7 ms·
UnitedHealth hired a defamation law firm to go after social media posts
- throw_a_grenade 2y agoThis is the "defend" part, right?
- zusammen 2y ago[dead]
- sam0x17 2y agoThis is their strategy to improve their public image??
- fiftyfifty 2y agoWhy can't they just put this money towards rejecting fewer claims?
- dmm 2y ago[flagged]
- throwway120385 2y agoIsn't profit what the board keeps after they pay for everything including the people in the board's employ? So in that sense the profit margin doesn't mean terribly much because you can always pay more to your senior managers and less to your patients.
- dmm 2y agoThe 80/20 rule[0] requires insurance companies to pay out at least 80% of premiums. That's revenue, not profit, and is independent of their costs. So if they were a charity which magically had 0 costs the most payouts could increase is 20%. Healthcare demand is infinite and providers have every incentive to inflate costs and recommend as many services as possible. I don't like our healthcare system but as it is, insurance companies play a necessary role of rationing care and there is no magical fix to claim denials. [0] https://www.healthcare.gov/health-care-law-protections/rate-review/ https://www.healthcare.gov/health-care-law-protections/rate-...
- ceejayoz 2y agoPlenty of that 80% goes to profit, through their extensive network of subsidiaries to capture both ends of the equation. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43016192 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43016192
- lotsofpulp 2y agoYou keep claiming managed care organizations are earning outsized profit margins, but the audited financials on their 10-Ks indicate otherwise, as do their subpar annual stock returns. You can either accept that these business do not have a lot of pricing power, and they compete on razor thin profit margins (except UNH, but that is because they sell software and healthcare, not just insurance). Even then, their profit margin is only 5% or so, which is objectively a low profit margins. Or you think there is a massive fraud and a nationwide conspiracy amongst 7 publicly listed businesses (UNH/Elevance/Cigna/CVS/Humana/Centene/Molina), and numerous non profits like Kaiser Permanente and various BCBS affiliated plans (because their premiums are basically the same as the for profit insurers). The easiest thing to do though, is ask yourself why shareholders would accept lower annual returns if their business they own earns so much money? Put their stock tickers in here: https://dqydj.com/stock-return-calculator/ https://dqydj.com/stock-return-calculator/ https://dqydj.com/sp-500-return-calculator/ https://dqydj.com/sp-500-return-calculator/ You would think they could do better than SP500 if they were raking it in. Although, UNH did do better, but that is because they sell more high margin stuff like software and healthcare.
- StormChaser_5 2y agoDepends what their costs are but if all claims would take 85.5 of their premiums with the rest their overhead costs then I think most of their customers would be happy
- franktankbank 2y agoThey bloat the overall health care system to increase the absolute value of that 80% premium. Efforts to human health are overburdened by exercises of human bureaucracy and frankly obviously intentional bad service.
- NewJazz 2y agoWe should up that threshold until these companies start posting consistent losses, then ease up. I tried researching this, but couldn't come up with an answer: if an insurance company pays doctors to review and dent claims, does that doctor salary count as "quality improvement activities", or administrative?
- ceejayoz 2y ago> Their profit margin is 5.5%. Sure, except they own the pharmacy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optum), the payments solution (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Change_Healthcare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Change_Healthcare), the outpatient surgery centers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCA_Health https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCA_Health), the in-home care providers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amedisys https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amedisys), and a whopping 10% of the country's doctors - the nation's single largest employer of them (https://www.statnews.com/2024/07/25/united-health-group-medicare-advantage-strategy-doctor-clinic-acquisitions/ https://www.statnews.com/2024/07/25/united-health-group-medi...). (Oh, and they pay their doctors higher rates. https://www.statnews.com/2024/11/25/unitedhealth-higher-payments-optum-providers-converts-expenses-to-profits/ https://www.statnews.com/2024/11/25/unitedhealth-higher-paym...) Those are "expenses" for that margin calculation.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> Those are "expenses" for that margin calculation Source? They would be expenses for the insurance sub but profits for the consolidated public company. The latter are 22% (gross) and 4% (net). I don’t have a horse in this race. But it seems like the problem is at the level of PBMs and providers more than insurers.
- ceejayoz 2y ago> They would be expenses for the insurance sub... Yes, and that's the subsidiary that has the 80/20 expenses rule. UHC ensures as much of the 80% paid for "patient care" winds up in their other subsidiaries that don't have a profit cap. > But it seems like the problem is at the level of PBMs and providers more than insurers. UHC is both the insurer and the PBM, and they're buying up all the providers they can get their hands on.
