Summary
Reddit’s r/medicine moderators deleted a thread where doctors and users harshly criticized murdered UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
Comments, including satirical rejections of insurance claims for gunshot wounds, targeted UHC’s reputation for denying care to boost profits.
Despite the removal, similar discussions continue, with medical professionals condemning UHC’s business practices under Thompson’s leadership, which a Senate report recently criticized for denying post-acute care.
Thompson, shot in what appears to be a targeted attack, led a company notorious for its high claim denial rates, fueling ongoing debates about corporate ethics in healthcare.
One medical doctor, whose identity the Daily Beast confirmed, commented with sympathy for Thompson’s family and said the killer should be charged with murder, but then wondered about the damage the CEO had done.
“I cannot even guess how many person-years UHC has taken from patients and their families through denials,” they wrote. “It has to be on the order of millions. His death won’t make that better, but it’s hard for me to sympathize when so many people have suffered because of his company.”
“What has bothered me the most is people that put «fiduciary responsibility» (eg profits) above human lives, none more so than this company as run by him," wrote another medical doctor, who also spoke to the Daily Beast to confirm their identity. “When other’s human lives are deemed worthless, it is not surprising to have others view your life of no value as well.”
These doctors know what’s up.
The level of greed is so much worse than any normal person understands. They do NOTHING. They aren’t medical field professionals, they don’t need to ever step foot in a hospital or clinic, they only inflate the cost, catastrophelicly with no insurrection, only horribly when you’re with them, create endless loopholes to deny coverage with, and use non medical, non trained or consulted opinions and reasoning to justify it, and they are all too educated to not know full well they are lying to get out of paying any bill ever.
Denying someone with crippling medical issues access to treatment with lies and misinformation to shave one more sliver of profit for a parasitic middle man is so many orders of magnitude above evil it’s breath taking.
Denying someone with crippling medical issues access to treatment with lies and misinformation to shave one more sliver of profit for a parasitic middle man is so many orders of magnitude above evil it’s breath taking.
Well said. Really wish people understood this better and how utterly psychopathic and heartless the entire idea of “maximizing profits” in this context is.
Put another way - a for-profit insurance firm is a weird kind of company that does better when it refuses to provide what its customers pay for. It’s not some surprising or counterintuitive result, it’s baked into the business model, on purpose. That’s deeply malignant just at a glance, and it’s all we really need to know when deciding whether it should be involved with healthcare.
You know what’s really insane? Before the ACA was passed, there was no federal requirement for how much insurance companies had to pay out on healthcare costs. The ACA set a minimum of 85%, so no less than 85% of premiums has to actually go toward paying for medical services.
Before that, they could literally just pocket 75 cents for every premium dollar if they wanted to with zero legal repercussions. I guarantee we’d be on our way there if the ACA were never passed.
For-profit health insurance should be illegal. Same thing with for-profit hospitals. I’ve read stories about doctors whose hospitals were bought by for-profits or VCs and turned into patient mills where they’re forced to push unnecessary elective surgeries and provide the bare minimum of care to maximize profits.
A healthy population is good for society and it should be something we invest in. We shouldn’t make a business out of someone getting sick, and then another business out of charging then exorbitant amounts of money for getting treatment, and then ANOTHER business to harass them because they can’t pay that exorbitant amount.
You’re absolutely right, I did kind of momentarily forget that, even having lived through it. They could also just deny care or coverage for “pre-existing conditions” and just drop you as a customer as soon as you get a major illness. And guess what, they did! That’s maybe the most egregious, but hey, we’re not lacking for contenders.
The ACA felt like a serious change for good in this country at the time. And I gotta say, watching the way it got ratfucked, misrepresented, deliberately destroyed…I dunno, it was heartbreaking. I think it showed me what we were in for, I guess, almost a straight line passing through that and other things like Citizens United, repeal of Dodd Frank, and everything else that led to today. Some of those I can’t fault everyone for being unfamiliar with, but damn.
Seeing how we responded to the ACA in particular as a nation was really telling. I knew idiots whose lives got directly measurably better by using it for their own insurance, and still thought it should go and voted for the folks who said they’d get rid of it. What do you even do there? Sad stuff.
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Insurance is not unlike gambling, but gambling seems comparatively more fair and less insidious.
Greed is common throughout history. One might say it’s human.
I disagree. The worst monsters wear human faces. At the top, you have the dragons with their hoards. The billionaires. The owner class. The ones who just accumulate. Then you have the dragon’s monsters. They may well be far worse than the Dragons themselves, but the dragons just demand more, they don’t care how. These monsters line up to take a bit of the hoard. The more they can deliver the dragons and their fellow monsters, the more they get themselves.
And what do the monsters do? They lie. They cheat. They swindle and con. They budge their way into things in the phrase of “efficiency” and “improvement.”
I’m sure quite literally in many cases
As do the nurses
Rest in piss
I was reading an article that quoted his wife about what a great guy he was. It reminded me of Ken Lay’s wife talking about her families liquidity problems after the Enron collapse. Hundreds of employees lost everything and she’s griping about liquidity.
He may have been nice in some ways. She probably just wasn’t aware or chose not to think about the darker aspects of health insurance corporations and what it takes to make billions at the expense of people’s health care.
Also people tend to whine when their gravy train runs out of gravy.
His wife is a physical therapist so she has an intimate understanding of the health care system. I’m sure it’s turning a blind eye. The article I read described their home as a $1.5 million home in an exclusive Minneapolis suburb. She knew. Cognitive dissonance can be very powerful.
I’m sure he was a swell guy, a lot of fun at barbecues, dog lover and good with kids yada yada. Plenty of awful folks in history are like that. I hear Hitler was a fun guy who liked dogs and kids too.
