Policies that Prioritize Profits over People — When is enough enough?
Anything can happen when people come to a breaking point and think enough is enough. An example is the well-publicized daytime shooting death of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson. But there’s been little sympathy on social media, with many people seeing the killer as some kind of hero. The killing to them seems justified if it sparks a needed debate about corporate greed, political corruption, and policies that prioritize profits over people.
The words Deny (the claim), Defend (the lawsuit), and Depose (the patient) were prominently written on ammo found at the scene of the murder in midtown Manhattan, hinting at private insurance policies that prioritize profits over people. And monopoly money was found in the killer’s backpack discovered in Central Park. Those physical clues, and the fact that he apparently knew about the UnitedHealthcare annual investor conference and likely route the CEO would take from his hotel, suggest that the killer may be a disgruntled client. While social media posts may portray him as a folk hero, officials worry about copycats with similar motives, all to punish the extremely wealthy medical industrial complex.
Social Media Reaction
As Heather Cox Richardson noted in her December 5th podcast, “posters on social media have cheered what they see as revenge against an abusive system in which people’s lives are at the mercy of executives who prioritize profits.” Here are a few examples:
- “Eat the Rich.”
- “Unfortunately my condolences are out-of-network.”
- “This claim for sympathy has been denied.”
- “Thoughts and deductibles to the family.”
- “Last year, the seven largest private health insurers made $71 billion in profits. Enough is enough.”
- “People hate health insurance because it’s one of the few products you pay for where the seller fights to avoid delivering the product as part of its business model.”
- “Listen, no one is ‘vilifying’ rich people. They ARE villains. If you run a billion dollar company, give yourself millions but pay your workers less than a living wage and give them shitty insurance, what are you if not a villain?”
- “So why is it that a wealthy corporation can commit mass murder with policies that put profit over people’s lives with no accountability but scorn the little guy in pain when he kills the CEO?”
- “My only question is did the CEO of United Healthcare die quickly or over several months waiting to find out if his insurance would cover his treatment for the fatal gunshot wound?”
- “Stigmatize those who let people die, not those who struggle to live.”
- “When wealth is passed off as merit, bad luck is seen as bad character. This is how ideologues justify punishing the sick and the poor. But poverty is neither a crime nor a character flaw.”
- “Only about 50 million customers of America’s reigning medical monopoly might have a motive to exact revenge upon the UnitedHealthcare CEO.”
More social media reaction (as memes) are attached at the end.
12/9/24 UPDATE: The killing was captured on surveillance video, but the killer’s face was masked, and he almost managed to escaped capture completely. But after a nationwide manhunt, a suspect was captured. Luigi Mangione, a University of Pennsylvania graduate, was brought in for questioning after a McDonald’s employee in Altoona, Pennsylvania recognized him from widely circulated images. (details from ABC NEWS)
12/15/24 UPDATE: I was proud of this article until I read Michael Moore’s view in A Manifesto Against For-Profit Health Insurance Companies. This award-winning director of Fahrenheit 911 is a master storyteller. I’m happy to promote his article and this other popular movie, Sicko, which he made available for free.
What Goes Around Comes Around
Throughout our nation’s history, women and men with courage, discontent and integrity have stepped up to whistleblow and put an end to wrongdoing even when they themselves were previously part of the problem. And then there are some, like allegedly Luigi Mangione, who are willing to resort to violence to stop corporate greed or seek revenge.
Nina Burleigh, in Sick Until Death, writes that blaming immigrants is a common trick used to divert attention from the real problem: extreme wealth and the “abomination of private, for-profit, market-driven health care.” It’s one reason Americans are so stressed out and mad at the difficulty of achieving and maintaining access to what should be a basic human right.
UnitedHealthcare reported some $371 billion in revenue last year, but they reportedly also have the highest claim denial rate. UHC uses artificial intelligence to deny claims and then refuses to explain decisions to patients or doctors, saying their AI tool is proprietary. UHC’s senior executives have also been under DOJ investigation for insider trading after several of them sold stock before an antitrust investigation was made public. Of course, the company invests hundreds of millions on political donations and lobbying to keep things just as they are, with the U.S. spending twice as much per capital as other rich nations. It’s all about maximizing profit.
Corporate Profits versus General Welfare & Economic Prosperity
What’s more necessary to the general welfare and economic prosperity than the health of our citizens? Their health should NOT be subject to profit. Our health care system is worse than primitive and obsolete; it is corrupt to its corporate core. And it’s arguably worse than any other advanced nation, and far more expensive.