- JumpCrisscross 2y agoBut we can see the group profits. They’re right at 20 gross and much lower net. You’re arguing they’re double booking profits; that should show more profits. There aren’t more profits. Also, other comments praise Kaiser for being more consolidated. Is your argument care at Kaiser is much worse?
- darth_avocado 2y agoIf they deny less claims, they’ll need fewer adjusters, admin and customer care staff. They will still have 5.5% profit margins but the CEO will get paid less because the net profit won’t perpetually grow and Wall Street doesn’t like that.
- dmm 2y agoI do not like our healthcare system and would enthusiastically support reform. But your arguments really don't make sense. The UHC CEO made 10M, even if we 10x that to 100M then if the CEO decided to give it all back, UHC could payout << 1% more claims.
- nradov 2y agoIf they deny fewer claims then medical expenses will rise for their self funded employer customers, and then those customers will switch their health plans to a competitor like Cigna or Aetna. Most coverage rules are driven by large employers. UHC would be happy to offer a health plan which paid every single claim if that's what employers wanted: it would actually mean higher profits for UHC.
- johnduhart 2y ago> Their profit margin is 5.5%. 5.5% of what, dmm? https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/unitedhealth-unh-2024-record-revenue/737477/ https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/unitedhealth-unh-2024-re... > the Minnesota healthcare behemoth reported adjusted profit of $25.7 billion — an all-time record.
- skyyler 2y agoIs there any legal way to remove the leeches from the system? Obviously murdering healthcare CEOs and shareholders isn’t legal, and I wouldn’t endorse that method. Are there alternatives?
- vkou 2y agoYes, the legal way is to change the laws. Unfortunately that is rolling a boulder uphill, and even if you fire all of Congress (on this issue, you'd need to get rid of all the Republicans and at least a third of the Democrats) and replace it with people who give a crap, all it takes is one executive to stop enforcing the rules.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> you'd need to get rid of all the Republicans and at least a third of the Democrats And then most voters: “71% of U.S. adults consider the quality of healthcare they receive to be excellent or good, and 65% say the same of their own coverage. There has been little deviation in these readings since 2001” [1]. [1] https://news.gallup.com/poll/654044/view-healthcare-quality-declines-year-low.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/654044/view-healthcare-quality-...
- wahnfrieden 2y ago[flagged]
- 7952 2y agoSurely the entire point of insurance is that the provider takes the financial risk. That is what they have been paid to do. If they cannot afford to do that through premiums then they should make a loss.
- nradov 2y agoMost commercial health insurers no longer bear much financial risk. Instead they primarily administer health plans on behalf of large self-funded employers. Actual insurance is mostly limited to individual and small group plans, which are a much smaller line of business.
- lotsofpulp 2y agoSome numbers here: https://www.kff.org/report-section/ehbs-2023-section-10-plan-funding/#:~:text=plan%20in%202023.-,SELF%2DFUNDED%20PLANS,61%25)%20%5BFigure%2010.2%5D. https://www.kff.org/report-section/ehbs-2023-section-10-plan... While everyone calls them "health insurers", the industry term is "managed care organizations" (MCOs), which sell a variety of services, which may or may not include healthcare, managed care, insurance, negotiated pricing, and even retail pharmacy services.
- sega_sai 2y agoThe company's goal is to satisfy share-holders, not some pesky sick people.
- wesselbindt 2y agoI don't understand, why would they do that?
- hypothesis 2y agoFor same reason any other insurance company doing it? Those guys are statistically the worst, with no one else being close. Like if your argument being fiduciary duty to rob everyone blind health outcomes be damned, then why say Kaiser is not being sued in to the ground?
- bobthepanda 2y agoThis i think depends on where you are with Kaiser; i know folks in Washington have bad times with them.
- SpicyLemonZest 2y agoKaiser doctors, because they're employees of the same organization that provides the insurance, are much less likely to prescribe treatments that will be denied. Which I like, don't get me wrong, but it's a double-edged sword. Many people with complex or hard-to-treat conditions feel that Kaiser isn't an option for them, because when they need some rare treatment another insurance company might fight you over, Kaiser simply won't prescribe it at all.
- coloneltcb 2y agoMy wife is on Kaiser, she was having extreme, persistent back pain. Before she could even talk a specialist, they told her she needed to attend a live webinar about back pain that was scheduled for 3 weeks later...