…well not ALL kids but still
Ken Lay who tooooootally died before being sentenced and toooootally didn’t disappear into a foreign country
Lets be real, one of the primary motivators for a woman to be with and stay with a man is if he can provide adequately for her offspring. I’m sure he was doing a great job at that.
one of the primary motivators for a woman to be with and stay with a man
I think you meant “female” lol.
Okay, I’ll bite. The reason women end up choosing to be with a man of means, and I am in no way saying that all or even most women want this, is because we often don’t/didn’t have the opportunity to gain those means ourselves which thereby impacted our ability to survive and control our own lives. This is due to the oppression of the very men that you think we seek. Over the course of thousands of years, men cultivated a world where they steadily sought, gained, and ever increasingly obtained as much power as possible. In order to gain more power for yourself or your group, you have to take away power from someone else.
One of the people or groups whose power was regularly stolen is women. I’m sure this was a slow transition over a long period of time, but it ended with a world where women were rarely allowed to gain the skills or implement what skills they had in order to earn money. If you don’t have the ability to earn money yourself, you are forced to be reliant on someone else who is allowed to earn money. My point being, if you want enough money for you and your children to survive, you basically had to marry as rich as you possibly could.
Enter the modern women’s rights movement. This is where financial freedom became incredibly important to women. We collectively realized that we, much like any other human beings in existence ever, wanted to be able to have some control of our lives, our families, and our fates. This is why we entered the workforce in droves. Women who were suffering under the control of men who beat them and their children, potentially raped them, or demeaned them regularly with the full acceptance and support of society, wanted a way out. The available options were pretty bleak, so we worked in solidarity to find another way to survive with both our physical safety and dignity intact. Now, as an obligatory caveat, not every man was/is oppressive to women. But, since men as a whole created these arbitrary restrictions on women’s lives, they are the ones who have to suffer the aftermath of this system of control that was developed, especially since they are the ones who continue to experience advantages and benefits because of those exact lingering effects.
Most women would prefer to be able to support themselves and their family while having their partner contribute equally, either through earning money or doing an equivalent share of the household/family tasks. But, since something that becomes systemic is difficult to remove, we are still trying to shake the ramifications of this exertion of control. I assure you, most women would rather have less money and more autonomy when given the option.
This brings me to the point you’re trying to make. If the “primary motivator” of a woman is to choose a man who can provide adequately for her offspring, it is only because of the lingering effects of historical oppression that men created in order to exert control over women. It’s very frustrating to be in a world that constantly tells you that you should be pursuing a partner with money so you can have a stable future, but then simultaneously reprimands you for actually making that choice. Just as it’s difficult, but required, to acquiesce to the control of the man who holds your money.
I don’t think it should be presented as though this woman is shallow or terrible for making such a choice. Who wouldn’t choose a life of stability over one of chaos or continual financial stress? I know many men who would make the same choice if offered it. Like you said, I’m sure he was doing a good job of providing for their family financially, but let’s not be too reductive about her choice to have him as a partner. You say it in such a way that you are not only chastising her for her choice of husbands but are chastising all women for prioritizing their and their children’s survival and safety. That is something that comes across as offensive to the entirety of my gender because it implies that we shouldn’t consider ourselves of value or of having worth.
You may be right that this woman chose the CEO of UHC as her husband because of his wealth and ability to support their children and family lifestyle. Most likely, she knew what her husband actually did for a living and it’s effect on the lives of others and chose to ignore or not look into the deaths, horrors, and financial destruction that were created by the company her husband controlled.
But, one way or another, let’s not reduce the struggle that women go through at the hands of historical, and often modern, men to blanketly imply that we are all naturally money hungry and that we are obviously all using men for our own gain. I’m going to go ahead and assume that women, including myself, disagree with such an unfair assumption.
I agree with everything you said - it was worded well and you inserted the exceptions and qualifiers to make your point in a generalization that allows outliers. I do, however, wonder about the women who consider financial stability as a (if not the) major factor when choosing a partner, because we tend to hear only the stories of gold diggers, etc. and not the stories of women who married for love and simply had the fortune of having a partner that was able to acquire significant means. I’m guessing that’s why the commenter you replied to said what they said. I’m sure the percentage is small, but those type of women give the rest of us a bad name.
The following is anecdotal, but I think still relevant: Speaking from personal experience, my husband is well educated, I love him to death, and he chooses to work in a job that is stable (meaning it’s hard for them to get rid of him unless he makes some serious errors) rather than working for some private firm where he can easily be paid double if not more. He makes enough for us to get by while I’m finishing up grad school. I’m proud of his moral compass; he always tries to do the right thing.
His cousin, gem that she is, has always openly bragged about how she only goes on dates if the man is paying, yada yada, and she ended up finding some desperate sap 15 years her senior with money to burn; the culture they are from values marriage, so a single man in his 40’s gets a lot of questions. Mind you, this is a woman who was fired from her job because she got caught breaking security protocol, blamed it on her cousin’s husband (saying he snitched on her because they worked for the same firm), caused a feud, and refused to take responsibility. She hasn’t held a job since, nor do I think she plans to, because they are now slum lords in Florida. Most of the family doesn’t like interacting with her, but she’s not the only one who has decided it’s easier for her to behave this way rather than work herself.
People change, and when someone marries for love and one of the partners begins to change for the worse, it usually causes strain in a marriage as the values each partner holds no longer line up. Some people seek help and try to fix things. I read somewhere that the CEO’s wife was a physical therapist? If so, she definitely knows how the medical industry works, and she should be very aware of the harm insurance companies are responsible for. If she chose to turn a blind eye instead of trying to aid him in seeing the error of his ways, it’s because she herself lost sight of what the value of a human life is. She can blindly talk about how great of a guy he was because she was benefitting from all the perceived good it brought to her personally. I would wager she married him before he became CEO, but the fact that she stayed married to someone who led a company directly responsible for so much suffering is an indication of her character.
