control 47% of that enrollment.

These are the exact same companies that administer MA plans, paid by the same government, yet in the MA program they keep nearly 3x as much per enrollee.

This happens every single year. Between 2018 through 2024, MA gross profit margin was higher than self funded plans, fully insured employer plans, and Medicaid plans.

Just as Arabs became indigenous to any territory that they conquer, I think it is fair to say that these highly profitable health insurers are indigenous to Massachusetts by virtue of having conquered so much profit.

Related:

• Día de la Hispanidad (“National Day of Spain”), which is today because without Columbus’s idiocy and the expedition that followed from that misunderstanding/miscalculation, we would have no “Hispanics”

Gemini, regarding what life was like when the Massachusett ruled Massachusetts:

Public Ritual Torture: Captured enemy male warriors were sometimes subjected to prolonged public torture before execution. This served as a spiritual and emotional outlet for grieving families (a component of the widespread “mourning war” complex) and provided a platform for the captive warrior to demonstrate stoicism and physical courage in the face of death.

Mutilation: Captives or slain enemies were occasionally dismembered or burned, both to neutralize the enemy’s spirit and to serve as a psychological deterrent to rivals.

Taking severed body parts—specifically scalps, heads, or hands—as battle trophies was practiced as proof of victory, honor, and spiritual dominance over an adversary.

Internal Justice System: Internal tribal discipline for severe offenses—such as murder, treason, or theft within the group—was swift and physical. Punishments meted out by the sachem (chief) or council could include beatings, banishment (which was often a slow death sentence given reliance on tribal food networks), or summary execution.