- SteveNuts 2y agoThere's also a lot of rumblings of massive layoffs coming at UNH, with senior leadership setting goals to be 50% offshore across the board.
- NewJazz 2y agoI'm sure that using employees who will likely never use your services will improve the quality of their offering. Their website and call wait times surely won't go to shit.
- wongarsu 2y agoThe jokes write themselves: "Our reputation is in tatters and the pubic cheers for the person who killed our CEO. What should we do" "Let's make our service worse and sue our customers and their doctors" This feels more like a wounded animal lashing out than like a strategy decided in a board room
- snakeyjake 2y agoThe only thing they care about is next quarter's share price. The wouldn't kill and eat your grandmother if it was legal to make a little money, but 100% without exception they would look the other way and profess innocence if SOMEONE ELSE killed and ate your grandmother and it made them money. edit: and they would character assassinate and/or sue you for criticizing them in a large enough forum.
- lencastre 2y agoThat is the fourth D, or?
- throwway120385 2y agoWhy don't they review the phone records and recordings of their phone calls regarding the patient? They were able to do that for my partner. They record all of their phone calls "for quality assurance purposes." I'm not surprised they're gaslighting now. It's how they always operate in these cases. I wouldn't be surprised if the person they talked to actually worked for Optum which is why UHC is denying that they would ever do anything so insensitive as call a doctor to deny a claim mid-surgery.
- Aurornis 2y ago> Why don't they review the phone records and recordings of their phone calls regarding the patient? They did review the call. The calls did not support the claims in the social media post. The physician posted the letter she received on Instagram and, to be honest, I’m having a hard time siding with the physician: https://www.instagram.com/p/DFlR1CrJ688/?img_index=4 https://www.instagram.com/p/DFlR1CrJ688/?img_index=4 Unless you believe that UHC’s lawyers are lying about their records (which I have no doubt many people will claim) then it appears the errors were primarily in the administration at the hospital. Specifically, UHC did not demand she scrub out of surgery, but that she call back as soon as convenient. The physician spun it on social media as UHC demanding she leave surgery for the call immediately, but that seems like a miscommunication in the hospital staff. They also appear to have records that the hospital submitted a request for outpatient surgery but they were doing inpatient surgery, which prompted the calls.
- ceejayoz 2y ago> Specifically, UHC did not demand she scrub out of surgery, but that she call back as soon as convenient. Which means "now, or you'll wait on hold for hours".
- IncreasePosts 2y agoWhy don't you review the articles that talk about what they've done?
- surfpel 2y agoNaturally. I'd say they'd be willing to kill to keep their reputation up, but that's already their business model so...
- franktankbank 2y ago[dead]
- spoonjim 2y agoWhy? Pausing a surgery to take an insurance call is highly unusual. It’s a very serious allegation. Why shouldn’t its veracity be subject to scrutiny and verification by a court?
- perihelions 2y agoFair question. Because there's no meaningfully deterrent penalty for a meritless defamation claim, and the costs and consequences of going to court are highly asymmetric—to the hard-working surgeon in a bloody white coat; as opposed to the lawfare attorney who performs barratry for a living. It's in the public interest to proactively defend freedom of speech, particularly that of people who have important things to say (i.e. physicians who witness gross insurer abuses), from the speech-chilling effects of a dysfunctional and unjust tort system. I'm not a lawyer or defamation law expert, so I will quote a person who is both: - "I don’t know if this doctor lied about United Healthcare. I do know if I had unlimited money and no scruples and wanted to bully people into silence, Claire Locke would be a top choice to hire." –Ken White https://bsky.app/profile/kenwhite.bsky.social/post/3lhhgk5oh722d https://bsky.app/profile/kenwhite.bsky.social/post/3lhhgk5oh...
- mmooss 2y agoBecause people need freedom, including freedom to speak their minds, especially about political and social matters, especially about the powerful. If everything you say has to be tried in court with legal expenses, there is no freedom and no check on the powerful. People make spurious claims all the time, including on news, in commercials, in business and legal contexts, by corporations - look at what UnitedHealth says at times. It's absurd that someone can be sued - there would be no freedom of speech.
- pfdietz 2y agoSpurious claims that damage someone else's reputation are libel or slander, and are rightly actionable. I've long thought that doing to this what copyright trolls did to copyright infringement is a road to profit for social media companies. Help connect the outspoken with the damaged and take a cut.