Another example: Mackenzie left Bozo because she saw who he turned into. I’m sure she’d speak well of him, but I imagine she would acknowledge all of his poor qualities. It’s not unfair to judge anyone married to someone of high means (regardless of gender), because there’s always a choice, especially when those means are directly gained by punishing others. There is a risk in financial instability through divorce, but at the level of assets in the millions it’s not a really dire concern - courts can award alimony, split assets, etc. Or, you know, they could get a job.
The question becomes, “who are you as a person; do you value money above all else, or positively contributing to a society where the give and take is balanced?”
We can all work to uplift each other together but still criticize those who are working against us, even other women. I guess my point is that we shouldn’t judge her for marrying into money, but we absolutely can judge her for her character if she chose to continue down this path.
Absolutely; I agree. I appreciate your thoughtful response. There are always going to be selfish people and users in every gender, and they do give the whole group a bad rap. I’m never going to say that all women are above the description the poster I replied to gave. And, like you said, we can call these specific people out while still uplifting others who don’t engage in such behavior.
The poster that I was replying to seemed like they had been burned by a person like that, and while I understand that it must be awful to experience being with someone who uses you only for what you can provide and that it can easily make you jaded, this particular post comes off like they have extended that bitterness to the entirety of women, whether or not those women have chosen (or seek) a partner with wealth. It’s frustrating to watch so many great women be reduced to greedy users, and I don’t want to allow the continuation of someone spouting blanket assumptions toward my gender without addressing it. That’s how I ended up with a multi-paragraph response to a simple statement.
But I absolutely agree with your assessment and really appreciate the thought and effort you put into it. It’s incredibly refreshing to be able to have an actual discussion about a topic.
Corporate Ethics
My fucking sides.
Is that another word for Money?
Corporate ethics definitely exists. It’s just really far away from your average person’s idea of ethics.
Not a great decision from the moderators.
Hopefully, it encourages more platform attrition.
Watch people join Lemmy, Doxx people and make death threats then grab their pearls when they realize you can’t do that here either lol.
Depends on the instance. Lemmy.world, yeah ok. Some of the others? Ehhhhhh
Happens on Lemmy too.
They made it clear site wide that you can’t support/celebrate this
I have been following the news about Brian Thompson’s assassination in New York, and I am astounded by the flood of sympathy the media has poured out for him. Why? This man spent his entire career working tirelessly to deny healthcare to millions of Americans, all in the name of lining his own pockets and enriching shareholders. Yet the media praises him for his “kindness” and “generosity.” Let me be clear: pushing your company’s claim denial rate to nearly double that of your most cold-hearted competitors, bankrupting families through deceptive fine print and delay tactics, is not kindness, and it is not generosity. No, setting up boiler-room style offices with denial scoreboards is one of the most inhuman things I can imagine.
I spent nearly a decade writing software to help hospital systems fight insurance claim denials, and I can tell you, these insurers are getting better at it every year. They deny even the most justified claims, banking on the fact that most people won’t have the energy, resources, or will to fight back. And for the majority, they’re right. We had a team of a dozen nurses and PAs working alongside twice as many analysts. These were people who knew the system inside and out. We knew the deadlines, the bureaucratic jargon, the documentation required, and we tracked every claim meticulously. But even armed with all that knowledge and experience, we couldn’t win them all. On a good month, we might win two-thirds of the denials. That was considered a success.
What’s even worse is that for every claim we fought, there were countless others that never even made it that far, we only got denials on services that actually happened. A patient’s doctor tells them they need surgery, but an insurer like UnitedHealth says no and that’s it. The patient gives up and it is difficult to imagine they get better.
If you’ve ever had a serious medical condition—and I pray you haven’t—you know how much it drains you, how it strips you of your will to do anything. When every moment is agony, you don’t have the strength to sit on hold for hours, fill out endless forms, or chase down a bureaucratic system designed to wear you down. All you want is to sleep, because that’s the only place that pain can’t find you. How many people have simply lacked the strength to fight back, and ultimately succumbed to their conditions? How many families have been driven into poverty, their lives torn apart by a single emergency, all because of these executives’ policies?
We all know someone who has been through a health insurance nightmare and we also know that while political changes could probably help this problem the reality now is that these people are making a choice to run their companies this way, knowing full well the impact of their greed and indifference.
Where are your tears, your headlines, for the thousands of people and families whose lives have been destroyed and whose loved ones have died because of these same executives?
I spent 37.5 hours (I document EVERYTHING) on hold with Wellcare trying to get them to pay for Narcolepsy medication I’ve been on since 2021… “Has the patient tried this ADHD medication, as an alternate?” “No. I prescribed my patient the only FDA approved medication, in the United States that treats Narcolepsy and Cataplexy, and she needs to stay on it”. Luckily my doctor is wonderful.
It’s draining, but I’ve learned that the trick is to tell each of the outsourced customer service reps that you have no problem staying on hold for however long it takes. I’m disabled and have that ability. My partner works from home, so I do the same for their Blue Cross. When the insurance companies realize you’re willing to fill out ALL their paperwork, appeal higher and higher up, so that well-paid people get involved, clog their phone lines, and keep documenting every step of the way, they’ll give you what you want… but it is a full time job. 😮💨
I’m with you.
Never have I needed to work so hard to advocate for myself to get the care I needed as when I was with UHC.
