UnitedHealth's Effort to Deny Coverage for a Patient's Care (2023) • Hacker News Board

Re: UnitedHealth's Effort to Deny Coverage for a Patient's Care (2023)

#101

Post by Atreiden » Sun, Dec 08, 2024, 6:41 PM UTC

orwin wrote: post #76

paulgb wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm also a New Yorker and I think that most of us actually do not believe that assassinations are a net benefit to society, no matter how dissatisfied with the health care system we are.

Was the man who strangled a homeless man on the subway convicted of murder, or did the jury let him go in the end? Is it judged yet? But I agree with you, I think most new Yorkers will convict someone who killed a CEO. Also I bet they'll let go someone who killed a homeless person. I don't know a lot of new Yorkers but petty bourgeois are the same in every countries.

I'm not even a New Yorker, but I can tell you the vast, vast majority of the people in that city are not "petty bourgeois". There is tremendous money in the city, but it is not even close to evenly distributed.

Re: UnitedHealth's Effort to Deny Coverage for a Patient's Care (2023)

#102

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Dec 08, 2024, 6:42 PM UTC

paulgb wrote: post #55

griomnib wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s an incredibly strong argument this particular person likely killed tens of thousand of people by his decisions to deny and delay care. This was not an employee carrying out orders from corporate, it’s the guy who is directly responsible for these deaths. This CEO is as much a mass murder as any other tyrant who commanded soldiers to commit atrocities. That will be part of the defense argument presented to the…

> That will be part of the defense argument presented to the jury. That evidence wouldn't be admitted. There's no “the guy deserved it” defense for murder, it's always illegal to kill people.

[deleted]

Re: UnitedHealth's Effort to Deny Coverage for a Patient's Care (2023)

#103

Post by grobbyy » Sun, Dec 08, 2024, 6:42 PM UTC

ct520 wrote: post #18

throwawa14223 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? Should he be caught it seems like an open and shut case with video evidence.

What I believe he is referring to is Jury nullification. I interpret your statement of open and shut case as you believe jury must convict if what they interpret to be facts of breaking a laws written by man. By a jury choosing not to convict there is another form of justice implied…

My guess is that most people on a jury would convict, but the odds of an entire jury convicting are less than fifty percent. I don't know how much less.

Tha kind of flexibility is the point of a jury. Laws aren't purely mechanical in most countries, for good reason. There's a lot of complexity and nuance, especially when some people have political power.

I don't have enough background here to make a judgement about what a jury should do, but I do have enough background to know that things like jury nullification are important to a well-functioning justice system.

Re: UnitedHealth's Effort to Deny Coverage for a Patient's Care (2023)

#104

Post by PopAlongKid » Sun, Dec 08, 2024, 6:42 PM UTC

ct520 wrote: post #18

throwawa14223 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? Should he be caught it seems like an open and shut case with video evidence.

What I believe he is referring to is Jury nullification. I interpret your statement of open and shut case as you believe jury must convict if what they interpret to be facts of breaking a laws written by man. By a jury choosing not to convict there is another form of justice implied…

I believe he is referring to if/when the cops confront the suspect, they will claim a justification for shooting him fatally during the arrest attempt.

Re: UnitedHealth's Effort to Deny Coverage for a Patient's Care (2023)

#105

Post by adrr » Sun, Dec 08, 2024, 6:43 PM UTC

whatever1 wrote: post #59

I really don’t get why everyone involved is allowed to have hidden prices. It looks like a highway robbery. I had a relative visiting from Europe and they had to go to the urgent care for some blood and urine tests and consultation. They received a $2,500 bill! My relative told the hospital that they are leaving the country and offered to pay $250 or good luck collecting from abroad. Then something magical happened.…

Medical providers have inflated prices because contracts with insurance providers say the medical provider must provide them with discount. There's a secret cash price which often is cheaper than what insurance pays. Everyone is ripping each other off.

Here's a good example. Duexis is a combination of two over the counter drugs except medical providers bill $2500 a month for it even though it contains less than $5 worth drugs.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/articl...

Re: UnitedHealth's Effort to Deny Coverage for a Patient's Care (2023)

#106

Post by paulgb » Sun, Dec 08, 2024, 6:43 PM UTC

aantix wrote: post #80

whatever1 wrote: post #59

I really don’t get why everyone involved is allowed to have hidden prices. It looks like a highway robbery. I had a relative visiting from Europe and they had to go to the urgent care for some blood and urine tests and consultation. They received a $2,500 bill! My relative told the hospital that they are leaving the country and offered to pay $250 or good luck collecting from abroad. Then something magical happened.…

I needed an adrenalectomy. I called before hand, trying to figure out what I would owe afterwards. No one could give me a price. It’s all vague, we don’t know answers. It’s absurd. I basically got stern - eventually somebody is going to send me a bill with a number on it, so someone knows what this will cost. Still never got a solid number out of them.