- perihelions 2y agoAlso discussed on /r/medicine if that piques anyone's curiosity, https://old.reddit.com/r/medicine/comments/1igp35p/follow_up_the_doctor_who_was_pulled_out_of/ https://old.reddit.com/r/medicine/comments/1igp35p/follow_up... ("Follow up: The doctor who was pulled out of surgery to call UHC because they were denying her patient’s stay got a threatening letter from UHC for talking about it on social media", 181 comments)
- Aurornis 2y agoThat links to a post containing the actual letter from the lawyers, which is honestly more revealing than all of the articles and social media ragebait about the situation: https://www.instagram.com/p/DFlR1CrJ688/?img_index=4 https://www.instagram.com/p/DFlR1CrJ688/?img_index=4 I know people will default to believing the physician and not the lawyers, but from my read of the letter it appears UHC’s lawyers have valid points (don’t shoot me, I’m just the messenger) Specifically, UHC appears to have recordings of the calls and the paperwork which contradict the claims in the social media post. The two biggest problems I see from my quick read: 1. UHC’s rep said the issue was non urgent and asked for a call back “when convenient to you”. This differs from the social media post claiming that UHC called and demanded she “scrub out of surgery” and “call right now”. 2. UHC has records of the doctor conceding that her office’s submission for inpatient care was erroneous and that they actually meant to request observation care. That’s why UHC was calling. The fact that UHC came with receipts (recordings of the phone calls) and that the doctor even conceded the error during the call does not put the doctor in a good position. The original claim that the insurance rep demanded she scrub out of surgery immediately was a red flag that something was amiss with the story.
- martimarkov 2y agoI don’t record my conversations and if some lawyer tells me that they have a recording of me saying something I’d be more inclined to believe them. “Maybe I actually said that? Maybe I made a mistake? Maybe I don’t remember it now correctly?” So I’d take it with a pinch of salt but the lawyers might be absolutely correct as well. I’m just saying I can see it as a tactic but maybe I’m a bit paranoid. Wondering if just I jumped to this conclusion?
- draw_down 2y ago[dead]
- benatkin 2y agoKeep in mind that this is enshittification and that tech enshittifiers are doing the same thing. At one time UnitedHealth was competitive in quality of coverage, while still along with most or all of their competitors being awful by any absolute standard. Now they’re capturing extra money at the expense of their reputation, and aren’t trying to bring their reputation back but merely to slow its decline. If it causes their market share to shrink there are bankruptcies and tax write offs to pursue and their investors can invest in other firms and the deadly grift continues.
- franktankbank 2y ago> competitive in quality of coverage Doesn't mean much in a sanctioned cartel. Everyone in the cartel can agree the prices must go up. The industry is rotten and quibbling about who is relatively worst doesn't improve a long term picture.
- Mistletoe 2y agoThis should help things a lot. I’ve completely forgotten about Barbra Streisand’s house!
- aljgz 2y agoWould be soon renamed to Streisand-UnitedHealth effect?
- miah_ 2y agoScumbag companies continue to be scum.
- wesselbindt 2y agoDepose
- mitchellst 2y agoI want to complain a little about the journalism (not) being done here. Because I read this article, and I read the (better, but still lacking) Bloomberg Law article it links/rewrites, and I still have no idea what's happening. The law firm says the surgeon made false claims. (Which claims? Were they false?) The surgeon reacted with some twitter grandstanding saying she was on the side of the women she cares for who are battling cancer. (Noble, but irrelevant. She can tell the truth for a good cause or lie for a good cause. Which did she do?) UHC's spokesperson makes a big show of saying there are "no insurance-related circumstances that would ever require a physician to step out of surgery" and they would "never ask or expect that." Happens all the time actually, in part because if you don't work on the insurance company's schedule and answer their calls, you may not be able to talk to them for weeks, and your patient is denied in the meantime. But is that what was happening here? Apparently nobody thought to ask or include that information. The implication of this news item is that UHC has hired a shakedown operation to chill criticism on social media. Big if true. But it seems to really matter whether the people on either side are telling the truth. Somebody should report that out. Alas, I guess "big company vs plucky surgeon in social media spat" is a simple script that requires no work, we don't need to be curious about who the hero(ine) and the villain are.
