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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)

#211

Post by mgraczyk »

ineptech wrote: post #208
mgraczyk wrote: post #161

This guy's condition is tragic, but it's crazy to me that people can read this and come away thinking the insurance companies are the bad guys. Many drugs don't work, they are expensive. If there are no voices in the room saying "we will not pay for expensive drugs that do not work", then healthcare costs will continue spiraling out of control. Single payer healthcare will "solve" this by ensuring that the medication…

The point of single payer is to tell doctors and patients unambiguously how much they can spend. The free market puts the insurer(s), the provider(s), and the patient in a competition to see who can stick whom with the bill. The savings come more from not doing that than from the insurer's profit margin.

NHS currently does not recommend the treatment that this guy was receiving (as far as I could find):

https://eastkentformulary.nhs.uk/media/1868/pr-2022-25-dual-...

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

#212

Post by wat10000 »

bc569a80a344f9c wrote: post #145
laimewhisps wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I’m not sure how meaningful that is. I’d rate my coverage as excellent. My out of pocket costs are low, lots of in network providers, etc. At the same time I do not like my insurance company at all. They have stupid issues that I’m forced to resolve, and I definitely don’t look forward to dealing with billing after a major event.

I want to see a poll specifically on “how much do you like your health insurance company?” Not your coverage, not your insurance, but specifically the company.

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

#213

Post by mgraczyk »

not_your_mentat wrote: post #190
mgraczyk wrote: post #161

This guy's condition is tragic, but it's crazy to me that people can read this and come away thinking the insurance companies are the bad guys. Many drugs don't work, they are expensive. If there are no voices in the room saying "we will not pay for expensive drugs that do not work", then healthcare costs will continue spiraling out of control. Single payer healthcare will "solve" this by ensuring that the medication…

Insurance executive self identified.

No, I've just been paying a lot for healthcare and I know where the money goes (not my insurer)

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

#214

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

standardUser wrote: post #180
cruffle_duffle wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let’s not forget if you go against the grain and post “people are celebrating murder, which is gross” you are probably going to get downvoted—even on this site! This whole celebration of murder thing is so bizarre. The fact it seems to be the default “way to get upvotes” and speaking out is “downvote city” is… well… disconcerting to say the least.

It speaks to the deep and broad frustration among Americans towards our healthcare system. This isn't just executives or politicians "screwing people over" like we see in so many other realms. There's a significant number of Americans who love someone who has actually died or suffered severer/permanent physical distress for the sake of insurance company profits. When someone's family gets blown up from the sky and th…

I just don't see your point. I don't pretend not to understand this phenomenon, and the need for healthcare reform has always been one of my strongest political beliefs. But that doesn't mean murder is any less bad!

Is the implication that this kind of murder can only happen as an expression of widespread popular anger? I definitely don't think that's so. There are plenty of places in the world where corporate executives have to fear being murdered in the streets, and it does a lot more to drive accountability to criminal gangs and oppressive governments than to the common people and their interests.

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

#215

Post by hyperdimension »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #98
iwontberude wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ghoulish? Internet? Have you spoken to regular people not terminally online? They have no sympathy for the CEO. I had sympathy for him as a human and a worker, but his behavior was beyond the pale and unfortunately rule of law doesn’t exist in the US.

> 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…

> you need to speak to a professional

My insurance doesn't cover it.

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

#216

Post by mancerayder »

abigail95 wrote: post #165
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.…

Travel insurance is cheap, effective, and available for europeans to purchase in their contry of residence. Using the health services of another country and refusing to pay in an asshole move.

People don't like price gouging. If you get into a taxi where somehow there's a misunderstanding about the price or opaqueness when you get in, and suddenly when it's time to get out there's some crazy price the driver is requesting, that makes you feel cheated, well you'll feel like not paying or going to the police. These things happen all the time when traveling. Why do health services somehow get a free ticket to cheat? The numbers, thousands of dollars, are astronomical and never is there an attempt to rationalize it. It just is.

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

#217

Post by cute_boi »

cruffle_duffle wrote: post #163
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're viewing "Reddit, Twitter, YouTube, news articles, et al", that's usually not so. Each of these platforms optimize their default views to show you the content they expect will be most engaging, although the first three apply some algorithmic filtering to try and make the content engaging to you in particular rather than the average viewer. Equally importantly, the content that gets produced is subject to thi…

Let’s not forget if you go against the grain and post “people are celebrating murder, which is gross” you are probably going to get downvoted—even on this site! This whole celebration of murder thing is so bizarre. The fact it seems to be the default “way to get upvotes” and speaking out is “downvote city” is… well… disconcerting to say the least.

> This whole celebration of murder thing is so bizarre.

People are celebrating because UHC is responsible for thousands of denied coverage(ultimately murdering common people) despite paying higher chunks of paycheck.

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

#218

Post by mancerayder »

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #112
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.…

The other only way a price based system will work is if providers are required to show the bill ahead of time, with full insurance coverage and noncoverage clearly laid out, that is binding to the hospital and the insurance company. That must be signed off by a conscious capable representative. Yeah how does that work for emergencies and other situations? It doesn't! Just like hospitals unable to or refuse to disclos…

It's funny that if you talk about the top issues Americans worry about, health care is one of them.

What are the top issues as perceived by Republicans and Democrats? They range from gender equality, race, immigration, crime, trans issues - basically anything controversial.

Healthcare is less controversial. And there's big buy-in for change by Americans. So what's happening? Are the two parties so bribed by lobbying efforts that democracy is canceled on this topic?

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

#219

Post by maronato »

mgraczyk wrote: post #204
maxerickson wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems the insurance company was happy to pay for treatment that wouldn't work though (the approved treatment had already been tried), they denied a treatment that was working.

One costs $60/year, the other is over $2M/year and not tested and not widely used outside the US

If the doctor prescribed it, it shouldn’t be the insurance company’s decision to deny it. That’s how it works in most countries. Too bad it’s expensive, but that’s why people pay a lot more than $60/yr for insurance.

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

#220

Post by samatman »

willis936 wrote: post #191
samatman wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's all it takes for a hung jury, yes. In which case the prosecution will have plenty of grounds to screen for that in the next trial, that next trial will happen, and then the guy gets convicted of first degree murder. Presuming he's found in the first place. There's no world in which all twelve jurors vote not guilty if the defendant is demonstrated to be the assassin beyond reasonable doubt. That simply won't h…

You need consensus for conviction, not the other way around.

You need consensus either to convict, or to _declare_ someone not guilty.

In the US there is an important distinction between the presumption of innocence, and its declaration in a court of law.

Someone with a hung jury or mistrial is still presumed not guilty by the law, but may be tried again for the same crime, because the prohibition against double jeopardy only applies to those cleared of a charge, which mistrials don't do.

In this case, it's a hard guarantee that a mistrial would be tried again. So yes, you would need consensus in a jury to prevent the conviction from eventually occurring, because there's no realistic chance of it happening twice.

It won't happen once either, but even if it did, it won't happen twice.

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