By comparison, this year has held two major surgeries for me, neither expected, and my current insurer just shrugged, asked ONCE for proof of medical necessity, and paid the bill.
Also, let’s not forget the breach at a UHC subsidiary in recent months that brought down pharma payment systems for weeks…
Why?
Of course that’s a rhetorical question, but media has all been bought and paid for by corpos. The same corpos that now realize their lives can be easily deleted for all the evil shitty things they do, so of course all the corpo media is going to be unnecessarily biased to the positive for one of their own.
It’s accurate proof that the corpo media needs to be ignored in general if it hasn’t been obvious so far.
America needs real journalism, now more than ever. Sadly, it will probably be underground.
I have been following the news about Brian Thompson’s assassination in New York, and I am astounded by the flood of sympathy the media has poured out for him. Why?
Who do you think owns the media? Who’s interests do they try to serve? It is not surprising at all that they would sympathize with him. We’re not talking some punk zine put out by some gritty journalist. These are highly consolidated corporate news outlets, many of whom have boards of directors that share some strong similarity to UHC. It’s profoundly unsurprising to me that they would sympathize with him, as they are a lot closer to a multi-million dollar CEO than your average Joe that gets their claims denied.
Insurance is irrelevant to the people that own and control much of our mass media, because they can easily pay out of pocket for any problems they have. All they see during this shooting is one of their own gunned down for “no reason”.
This reminds me of Grisham’s The Rainmaker
This is a really uncomfortable situation for me as a user and made me want to use Lemmy even more
Yep. Fuck censorship.
Too many people think it’s acceptable until something they support is being censored.
It’s not censorship, censorship is when the state censors certain topics etc.
This is rich owners of large, easy to use and free social media websites trying to shape the conversation.
This is what happens when you think the state and the wealthy are distinct. But it’s one big capitalist system. The wealthy run the state, and they own the media, and they fund the “non-profit” think tanks & media.
This is what happens when you think the state and the wealthy are distinct.
They absolutely are.
The rich influence almost all politics, but the state and ultra wealthy have to follow totally different rules to achieve their goals. Sometimes the ultra rich are politicians, then it’s complicated.
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Haha I am German (living in Germany as well, not some kind of US american that says they’re German). But thanks I guess
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Please go interact with people in real life.
You know that these doctors weren’t touting violence, they were talking about the crazy situations which they found themselves in with healthcare insurances.
Shut up dumbass.
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What makes you think sexy peach is American? They might be, but I can think of a few indicators to the contrary.
Indicators to the contrary:
their instance
they are writing comments in fluent German
I have their IP address (no just kidding, or am I)
Also, you’re a dumb ass
And a troll through and through. It’s nice when they make it easy to spot the ones to block.
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We’re victims of our environment
At least one of the mods here was going heavy censorship in the initial thread here yesterday. I get it, we aren’t supposed to celebrate the death or suffering of other human beings. I’m not sure that rule applied to this individual though.
Who says we’re not supposed to celebrate when an asshole dies? We celebrated for Hitler and Kissinger
Don’t self censor. Fuck the mods that censor us celebrating assholes who die by documenting the truth of the harm they’ve done on Earth
Every time I’m reminded Kissinger is dead my black, shriveled heart glows a little
Shame about the AI slop.
Who says we’re not supposed to celebrate when an asshole dies? We celebrated for Hitler and Kissinger
I’d be more nuanced. I don’t mind him being dead, but I don’t celebrate it either, because it took out the public-display figure instead of the people (shareholders) that actually cause the practices.
When the system is so corrupted that it no longer delivers justice, people are going to improvise other means.
I’m not advocating it or saying it’s a bad thing, just making an observation.
They guy is a symbol of injustice, as well as just a person. You can celebrate that part, without tangling it up with the worry about his family.
We can celebrate both
People always forget the second part of that rule.
We shouldn’t celebrate the death or suffering of other human beings… Unless that human being is a billionaire.
Don’t like people celebrating your suffering? Give up your wealth. Easy as.
Was he a billionaire though? Like don’t get me wrong, fuck that guy, but I think he may have only been a multi-millionaire
You know you’re right. He was only worth 43 million dollars. I’d say we can revise the rule to somewhere in that area. Maybe take some points off for being a CEO of a health insurance company.
Well also because he was likely just a pawn. at the root of all this are the shareholders who are billionaires and who likely make the calls regarding company policies. this guy was likely just their lapdog. so even though a rule of no more than 500mil would not deal with this guy, it would definitely have prevented the existence of a parasite company of this scale. I would still say though 50 mil should be sufficient. It will allow you almost all the reasonable luxuries you can imagine if that is your thing.
He had more than $100,000,000 in wealth. He had been paid more than $50,000,000 per year for the last 2 years.
No one needs more than $100,000,000.
Really it’s just a reminder of how ENORMOUS a billion dollars is
His base salary was 1 million in 2022 and he had a net worth of 43 million as of February this year, which includes his stocks. Why are you making shit up?
Anyone that doesn’t want themselces to experience the event of “winning capitalism,” and them dying should donate every single penny of their wealth over, and I’m being generous here, $100,000,000 to The Sovereign Fund for Humanity’s Poor, and ensure that they are always below the $100,000,000 threshold each quarter. Anything less is admitting that you want to be a charicature of a dragon. Dragons don’t amass more than $1,200,000,000 in wealth in any of High Fantasy. Other than Smaug. He might have hoarded as much as $5,000,000,000 to $10,000,000,000 in gold, and he’s literally the only outlier in all of High Fantasy.
Shadowrun isn’t high fantasy, that is Science Fantasy, just like Star Wars.