- dingnuts 2y ago>Alas, I guess "big company vs plucky surgeon in social media spat" is a simple script that requires no work, we don't need to be curious about who the hero(ine) and the villain are. spoken like someone who doesn't have a chronic illness requiring an expensive medication to be delivered every month for the rest of their life, who every year has to fight with the insurance company about the fact that multiple sclerosis does not go away and that the medication is still needed, and yet STILL has lapses in receiving the pre-approved and approved and re-approved treatment which causes new symptoms to occur and old ones to relapse while the bureaucrat at the insurance company who is incentivized to give you the runaround plays delay deny delay deny delay over the medication that has been effective for YEARS and will be needed indefinitely. No, we really do not need to be curious about who the villain is. If UHC is worried about their image, maybe they should DO THE THING THEIR CUSTOMERS FUCKING PAY THEM TO DO
- ChrisArchitect 2y agoEarlier source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42954798 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42954798 and Related: UnitedHealth Is Sick of Everyone Complaining About Its Claim Denials https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42992121 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42992121
- gamblor956 2y agoAlso relevant: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/02/10/inhaler-cost-death-optum-rx-walgreens/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/02/10/inhaler-c... TLDR: UnitedHealth subsidiary Optum cut coverage for inhalers without bothering to tell patients in advance, or to let affected patients know of alternatives that were still/now covered, and a man died because of it. If the case goes to trial Optum is looking at a bankruptcy-level payout.
- Henchman21 2y agoWhich is why I find it highly unlikely it will go to trial.
- legitster 2y agoObviously nobody in their right mind would defend the bean-counters at UHC. But also picking a side with the hospitals and making this a "them vs us" issue is pretty naive. Hospitals and providers are complicit in their own fair share of awful dealings, and you shouldn't automatically take their side. In this case, the irony is baked right in. UHC was calling the provider because the provider legitimately screwed up the billing codes and was trying to overcharge the patient!
- cess11 2y agoIt's absurd that a corporation can claim to have been defamed. It's like Harry Potter bringing a defamation case against some author of erotic fanfic.
- hsuduebc2 2y agoThey will do anything in their power to not look bad except stop acting like complete garbage.
- hsuduebc2 2y agoAnd people should feel any compassion for architects of this. Lol
- more_corn 2y ago“Our bad behavior is causing public backlash. Wat do?” Maybe stop behaving badly? “Naw, we’ll lawyer up and crush those peasants.”
- tzs 2y agoUHC even manages to be shady with their Medigap plans. Medigap should be the hardest kind of medical insurance for a company to be shady with, but they manage. Brief background for people who have had no reason to know what the hell Medigap is: in the US if you choose traditional Medicare at 65 [1] it is pretty simple. Various preventative services are covered 100% with no deductible, and other services are covered with a $257 deductible and a 20% copay. You can buy "Medigap" insurance from private companies that help cover your Medicare copay and sometimes other things Medicare doesn't pay. Medigap plans are standardized by the government named Plan A through Plan N which vary in what they cover and how much they cover it. It should be hard to be a shady Medigap insurer because they are almost completely out of the loop. You go to your doctor, the doctor says you need say an MRI, you go get that done and the bill is $500. The MRI place sends the bill to Medicare, Medicare pays 80% ($400), and also notifies your Medigap insurer. The Medigap insurer then pays the remaining 20% ($100). The Medigap insurer doesn't have a say in whether or not they have to cover it. If Medicare approves covering their 80% then the Medigap plan has to cover it too. No saying that you should have went to a cheaper MRI place, or your doctor should have done some other cheaper test instead of an MRI. So if they can't be shady when it comes to coverage, what can they be shady on? They can be shady when trying to get you to sign up. Suppose you are in Texas and are turning 65 and are shopping for a Medigap plan. You decide you want plan G. On Medicare.gov for zip code 75002 (first zip code I found when searching for "Texas zip codes") there are 44 plan G Medigap plans available from 33 different insurance companies. 30 of these companies are using "attained age" pricing. Premiums are low for younger buyers and go up as a function of age. 2 of them use "issue age" pricing. Your initial premium depends on your age when you buy, but does not then go up as a function of age. Finally, one company, UHC, uses "community" pricing. With community pricing the premiums are not a function of age. If you buy a community priced plan with a $200/month premium at 65 you might be paying say $300 at 75, but that won't be because of your age. It will be because of inflation. In particular when you are paying $300 at 75 that is also what someone signing up at 65 that year will be paying. Hence why it called "community" pricing--everyone on that plan pays the same. For someone at 65 typically an attained age plan will be cheaper than a community plan. So why would you ever buy a community plan? Buy an attained age plan, and a few years later when the price rises above the price of community plans switch plans, right? The problem with that is that