Some people like everything about the United States. Someone else, however, hates everything related to the States. Questions of taste and (often) preconceptions or ideologies, whatever you want. But I don’t want to talk about that. In recent days, the post published on Facebook by Professor Alessandro Volpi, professor of Contemporary History at the University of Pisa, has caught my attention. I propose it to you in the hope, for those interested, of opening a debate. Not so much on social justice (or injustice) but on the concrete effects of a system, the healthcare system, in which the de facto state has disappeared and large investment funds are in charge.

“What is social injustice. In the United States, even to be rescued by an ambulance you need to have health insurance, which is then essential for hospitalization, treatment and all the rest of the health treatments. There are around ten health insurance companies that “manage the health market”: United Healthcare, Elevance Health, Centene, WellCare, Humana Inc., Cigna, Progyny, Alignment Healthcare. What do they have in common? They have, practically all, as main shareholders Vanguard, BlackRock, State Streetwho hold shareholdings of around 20-25%. Therefore, US healthcare is in the hands of the Big Three who must obtain returns from this sector capable of remunerating their shareholders and above all their savers. It is worth remembering that the same “Big Three” are also the key shareholders of the legal companies to which patients whose insurance does not pay for treatment must be addressed. In practice, there is only one chain of control, totally financialized, which includes health insurance companies and legal companies that defend both the companies themselves and the patients. Naturally, the same Big Three are also the main shareholders of the banks that grant loans to Americans for health insurance, since they have 25-30% of the share ownership of the US banking system. The democracy of money and social injustice: the model that we are replicating, slavishly, also in Europe”. (Alessandro Volpi)