The thing is, if you don’t want to be a billionaire then that still leaves you - assuming normal rounding - with ~500 MILLION of wealth. If you can’t snort all the cocaine you’d ever want in your life from that amount, I don’t know…
But then I’ll be a dirty nasty poor like the rest of you!
Theres no poors here, we all say we are “working class”. Although many of us certainly remember being poor.
It’s ok. They’re not human.
They’re parasites. And should be [redacted]
It still should. The paradox of tolerance just means you have to not tolerate the intolerant, not actively mock them. I mean sometimes that can be fun, but let’s be honest, they even took out the wrong guy (they’ll just get a new CEO who’ll hardline the stance even more and waste money on a ton of bodyguards, hopefully at least Gaddafi-style). Should have gone after the shareholders, that’ll really hurt the business model after all. The CEO is just a representative figure who puts his name under decisions that are 99,5% not driven by him.
Was is still the correct choice to take him out because he is a billionaire and a murderous asshole? I’ll say no, because I don’t believe in death penalty on account of it being too lenient. Should have thrown him down a well and let him starve slowly, or at least delivered death by immurement or something. Something slow, ideally decades slow. But that’s besides the point, overall he also deserves fuck all sympathy because he was still a) a billionaire and b) the CEO of one of the most cruel companies around, rivaling black ops stuff and far outdoing them in the lives lost to their practices.
Speaking of the pradoxof tolerance, Karl Popper realized that intolerance often involves violence.
I, for one would argue that health insurance denying claims arbitrarily asserts violence in some way - even worse to especially vulnerable people.So how do you imagine not tolerating this kind of intolerance?
Writing stern letters and emails? That seems to have happened.
Starting a legal battle that might be decided in your favour after you’ve died from not receiving health care due to denied claims?
What would you suggest?Popper also draws attention to the fact that intolerance is often asserted through the use of violence […]
Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance#Proposed_solutions
Remember if you see this guy… I mean… No you didn’t. No officer I didn’t see him at all…
Edit Addendum: Deny. Defend. Depose.
From a mod of /r/medicine:
People - Please don’t make the life of your mods a living hell.
Anything that is celebrating violence is going to get taken down - if not from us, then from reddit. I think all the mods understand that there is a high level of frustration and antipathy towards insurance and insurance execs, but we also understand that murdering people in the streets is not good.
We are a public group of medical professionals, we still need to act like that.
And on a practical note, this man did not create or control the fucked up insurance industry by himself. Other people will take his place and continue to do what he was doing. It’s a systemic issue.
Other people will take his place and continue to do what he was doing. It’s a systemic issue.
The issue will stay systematic if we dont hold the people who make the decisions in the system accountable. The CEOs decisions directly impacted people, thats not a system thats his choice. Poverty is systematic too, but when a poor person does a crime they have to suffer the consequences of it. God forbid rich criminals see consequences. Mods seem to be arguing he had no agency in his choices which is a lie especially if you compare him to other insurance CEOs
Not only that, but his particular company denies claims at twice the industry average. UHC isn’t in the same category as the rest of the industry, they’re particularly bad.
Alt: image included in a Boston globe article published today that shows claim denial rates per several insurance companies, average is 16% United is 32%
The big gap is indicating they are probably trying to do as shitty a job as possible without incurring legal repercussions on top of already being in a fucked up industry. For-profit insurers makes as little sense as for-profit prisons or military or mail.
Yes, and also all these companies are evil and they all are more than worthy of the UHC CEO treatment.
The CEO is obligated to deliver profits to the board and shareholders. If they approve everything they go out of business. I’m not defending them, but they are a for profit, capitalist business. They lack empathy fundamentally.
Healthcare should not be a for profit venture, and it’s the government to blame for that.
I’m not saying this guy was clean, but he’s just a cog in a fancy suit with a big paycheck.
If CEOs and billionaires wanted the system to change they could change it. They don’t. They like it this way. They like being “obligated” to pursue profit at all cost, they’d do it anyway.
Be clear: I’m not excusing the behavior…they aren’t trapped in the job. I’m saying the behavior demonstrated is par for the course. A CEO in a capitalist system with profit driven shareholder obligations WILL behave this way.
Something like healthcare is the LAST thing such a person/organization should be involved with.
Further, this porson, if they had a magic change of heart wouldn’t change shit. They’d be replaced the same as if they were dead. Sure he’s very wealthy, but he’s a chump compared to the systems he’s a part of.
I’m willing to say insurance in general cannot ethically be for-profit.
Hmm I think as it relates to critical things, I agree. (health and shelter). But insuring your jetski? I’m not sure the government needs to support that at-cost
He could have done a number of other things. He wasn’t just a cog, he actively drove many of the problems with the health insurance industry today, as the person in control of the most egregious offender.
I’m sure he’ll be replaced with someone similar, and I’m sure he had plenty of encouragement; but that doesn’t make him any less culpable.
Well yes, he actively did. That made him a good CEO. Maximizing profits, being cutthroat, being egregious is exactly how a company wants their CEO to be, to enhance shareholder value.
I didn’t say he was not culpable. The opposite infact.
My point is that he was more than just a cog. He may not have been the sole villain and mastermind, but he was more than just a cog - he was a driver.
Well yes, he actively did. That made him a good CEO.
And that resulted in actual consequences for a change that other CEO’s will actually care about not facing.
You are absolutely right. Our current laws (and precedents) require CEOs and Directors to produce the best results possible for their shareholders. They can and have been sued for failing to do that. It effectively means they have to screw their employees and customers.
If corporations are people, then nearly all of them are sociopaths. The law requires it. (So it isn’t surprising that the people who prove most effective at running them lean strongly in that direction as well.)