in most states if you are joining a Medigap plan other than in a window around when you turned 65 (and some other exceptional situations) the insurer is allowed to take age and pre-existing conditions into account. They can refuse to sell you a plan, or charge higher premiums, or exclude your pre-existing conditions from coverage. That means if you are in such a state and either have expensive pre-existing conditions or will be unfortunate enough to develop some later you may be stuck with the Medigap plan you first buy. Then a community rated plan can make a lot of sense. If you are going to be stuck with your plan a $200/month community plan may be more attractive than an attained age plan that is $150/month now that will be rising to $350/month over the next say 20 years. OK, so now imagine you are 65. You've entered 65 as your age in the plan finder at Medicare.gov. You see all those plan G attained age plans which start at $133/month, and the issue age plans that start at $166/month. And then there are the UHC community plans starting at $166/month. That sure looks attractive. $166/month that doesn't change as a function of age will in a few years be a better deal than $133/month that goes up as a function of age. When you follow the link to the plan website and fill in your information you will indeed be told it is $166/month (or close). But under that there is a line that says "$308.39 standard premium" with the $308.39 struck out. And below that it says "Includes $138.78 in discounts". They are apparently claiming it is a community priced plan because everyone has a standard premium of $308.39, but then they give an age based discount. If you are 65-67 it is 45%. Then it goes down 2% a year through age 79. Then it goes down 3% a year until reaching 0 at age 86. I fail to see how this is not in fact an attained age plan. Based on what I've read on /r/medicare and other forums where people new to Medicare seek advice I'm sure that there are people who will not notice this and buy that plan thinking the premium won't be going up as a function of age. I believe that there are other insurers doing this same disguising of an attained age plan as a community plan, but is particularly scummy in the case of UHC because UHC has a deal with AARP to provide these plans under the AARP name. Medicare.gov does know that the price actually does depend on age. If you change you info on Medicare.gov's plan search to say you are 75 it does show a higher price for the UHC plan just like it does for the attained age and issue age plans, so if you think to do that you might catch that something is fishy. But if you are already predisposed toward UHC because of the AARP association and because you want community pricing, you might not see a need to try other ages since you would not expect that to matter. I'm in a state where they don't do those shenanigans. In my state all plans are community rated and if you signed up for Medigap when you turned 65 you can later freely change plans and providers and the new provider has to accept you with no exclusions for pre-existing conditions and with the same premium they charge everyone else. If UHC tried that discount trick here what would happen is people would sign up with them at 65 to get the 45% discount, and as soon as that discount has declined enough to where what they were actually paying was more than the plans of the other plan G providers they would switch to one of those. More and more states are liberalizing their rules for Medigap plan switching. Only a few are as liberal as mine (Washington) but several do allow you to easily switch between providers of the same letter plan with no penalties for pre-existing conditions and no higher premiums, and that should be enough to make the discount trick a losing deal for them. It's currently I think around 16 or 17 states that do this. It's a mix of red and blue things so this doesn't seem to be a partisan thing. [1] In "traditional" Medicare the government is the insurance provider. The alternative is "Medicare Advantage" where the government pays a private company to be your provider. Think of Medicare Advantage as a lot like what you get from plans with employer provided insurance or with plans bought on the ACA marketplace.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- tim333 2y agoMusk was on TV from the oval office yesterday saying a "significant part of this presidency is to restore democracy"..."what meaning does democracy actually have if the people cannot vote and have their will be decided by their elected representatives". That was referring to bureaucracy but it seems where America really needs to restore democracy is with things like health insurance where everyone hates it but the consensus is it'll never change because of the money spent lobbying politicians? (Musk thing https://youtu.be/gAuTb-yMNk4?t=63 https://youtu.be/gAuTb-yMNk4?t=63)
- kinjba11 2y agoMy company recently switched to UHC for 2025. My regular monthly out of network claim was fine with Aetna. With UHC? After I filled out a long form with information in a PDF, they mailed me a letter saying they needed more information. The exact information I had already given them, except for one thing trivially looked up, the provider's phone number. They asked that I mail them more information. I don't have a printer. So I had to get PDFs, go to the library, print them, buy envelopes (yes they did not provide one) and stamps, and mail it. I have yet to hear back anything. I am going to have to follow up myself. Is it worth it to me to spend this much time? The frustration is real. Even if the doctor here is technically in the wrong, UHC deserves every negative press possible. What they pull should be illegal, companies like these are a big part of why our healthcare system is a joke.