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Health Insurance Companies Take Down Leadership Pages Following Murder of UH CEO
- ungreased0675 2y agoIf you aren’t doing anything wrong, what do you have to worry about?
- sbalough 2y agoCopy cat killers or just harassment? But, I guess the less smart perpetrators since it’s a public company and the info is in filings.
- s1artibartfast 2y agoBecause innocent people have never been murdered?
- zaik 2y agoInnocent people in the business of denying coverage to the sick and the dying.
- jmye 2y agoGreat, when are you going to blame the people who are actually, actively responsible? Are you going to start shooting the claims processors who push the button? Or is this just more deranged, terminally online teenagers screaming about things they don’t, even vaguely, understand as usual? So tired of the dumbest people having the loudest voices online because populist bumper stickers work better than actual thoughtful commentary.
- PittleyDunkin 2y agoLancet estimated 68,000 lives a year might be saved moving to a single payer system: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0140673619330193 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01406... Surely not all that blood is on the hands of the CEO, or even UHC. But everyone has either been denied claims or knows someone that has, through some of the most disgusting treatment witnessable from corporate america. It'd be one thing if you were denied a claim for.... any variety of reasons that follow from the inherent difficulty of managing health insurance as many countries can attest to. But overriding doctor concerns to withhold funding for necessary treatment and withholding as much as possible while raking in profits leaves people with very bitter tastes in their mouths. Mine included: I'm paying for a medical procedure for a friend next week because her insurance won't cover anesthesia and she can't afford the out of pocket. I had multiple relatives die much sooner than they had to because they were denied funding for critical medication. I've had multiple friends talk about "rationing insulin" (thankfully, both times referring to the past). And naturally healthcare interests—UHC included—lobby both parties heavily, so there's a lot of incentive to continue ignoring the elephant in the room.
- s1artibartfast 2y agoThe job of health insurance is to vet and deny claims. Their pay is regulated and capped by law as a percent of benefits. The fewer benefits they provide, the less they make. This is the system Americans have chosen. Im not saying its the best or shouldnt be improved. Im for a public option, but there will still be rationing and denial of care. people will still die.
- scarecrowbob 2y agoI didn't choose it, it was chosen for me. And you can say "that's democracy", but it doesn't change the fact that "Americans have chosen" is wildly different than saying "I have chosen" and has radically different and wide-spread implications. "People will still die" is the kind of thing narcissists and sociopaths tell themselves when they are pretty sure that the set of "people" does not include themselves.
- quickthrowman 2y ago> The job of health insurance is to vet and deny claims. It would be nice if they did that consistently and fairly, but they don’t. Using an AI to review and deny claims with a (claimed) 90% error rate or denying claims without reading them is not vetting, it’s straight up negligence and fraud. https://arstechnica.com/health/2023/11/ai-with-90-error-rate-forces-elderly-out-of-rehab-nursing-homes-suit-claims/ https://arstechnica.com/health/2023/11/ai-with-90-error-rate... https://www.propublica.org/article/cigna-pxdx-medical-health-insurance-rejection-claims https://www.propublica.org/article/cigna-pxdx-medical-health...
- hulitu 2y ago> This is the system Americans have chosen Some (few) of them. In EU it is different.
- nozzlegear 2y ago> Some (few) of them. The majority of American voters have chosen this system multiple times, and have voted for a president who has explicitly said he'll make this system worse by repealing the ACA. He almost did it the first time, too, and it only failed by one vote. Maybe this UHC CEO event will get more people talking about healthcare, and ultimately get more people voting for candidates who want to improve the system next time around. I support a public option, so I hope it does. But I won't hold my breath.
- wmf 2y agoThe definition of "wrong" appears to be flexible.
- PittleyDunkin 2y agoThe public reaction has been unsympathetic to the victim and unsurprised. I think the definition of "wrong" that plausibly inspired the shooter is widely-held.
- blackeyeblitzar 2y agoThe words written on the casings found on scene, “Deny Defend Depose”, is the name of a book that talks about the unethical and illegal practices of the healthcare industry. That book is “Delay, Deny, Defend”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delay%2C_Deny%2C_Defend https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delay%2C_Deny%2C_Defend
- _gmax0 2y agoHasn't it always been flexible?
- Nasrudith 2y agoYes, hence why "if you have nothing to hide" is infamously so stupid a phrase. You don't get to decide that, the accuser does and who the accuser is may vary and may in fact be utterly deranged by all normal points of view. You don't want the information out there period because it can only end in an especially twisted form of Pascal's Wager based upon who is in power at the moment. And that this is not in fact a paranoid hypothetical but something very real which has happened throughout history.
- egorfine 2y agoAre they scared? Good.
- infamouscow 2y agohttps://uhcleadership.com/ https://uhcleadership.com/
- jeffrallen 2y agohttps://archive.is/yYG5l https://archive.is/yYG5l https://web.archive.org/web/20241206215213/https://uhcleadership.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20241206215213/https://uhcleader... https://archive.org/details/united-healthcare-leadership-team https://archive.org/details/united-healthcare-leadership-tea... Sunshine, the best disinfectant.
- jazz9k 2y agoTerrorism has these sorts of reactions.
- quantified 2y agoRemember the uses of "well, we have the 2nd Amendment" during this last election campaign cycle?