I’m not sure how far along it is, but the EU has been working on a change to their corporate laws that would require corporations to balance the good of their shareholders against other factors, such as their employees, their customers, and the public at large. Among other things, it would make them liable for how they deal, or fail to deal, with their companies’ effects on climate change.
The EU has been steadily passing laws that actually help its citizens and provide protection against corporations. Those of us elsewhere in the world are also benefiting from their efforts. Being required to do the right thing in Europe often makes it less expensive to do it everywhere, than to make special efforts to exploit the areas where that is still allowed. The EU laws also encourage people elsewhere to push for better protections of their own.
The EU is far from perfect, but it gives me hope.
Our current laws (and precedents) require CEOs and Directors to produce the best results possible for their shareholders.
Same in America, and our politicians are almost withiut exception, completely corrupt after Citizens United…
The CEOs and Directors wrote the laws and paid legislators to pass them to make this ‘conundrum’ the case.
I agree with you that Citizens United has almost completely corrupted our political system, but the problem with corporate governance goes back a lot further. I’m not a lawyer, but I’ve read that the landmark case was against Henry Ford as the CEO of Ford Motor Company.
Our current laws (and precedents) require CEOs and Directors to produce the best results possible for their shareholders. They can and have been sued for failing to do that. It effectively means they have to screw their employees and customers.
There’s no way to objectively determine what will produce the best results for shareholders. That’s why CEO is a job in the first place.
https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/18/falsifiability/
But there’s an even more fundamental flaw in the argument for the shareholder supremacy rule: it’s impossible to know if the rule has been broken.
The shareholder supremacy rule is an unfalsifiable proposition. A CEO can cut wages and lay off workers and claim that it’s good for profits because the retained earnings can be paid as a dividend. A CEO can raise wages and hire more people and claim it’s good for profits because it will stop important employees from defecting and attract the talent needed to win market share and spin up new products.
The CEO is obligated to deliver profits to the board and shareholders.
But since there’s no surefire way to determine what the most profitable course is, that’s largely up to the CEO to justify his/her – oh who am I kidding it’s usually his – actions and direction for the company.
There’s also no law on the books about this “must be oriented to shareholder profits” crap, most investment in the market is idle investment from index funds, and many of the biggest public companies right now were not profitable for a long time.
It’s an evil system. I get it, but that doesn’t mean CEOs have no power.
Huh? Denying claims but maintaining subscriber numbers seems quite transparent.
It’s not a law, it’s in every company bylaw. They obligate executive staff to work towards certain goals.
You could instead claim to want to grow subscriber numbers by better service to either customers or the employers that often decide whether or not to use your company for insurance.
His was one path he pursued toward profitability and growth, but it isn’t the only arguable path. The CEO determines what internal metrics are important as well as a strategy to try to hit them.
https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/18/falsifiability/
You can justify completely opposing company strategies on just about anything by appealing to “shareholder supremacy”.
The board and shareholders determine the corporate goals. As the executive officer, the CEO enacts them.
That’s the system we have, not the ideal.
Edit The entire insurance industry is predicated on the approach of denying coverage when possible. The agressiveness to which they do so reflects the needs of the business. If they are pean, you can be sure they will deny more.
Lol yeah the CEOs hands are completely tied. /s
And soldiers are obligated to follow orders. If they follow an unjust or unethical order the soldiers themselves get prosecuted just as hard as the ones that made the decision. He had every opportunity to say no or leave, he didn’t do either. Simple as.
His company denies claims at twice the industry average. They MUST be denying valid claims to double the average. They don’t need to deny valid claims to make a profit, only to squeeze as much as possible at the expense of their customers, which is objectively evil in an industry that already skirts morality.
Agree it’s objectively evil. I make no claim of some sick corporate martyrdom. But it’s inherently expected the corp will seek profit.
And on a practical note, this man did not create or control the fucked up insurance industry by himself. Other people will take his place and continue to do what he was doing. It’s a systemic issue.
No, but he certainly profited of it, and made it worse for people who had the misfortune of being trapped with united.
Fuck him, and fuck that hangwringing excuse bullshit. Maybe it wont be so systemic if more heads continue to be popped.
Considering that BCBS just halted their anesthesia plans… I’d say someone is taking notice.
I bet you there was still someone in their offices doing a cost benefit analysis on whether doing it and risking their CEO being ganked was worth it or not, before backpedaling
%100 they had meetings on this
I didn’t create or control the gas chambers I just operated them!
And on a practical note, this man did not create or control the fucked up insurance industry by himself. Other people will take his place and continue to do what he was doing. It’s a systemic issue.
Sure he did. It may have only been one subsection of it, but he absolutely had blood on his hands for his decisions. You don’t get to run an insurance company with one of the highest denial rates out there and not have culpability.
And even if somebody else steps up and doesn’t fix it, that doesn’t absolve him of the blood on his hands.
I’m pretty sure they’re just purging the Ai training data to keep Gemini from suggesting capping a corpo when they won’t pay for grandma’s nausea medication during her chemo.
“Hey Gemini, my health insurance company has denied my claim, what are my next steps?”
I am sorry to hear you are struggling with your health insurance claim. According to Reddit[1], the best way to appeal your claim is to access the Wayback Machine or Archive Today to find out who the executives are for your insurance company and communicate with them directly about the seriousness and validity of your claim.
Here are some effective communication tips to ensure the success of your appeal:
- Volume matters - use subsonic ammunition and a suppressor. You don’t want to disturb your neighbors when pleading your claim.
- Practice makes perfect - you may need to hand cycle the spent rounds. Unless tuned, the gas blow back won’t be enough to eject and then chamber another round.
- Go eco - e-bikes help the planet. In a traffic packed city, e-bikes provide a great opportunity to reduce pollution.