America is know for having some of the best medical technology, if you can afford it, but our system provides mostly inferior outcomes and shorter average longevity. That’s even though we pay nearly twice as much per capita (~$14,000 per person) as other rich nations, most of whom offer some form of universal health care. So, since we spent $4.8 trillion in 2023, it’s easy to estimate potential savings of over $2 trillion PER YEAR just by becoming average. And how many lives would be saved?
Why insurance companies don’t pay claims and what you can do about it.
Ironically, Jay M. Feinman’s book, DELAY, DENY, DEFEND: Why insurance companies don’t pay claims and what you can do about it, was published in April 2020. It’s an expose of insurance injustice and a plan for consumers and lawmakers to fight back. Violence was not part of the plan. However, the denial of valid insurance claims is not occasional or accidental. It’s also not the fault of a few bad employees but the result of a systematic focus on maximizing profits by major insurers.
In his book, Feinman cites dozens of powerful stories of victims who were unfairly denied payment, and he explains how people can be more careful when shopping for policies or disputing claims. It also lays out plans for needed legal reforms to prevent future abuses — abuses that have occurred for decades but still continue today.
Bitter Pill: Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us
In his 38-page TIME magazine special report, “Bitter Pill: Why Medical Bills are Killing Us,” Steven Brill described how over 60% of personal bankruptcies result from medical debt, even with insurance. The link directs you to my summary, including the fact that many affluent patients think they have good health insurance but don’t find out until it’s too late that their coverage has limits far below the real costs they may face. That’s why President Obama’s Affordable Care Act (ACA or Obamacare) eliminated annual caps that can quickly be consumed by a catastrophic illness.
According to healthcare.gov, if your insurer refuses to pay a claim or ends your coverage, you have the right to appeal the company’s decision and have it reviewed by a third party. Of course, you can ask that your insurance company reconsider its decision, and they have to tell you why they’ve denied your claim or ended your coverage. But in too many cases, the corporate strategy is to deny the claim and then defend their position in court, knowing they can outspend just about anyone.
Brill is not a fan of private health insurance, saying insurers add nothing to health care but costs, but he’s a huge fan of Medicare and the concept of Medicare-for-All. He describes Medicare’s administration and management cost, of processing over one billion claims a year (less than $3.80/claim), as far less than what what Aetna pays to process its 229 million claims ($30 each). That’s because Medic are has no profit motive, marketing costs, or outrageous executive compensation. But now the big trend is Medicare Advantage, a privatization of Medicare that includes all those costs.
The Health Insurance Whistleblower
Another fan of Medicare is Wendell Potter. He’s an insurance insider who in 2008 left his senior management position at CIGNA to become a whistleblower. Since seeing industry corruption first hand, he’s dedicated his life to reforming the health care industry through education, advocacy and speaking truth to power. He supports the Affordable Care Act and is a strong advocate of universal health care and Medicare-for-All. I wrote an article about Potter in 2019 that you can read here.
Potter is also a New York Times best selling author:
- His November 2010 book Deadly Spin: An Insurance Company Insider Speaks Out on How Corporate PR Is Killing Health Care and Deceiving Americans details many of the industry’s deceitful tactics.
- His 2013 book, Obamacare: What’s In It For Me? What Everyone Needs to Know About the Affordable Care Act provides an overview of the Affordable Care Act and shows how the law affects everyday Americans.
- In 2016, Potter published Nation on the Take: How Big Money Corrupts Our Democracy And What We Can Do About It. It argues that the corrupting influence of big money on US democracy has reached a state of emergency.
Related Articles on this site
- The Health Care Moral Dilemma (6/4/2024) — Do we have to buy life or do we have a right to live? It’s truly a Moral Dilemma. What is the Right thing to do?
- Healthcare and The Common Good (8/12/2023) — What exactly is the Common Good, and how does health care, education, and other programs fit in?
- Healthcare as a Civil Right – Forgotten (7/31/2023) — We’ve made little progress on healthcare inequality, with roughly 50M Americans without health insurance and another 40M under-insured.
- Why American Healthcare is SO Expensive (1/26/2018) – It starts with the profit motive and the effective returns from political lobbying.
- Extreme Inequality in Politics, Healthcare and Economics (10/7/2019) – Poverty exists not because we cannot feed the poor, but because we cannot satisfy the rich.
- AMERICA BROKEN: critiquing Capitalism, Healthcare & Politics (4/19/2019) – Since these three topics are related, the article addresses each, with a closing section on How to Fix the Corrupted System.