- infamouscow 2y agoThis isn't terrorism. But, even if it met some technical definition, you might be surprised to learn that nobody cares. Digging your heels into this makes you look like a fool. There's a 100% chance that NYPD have family that have been put to death by UHC. You simply do not appreciate the gravity of contempt for insurance companies and how little anyone cares about the death of their executives. If that startles you, perhaps some serious introspection is in order. NYPD can simply loose evidence. Or, have it stolen or destroyed in a myriad of "accidents" as is often the case in politically sensitive cases. Just because this case isn't politically sensitive doesn't mean NYPD isn't familiar with these practices. Remember, NYPD gets away with these things when both the public and people with power are watching. What makes you believe critical evidence won't just disappear in this situation? But even if I am wrong and this hero or champion is arrested and put on trial. What makes you believe an extremely progressive NYC jury will do anything other than nullify the charges? The only crime here is: - security cam was not 4K - security cam did not have audio of the CEO's screams of agony
- ChrisArchitect 2y ago[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42333800 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42333800
- ineedasername 2y agoAthenaHealth has a different type of rational self-interest, suddenly backing off an awful policy changes about anesthesia coverage. "Maybe we're pushing the overton window on acceptable levels of apathy a bit too fast?" is probably a common thought on the minds of corporate policy makers at the moment. Not, you know, goodness-of-the-heart or anything like that, just "pitchforks today mean political will for healthcare reform tomorrow, and we can't have that..."
- b3ing 2y agoProof that violence gets things changed. Even burning buildings down and rioting, while people don't like it, it forces change. Note how they are spending so much effort to prevent copy-cats like somehow they know there is a reason for many people to be mad and that the evil practices among businesses have been going on too long unchecked. If they treated people fairly and honestly there would be nothing to worry about.
- infamouscow 2y agoIf an errant JDAM would simply accidentally fall from a jet and turn the headquarters of UHC into a crater, I wouldn't shed a single tear. In fact, I would probably throw a party because that's what should happen in such unbelievably lucky and joyous circumstances.
- atonable 2y agoYou refer to Anthem walking back its decision to charge anesthesiologists according to Medicare standards (average time of procedure, rather than recorded time). I agree that the timing of the new policy announcement (if not the policy change itself) was probably influenced by the recent murder and public reaction. But I’m not convinced this is actually a positive thing. Notice that word in my previous paragraph: Medicare. One of the promises of single‐payer healthcare like Medicare is to lower bloated procedure costs by having a powerful, unified negotiator (the government) on the side of the patient. The fact that Medicare charges anesthesia this way seems to be an intentional example of this. Is cutting costs here justified? Obviously it would be unjustified if the anesthesia were necessary. On the other hand, it would be justified if the anesthesia charges didn’t actually reflect the cost of the procedure. Personally, I don’t assume Medicare is in the business of maliciously cutting necessary healthcare to lower costs (the “death panels” argument famously put forth by Sarah Palin), at least not without evidence. So what does the evidence show? Well, it’s easy to find stats saying recorded anesthesia procedure times are considered unreliable, that an unusual number of procedure times are measured in round numbers, that the unusual procedure times are consistently and significantly longer than average procedure times, and suggesting (though not proving) fraud on the part of anesthesiologists and doctors. • https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2713030 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle... • https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6324364/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6324364/ The main group I’ve seen advocating against BCBS following Medicare’s charging rules has been the American Society of Anesthesiologists. Which makes sense—of course anesthesiologists would be against policies that decrease their pay. (By the way, the mean anesthesiologist salary in the US is $340,000 per year. https://www.bls.gov/oes/2023/may/oes291211.htm https://www.bls.gov/oes/2023/may/oes291211.htm) This walkback is a great PR victory for them. Insurance companies are, of course, evil grifters. They have incentive to lower costs by cutting necessary care. But this particular policy is copied from Medicare, which doesn’t have the same incentives as an insurance company. Part of the dysfunction of the US health care system is that our procedure costs are unreasonably high. That doesn’t come from insurance companies and Medicare, it comes from doctors and hospitals. We can’t paper over that.
- _9za9 2y agoMark Levy, CEO of Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, deleted his LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-levy-b04a8921 https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-levy-b04a8921
- evoke4908 2y agoSomeone's about to learn about the Streisand effect
- 2lazy2pwdmgr 2y agoMaybe if they didn't kill people for profit, they wouldn't need to hide in the shadows like cowards.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- blackeyeblitzar 2y agoI don’t think this information should be hidden. I hope others create sites that make clear who the leaders are that may be causing harm to them, by just parsing their filings. There should be accountability. And while I am not a fan of laws being broken for that accountability, let’s also be honest: being denied claims in illegal, or at least deeply unethical ways, is an experience MOST American adults have been through. These insurance companies make profit by denying the service you think you’re paying for. Normally that’s called stealing but when a company does it under direction from their CEO, it’s somehow legal. But when it comes to life and death situations of patient health, it’s a lot worse than just stealing.
- stuckkeys 2y agoWayback machine going to see some heavy traffic.
- infamouscow 2y agoI think that's why someone made https://uhcleadership.com/ https://uhcleadership.com/
- DanielLee888 2y ago[dead]
- ZeroGravitas 2y agoThis has the same energy as that guy that put lemon juice on his face when robbing a bank because he thought it would prevent the cameras capturing his image.
- infamouscow 2y agoConsidering someone already made https://uhcleadership.com/ https://uhcleadership.com/ I wouldn't want to be an executive at one of these morally bankrupt companies. Even if this person is apprehended (which seems extraordinarily unlikely) an NYC jury isn't going to find him guilty when nullification is an option.