Other people will take his place and continue to do what he was doing.
Not if this sort of thing keeps happening to them.
Maybe scaring the insurance industry ghouls to change their ways by radical actions is a systemic solution?
I’m like, oh other people will take his place? Okay, can we get those other people’s names, address, and daily itinerary? Asking for a friend.
And on a practical note, this man did not create or control the fucked up insurance industry by himself. Other people will take his place and continue to do what he was doing. It’s a systemic issue.
Yeah, but he led the company that had the highest rate of coverage denial ao he was the absolute worst one in the entire industry.
And shit on the mods, cancer to all of them
Death is always tragic… I don’t care if the guy is a billionaire or not, he or she had family.
I would however agree that having such wealth is clearly perverse and clearly done at the expense of others. You don’t get that rich by being kind hearted and generous…
In any case, if you become CEO of a business that has sloppy morals and essentially encourage parasitic behavior… Don’t expect to be loved… Or surprised that you may get shot…
It’s like being the CEO of Blackwater… No one that has clean hands takes that position…
No one becomes a CEO by accident, it was a choice and ambition to become that level of scum…
Now imagine if companies could only give a maximum of around 2000$
I wonder how that would change the landscape of American politics
I feel actions of CEOs and execs undo any empathy they deserve. Hitler had a wife he was loyal to, he was vegetarian as he was sympathetic towards animals and apparently was generous to those around him, but he DOES NOT deserve any empathy.
The damage they caused warrants them zero sympathy. Millions of Americans die due to lack of coverage.
Just my personal take.
The one big difference I can think of is that Hitler’s death did something. This guy here, he’s a CEO. Was it morally acceptable for him to die? Sure, he caused thousands and thousands of deaths by his company leadership, after all. I’d prefer something else, but I won’t miss him, either… But sadly it only frees up a marginal portion of their wealth, and that wealth just goes to other rich assholes.
To take down the corrupt part, you have to get rid of the shareholders and moneygivers, which sadly are quite a few.
Apparently it already has gotten another insurance company that had just announced a ghoulish coverage policy for anesthesia to reverse course.
Because they realise that they dont really have any power and people might be starting to see that again. The bubble might finally be bursting.
God I’ve been edged so hard for so long it’s about fucking time
Silver linings
No, terrorism has a bad reputation because of media, but if these people were scared for their lives to do what they’re doing then some of them would chose to not do it. It sucks that anyone ever feels the need to resort to terrorism, but it has historically worked a number of times to accomplish good things. It is an evil tool, as all violence is, but, as all tools, it does have a utility.
Well…
If people knew they would be prosecuted and have their legacy tarnished and end up in jail they would think twice… These elites care about their legacy and image.
When there is a lack of accountability and watchdogs that actually hold power…
Imagine if insurance companies were made to pay up 300 millions in penalties but the reality is these people get away with it by getting a good lawyer and accountant… This is where I get the the desire to shoot them…
You don’t know the consequences of this CEO’s murder. Only a short time has passed. It may inspire a string of murders targeting unethical leaders scaring people from taking those positions and making unethical decisions or, perhaps, an entire revolution. Maybe it inspires nothing. It has definitely lead to some additional conversations, and I think that is a good start.
Murder is wrong. Punishment without trial is wrong. Denying critical benefits and putting people into crippling debt in search of profits is wrong. Someone did one wrong thing to stop other wrong things. We’ll see where it leads.
eh, a CEOs family has made their peace with the blood money. like most of us would never even consider marrying someone who is blatantly responsible for thousands of not millions if deaths. so I cant feel sympathy for a partner. I could feel sympathy for young kids, but the guy was 50, so it’s fair to assume any kids are at least 18, at which age you either cut contact with a parasite like that or become similar. I guess I just have a hard time feeling sympathy for people who are set for life off of the suffering of others and have never spoken up, attempted to change anything, or just left
edit: typos
It’s okay to feel two things. I feel bad that something tragic happened, but also good that it couldn’t have happened to a worse person. I don’t know anything about his kids and I don’t want to. I hope his kids leave the spotlight and have a happy, peaceful life. Of course if they choose to follow in their fathers footsteps deals off, but if they just choose to live quiet, small lives like the rest of us they should be given peace.
Social contract is broken. We’re back to kings and peasants.
More heads will roll and I say good ridence!
Someone being invaded in Ukraine or someone in Gaza being bombed, I feel for them, they did nothing to deserve this. But people like him? Bottom on my care list.
Criminals on death row likely had more soul than those taking advantage of millions. French got it figured out… We should be more like French.
It can both be sad for his family in a way that everyone can recognise, and also not sad in the slightest, at the same time.
Fuck his family too if they cared about this parasite. He’s responsible for thousands of other families losing their loved ones.
Fuck his family. They lived lavish lives off our suffering. No sympathy.
Idk, it’s not like his kids had a choice where they were born (assuming they’re young, I have no idea)
And I didn’t choose to be born to a disabled father and left with a lifetime of trauma due to the health insurance companies. Fuck his family. Zero sympathy. I hope his kids and wife suffer the same way my mother and I have. They won’t. We lost the house. They’ve got millions. FUCK THEM.
Pretty much my feelings. I won’t celebrate violence and death, but I’m not gonna pretend that the world isn’t a LOT better off without him. Or that there’s some really funny takes floating around out there.
I agree, he was not a positive contribution to our world. But I cannot condone killing as it doesn’t improve the system. These people just get replaced, there is a reason they are in power it’s because they have contingencies…
No one that has clean hands takes that position…
The same could be said of every billionaire.
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To put a number to it: Worth $43 million. Also stock options that were worth over $21 million.