I had to get some bloodwork done. I sent emails and made calls until I found a provider who would actually tell me the prices.

Then the bill came and it was 3x higher. I wanted to know if it was the doctor's error or the lab's, so I asked for any paperwork requesting services submitted by the doctor, and they ignored me and sent it to collections, where it has been for the last 2+ years.

Re: UnitedHealth's Effort to Deny Coverage for a Patient's Care (2023)

#107

Post by dragonwriter » Sun, Dec 08, 2024, 6:43 PM UTC

griomnib wrote: post #35

paulgb wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm also a New Yorker and I think that most of us actually do not believe that assassinations are a net benefit to society, no matter how dissatisfied with the health care system we are.

There’s an incredibly strong argument this particular person likely killed tens of thousand of people by his decisions to deny and delay care. This was not an employee carrying out orders from corporate, it’s the guy who is directly responsible for these deaths. This CEO is as much a mass murder as any other tyrant who commanded soldiers to commit atrocities. That will be part of the defense argument presented to the…

> That will be part of the defense argument presented to the jury. Intent matters tremendously in the legal system (mens rea).

It does, but “he did bad-but-legal things that morally justify my client’s premeditated homicide” is only legally relevant to proving premeditation, which doesn’t help the defense, and which the prosecution will be more than happy to stipulate to rendering the evidence irrelevant.

> This isn’t random, this is very, very targeted.

That’s not a fact in the defense’s favor, legally.

Re: UnitedHealth's Effort to Deny Coverage for a Patient's Care (2023)

#108

Post by lancesells » Sun, Dec 08, 2024, 6:43 PM UTC

griomnib wrote: post #31

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the pro-murder caucus is quite a bit smaller than you're envisioning. Some juries wouldn't convict the shooter, sure, but willingness to convict if that's where the evidence points is something the prosecution will be considering in jury selection.

I’ve spent days reviewing comments on Reddit, Twitter, YouTube, news articles, et al and I’ve never seen such a uniformity of opinion on anything in my life.

Have you seen Youtube or Reddit comments on anything? They don't reflect real-life. Youtube is probably the worst, most trollish comments of the "normal" internet and Reddit is a sort of progressive propaganda machine that will also call for the death penalty on a teenager that did something stupid (which lots of teenagers do) or a karen that was an asshole in a restaurant and isn't happy with her life.

I haven't visited twitter in ten years or more so can't comment on that.

Re: UnitedHealth's Effort to Deny Coverage for a Patient's Care (2023)

#109

Post by spondylosaurus » Sun, Dec 08, 2024, 6:43 PM UTC

BadHumans wrote: post #84

polalavik wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had to get a medication for a stomach bacteria called C. diff. It has bad relapse rates and its best to get it in check asap. What my doctor prescibed was the newest/best antibiotic for the issue, the other have worse recovery rates and way worse side effects. I have very good insurance. The price of the medication without insurance was about $5000, the price with very good insurance was about $1300. After redditin…

> After redditing i found a thread where you can find a manufacturers coupon on the manufacturers website. After knowing this seemingly secret hidden trick the medicine was $50. My doctor didnt know about that, my insurance didnt either. Absolutely insane. This is GoodRx's business model in a nutshell. I used them when I didn't have insurance and saved a ton on medicine.

Some manufacturer coupons/copay programs work a little differently than GoodRx—specifically the ones that you can only use if you're insured.

Those ones work like this: HelpfulDrug costs $2000/month. Your insurance company will pay $1500/month, and wants to pass the remaining $500 onto you, but that's too expensive for you to pay.

The manufacturers of HelpfulDrug see this and would rather not lose our on a deal, so they make you an offer: as long as your insurance pays the $1500 as promised, they'll tell insurance to waive $450 worth of your portion. You only pay $50, and the HelpfulDrug manufacturer still earns $1500, most of which is pure profit anyway.

Re: UnitedHealth's Effort to Deny Coverage for a Patient's Care (2023)

#110

Post by standardUser » Sun, Dec 08, 2024, 6:43 PM UTC

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #83

griomnib wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve spent days reviewing comments on Reddit, Twitter, YouTube, news articles, et al and I’ve never seen such a uniformity of opinion on anything in my life.

Comments you see on the Internet are not a random sample! If there's one lesson I could drive home to everyone about media literacy, this is it. Everything you see online is intensely, competitively selected for its ability to drive engagement, and celebrating murder drives a ton of engagement precisely because it transgresses well-established and widely agreed norms. Indeed, as we've seen here, the murder drives so…

> Everything you see online is intensely, competitively selected for its ability to drive engagement

Mostly you're seeing accounts/sites you follow and choose to view and often those accounts have a consistent set of commenters. It's not like you log and the internet shows you entirely random things every time.