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

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

#141

Post by AtlasBarfed »

lenerdenator wrote: post #28
griomnib wrote: post #6

No jury will convict the shooter, I suspect he’ll “resist arrest” and never make it to a court room for that reason.

Yeah, he's more of a pain in the death-for-profi... I mean... society's ass alive. Even if a jury does convict, he's in a state with no death penalty and the notoriety and nature of his crime will likely gain him support on the inside. Plus, all the press coverage of the trial gives him a podium... I'd be stunned if he makes it to court.

If he is found and sent to jail it would be fascinating to see how he is viewed on the inside.

If there's one thing that crosses almost all class and racial divides, it is our shitty medical care system.

My (now passed) uncle was in jail to challenge drug incarceration laws back in the 60s, since the opposition needed a case that wouldnt settle to reach the supreme court.

No one would touch him in jail.

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

#142

Post by laimewhisps »

breadwinner wrote: post #138

Insurance companies are hardly the only ones at fault here. Hospitals and Pharma companies are guilty of price gouging [1]. When insurance pays hospitals hike up the prices. When the patient pays (such as for cosmetic or plastic surgery) the prices charged by hospitals and doctors are more reasonable. [1] https://www.dolthub.com/blog/2022-05-31-hospital-price-gougi...

This is why CEO pay transparency is so important!

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

#143

Post by marssaxman »

dragonwriter wrote: post #107
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. 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’…

In terms of the jury's willingness to convinct, however, it is likely to weigh heavily.

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

#144

Post by pixelatedindex »

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.

There is a double standard though - when a common man is gunned on the street it’s just thoughts and prayers, there’s nothing we can do, etc. But when it’s an elite somehow that death is more important. If there is no justice for them, then there should be no justice here either. Otherwise it just reaffirms that some human lives are worth more than others.

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

#145

Post by bc569a80a344f9c »

laimewhisps wrote: post #117
bc569a80a344f9c wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/468176/americans-sour-healthcar... There’s a huge difference between how people view health care in general, and their own health insurance. According to the linked survey, in 2023 it was notable that only 72% of people had a favorable view of their own health insurance. In recent decades that has indeed sat around 80%, as OP claimed. Again, that’s their _own_ insurance, while views of he…

According to that poll only 65% are happy with their health care coverage (page 8): https://news.gallup.com/file/poll/654047/2024_12_06%20Health... On page 5 you can see 79% are dissatisfied with the cost of health care.

You’re right, I only looked at basic graphs and confused “the quality of health care you receive” (the numbers I gave) vs “your health care coverage”.

Still, that’s a huge dissonance between personal experience and opinion on the nationwide state of things, and I find that interesting because I doubt we can fix it unless a significant majority of people find it enough of a personal priority to vote that way.

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

#146

Post by JumpCrisscross »

pixelatedindex wrote: post #134
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Have you spoken to regular people not terminally online? They have no sympathy for the CEO Everyone I have spoken to has no sympathy for him as a CEO but sympathy for him as a human. He is wrong and the healthcare system is broken. But this was also murder. If your sense of empathy is so fucked that you’re pro murder, you need to speak to a professional. (If you’re struggling with this and don’t want to let hate tu…

> But this was also murder. If your sense of empathy is so fucked that you’re pro murder, you need to speak to a professional. A quote comes to mind - “I do not wish death upon another human, but I have read some obituaries with great delight”. This is one of those instances. I have more sympathy for his family than him - he did not have to choose this line of work. Do people have sympathy for Bin Laden or other terr…

> whole thing is a double standard on multiple levels

Not really. The double standard is in excusing murder as a political tactic because you don’t like the victim.

In this case, the Twitterati will hold their court. And then a real court with real people on the jury will convict. There may also be an inquiry into UnitedHealth, but it will be able to be bludgeoned into partisan death by the law and order bloc.

> only people that I’ve spoken to who has sympathy are other extremely well off individuals

The ones I’ve seen who sympathise with the killer are largely college educated, urban, active on social media and make more than the median wage. If you’re only seeing one side of this, you’re in a bubble, because the truth is it’s not top of mind for most of America.

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

#147

Post by internet101010 »

lenerdenator wrote: post #70

The events of the last week are just what happens when a company decides to refuse to meet its customers in the marketplace of sane ideas. You could probably have gotten away with what UNH did if the money wasn't so ridiculous. Thompson himself had a compensation package worth $10.2 million[0] a year. It's reasonable to think that other c-suiters at the company, along with those of its parent organization, made simil…

Yeah even with "good insurance", there is a high likelihood that getting cancer will mean someone's life savings will be vaporized and replaced with bankruptcy levels of medical debt. People spend their adult life paying for future use of a product every two weeks. Then when it comes time to use said product the seller tells them no.

Meanwhile, the company they paid all of this money to posts record net income and its executives make millions of dollars per year. They scare people away from socialized medicine with phrases like "death panels" while in the same breath boast about using AI to automatically deny healthcare for their customers. It's so gross and reprehensible.

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

#148

Post by peitho_pls »

lenerdenator wrote: post #70

The events of the last week are just what happens when a company decides to refuse to meet its customers in the marketplace of sane ideas. You could probably have gotten away with what UNH did if the money wasn't so ridiculous. Thompson himself had a compensation package worth $10.2 million[0] a year. It's reasonable to think that other c-suiters at the company, along with those of its parent organization, made simil…

> People will say that this is necessary to remain competitive, but it just isn't

Out of curiosity, What makes you think executive compensation can be easily cut? Wouldn't the shareholders happily do that if they could?

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

#149

Post by griomnib »

spondylosaurus wrote: post #39
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…

Hey now, he didn't just kill tens of thousands of people by denying/delaying care! He also got filthy stinking rich in the process.

…and he was under active investigation for insider trading - which is a real crime the government will prosecute because it affects other rich people.

Killing poor people is fine, cheating the investor class is not.

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

#150

Post by cowpig »

Anecdotally, this type of corporate behaviour seems to have infected the US health industry.

Doctors, Nurses, service providers, entrepreneurs, etc, all routinely have to deal with these insurance companies who refuse to pay for things, negotiate rates post-hoc, and generally engage in extremely unethical business behaviour.

That seems to have become normalized and I personally won't do any work with anyone in the US Healthcare industry any more unless it's paid up-front.

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