You’re right, he did have a family. And when you think about it, his family also benefited from him killing thousands of people. Hmm…
I would also think that Americans should take a hard look at themselves as a lot of where you are is based on decisions that have been taken in the name of freedom.
I was told that in Colorado that its incredible that my wife had 12 months of paid leave and our insurance covers most of our cost (Québec Canada) and my view is that most Canadians accept to pay a higher tax to get a service in return. There is an acceptance that your neighbor should be as successful as you and even more as it benefits the society that you live in.
On the flip side you can have a self centered culture in which no one looks out for anyone else and only make sure their tummy is well rubbed. If to you freedom is had by not paying taxes well then, your doing big corporations a favor…
I understand that there are portions of politics you cannot influence but the United States of America has an incredibly strong constitution and political institution that was made for the people. You have so many rights that other countries simy do not have. Instead of dividing yourselves, you should be uniting yourself, Rep and Dem for common causes that you can agree with.
Everyone wants a cheaper health care and want their kids to have the same opportunities. You just need to ignore the extremist on both sides who are still the minorities. We just hear them because they hold the media’s attention instead of the average American.
It is for you, as American to use those tools that hVe been given to you and unite and fight the mainstream media to stop showing false narrative from both sides of the spectrum. Start meeting your political representatives and let them know that you are watching and following them and will hold them accountable. Things will. Never change if you do not fight with all five of your fingers to make a fist…
I also had a father. Only mine was taken from me by this healthcare system. Fuck this guy. Fuck his family. Their lavish lifestyle is fueled by denying people like my father care. Fuck them and anyone who licks their boots.
Fair enough, there isn’t much more to add to what you said… It’s a disgusting system.
I don’t care about his family because his family expects my family to serve them.
Fuck that.
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I made a large collection of screenshots from Facebook of people who had their claims denied by United Healthcare today if you want to really see how bad it is.
“…fueling ongoing debates about corporate ethics in healthcare.”
Don’t make me fucking laugh ‘corporate ethics’
Corporate ethics are centered around not getting bad press. Now that the press is controlled and for sale to whoever wants to pay for an outcome, we dont need corporate ethics anymore. Its ancient history.
Absence of ethics is still on the spectrum of ethics.
There is such a thing as a non profit corporation
We need corporations. We just need to outlaw the for profit ones.
We need corporations.
I’m sure many people think the same about religion, or kings and queens
Lemmy seems to have done the same. At least .world, I dunno about other instances, but I’m looking for a new community.
Lots of mods on lemmy.world are assholes that dont know how to do their job
They know how. They just have an agenda and serve that rather than doing their job.
Dbzer0. There’s a reason it’s become the central location calling out abuse of power on the fediverse
They do often go far past the mark though. Feels very libertarian over there sometimes.
Sh.itjust.works is pretty nice.
I came here to post, not that anyone cares, that this is the straw that broke this pathetic camel’s back for me with Lemmy. The limited user base and incredibly reduce quality and quantity, clunky tech…I was willing and happy to bear it all thinking I was getting out from under the thumb of fucking corporate censorship and bullshit mod oversimplification. Instead the locked the News thread on the assassination https://lemmy.world/post/22761236 and deleted my comment that said “can’t imagine why” without explanation, ostensibly as it “encouraged or celebrated violence”(https://lemmy.world/comment/13794258).
I provided a response and then they locked the thread. If we can’t even have a discussion about the world why the fuck would I be on fucking Lemmy instead of another shite censored, billionaire-owned platform that at least has user & content depth?
1.5 years, 1300 comments, fuck Lemmy.world and the mod @JonsJava who understands his position in facilitating respectful dialogue that conform to rules to be “overbroadly apply them and pretend it’s something that needs censoring so I can get my jollies” and then say “I don’t have time to deal with this” when you get blowback and lock a thread with tons of engagement. LOL talk about shooting yourself in the foot Lemmy.
I’m debating on lemm.ee or sh.itjust.works or however you spell the second
let me know if you find a good one (good chance it won’t federate with .world)
Will do. I’m looking around. I really don’t want to host my own instance, but right now that seems somewhat probable.
Yeah so far i’m happy with .ee and its mod/federation policy but it’s always nice to have backups
I heard good things about lemmus.org
Join me on BlueSky. It’s reached critical mass. It’s great.
Bluesky is just as corporately owned as Facebook. Why the fuck would anyone join another corporate controlled Twitter alternative?
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The billionaires choose violence in the form of killing hundreds of thousands of poor people per day. This isn’t murder. It’s community defense.
Won’t they just replace one CEO with another and increase their security?
I think for proper defense we need to unite against them.
Not defending the CEO, just saying that killing him won’t solve the actual problem :(
join lemmy.ml, the politics here are way more sane
I will have to agree to disagree. I’m not interested in joining an authoritarian instance, which .ml is.
I haven’t really had any good experiences with ml and politics.
Ah yes, the epicenter of sanity is the tankie circlejerk
ah yes nothing says sane politics like fascism and censorship
If your definition of “sane” is authoritarian bootlicking and swallowing Eastern propaganda like it’s candy, sure. Say, I wonder what’ll happen if you try criticizing China, Russia or North Korea on your instance?
Eastern propaganda
lol
I criticize and ask directly all the time. I learned not to post or meme reply like I’m an actual adult having a conversation in those spaces though. It takes some getting used to, but it’s possible. People really have a weird skewed view of what it’s like to be a .ml user, I see more privacy and meme posts than anything else. All the political crap usually comes from .world in my feed.
LOL
I was kinda disappointed I couldn’t find anything with .ml when all the .world mod drama was going on. Plenty of meme’s but nothing in the news and politics communities when I checked at the time.