- American Corruption and the U.S. Supreme Court (5/6/2023) – Is America the most corrupt nation on Earth? Well, not quite, or not yet, but the trend is bad and the implications scary.
- The trillion-dollar election is closer than you think (1/16/2019) — Extreme wealth has corrupted our politics, healthcare too. Our first trillion dollar election now seems possible, justified by the healthcare industry alone.
- The Corporation (7/8/2020) — This award-winning documentary shows why so many big corporations, including hospitals, insurance companies, drug companies, testing companies, and medical supply companies, behave like a psychopath.
- Understanding Obamacare (8/9/2013) — Expanding resource list helps explain the complicated Affordable Care Act.
- ACA Anniversary and History (5/18/2024) — President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) into law on March 23, 2010, and it remains the law of the land.
- Does America Have Exceptional Healthcare? (4/19/2024) — No. But our unfounded belief in American Exceptionalism sadly extends to healthcare.
- Reengineering U.S. Healthcare (5/17/2024) — What are the economic benefits and challenges to reengineering U.S. healthcare?
- A Single-Payer Healthcare System for All Americans (6/13/2017) — Will’s jelly-bean analogy shows how we currently Pay for care and the savings from a single-payer system.
- How Medicare-for-All would Save Money, a Lot of it (2/24/2020) — 22 studies offer plenty of evidence the Medicare-for-All would save money.
- Is Medicare-for-All “socialism” or just socially responsible? (1/29/2024) — U.S. healthcare is already a mix of private and government payers, practitioners, drug companies, testing companies, and medical equipment providers. But with so many Americans without care, it’s hardly socially responsible.
More Social Media Reaction, as Memes
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Wayne Caswell is a retired IBM technologist, futurist, market strategist, consumer advocate, sleep economist, and founding editor of Modern Health Talk. With international leadership experience developing wireless networks, sensors, and smart home technologies, he’s advocated for Big Broadband and fiber-to-the-home while also enjoying success lobbying for consumers. He considers himself independent, but leans left to support progressive policies. (contact & BIO)
My United Healthcare Story (found online, author unknown):
I may have already mentioned this story before, in light of what happened to me at the very end of 2022.
But, to recap the beginning of it, here’s the short version.
In August of 2022, my Primary physician was trying to discover what was causing a number of my heart-related and blood-pressure related symptoms. We’d already tried a number of diagnostic methods, and the results were inconclusive.
Finally, he hit upon having me undergo an echocardiogram, which is an ultrasound imaging of the heart and the immediate surroundings of the heart. He put in for the procedure at Froedtert/MCW main campus, and I called for the scheduling of it.
I also called the billing department to find out how much it would cost, both with and without insurance.
With insurance, it would have cost me something like $200 dollars to a max of $400 dollars.
Without insurance it would have cost me the entire amount, which would be $4,700 dollars.
After waiting for an okay by United Healthcare, in late September I received an unkind letter stating that UHC had ‘their own doctor’ look at the request, and decided to deny my claim because it was ‘medically unnecessary’.
I called twice to appeal, in September and in October. And both times I was rebuffed. The final letter stated that my appeal was denied due to the procedure being not something I really needed, and that further requests for appeal might cause my insurance to be cancelled.
(Seeing as my insurance was through my employer, this seemed a hollow threat. But a threat it was nonetheless.)
Since I didn’t have anywhere near the finances to pay for the procedure myself, until I’d saved up enough money to at least pay half, I basically chalked up not getting it done to the stupidity of the health insurance system in this country.
And oh, how right I was.
On December 28th, 2022, I suffered an Ascending Aortic Arch dissection – an aneurysm in my aorta right where it leaves my heart burst, and the blood began pouring into the space between the two major walls of the artery.
I nearly died from this.
So, UHC ended up paying something like $1.6 million dollars for my healthcare coverage that year of 2023, and I’m not sure how much more in 2024, until I was let go from my employer. (Due to health reasons, not for lack of trying to do the work).
One of the first questions I asked my cardiologist when I saw him in April of 2023 was, “Would an echocardiogram have caught this ahead of time?”
“Absolutely.” He responded.
And with catching it BEFORE it burst, I could have had much more aggressive blood pressure medication started, plus blood thinners, and a planned, preventative surgery could have been scheduled and performed, with a much higher degree of survivability.
And, I might add, at a much lesser cost.
Instead, I had catastrophic, after the near-fatal event care, which was incredibly costly, and my chances of survival started at 20% and kept dropping until I was at 8%.
So, a 92% chance of dying. Because some asshole decided to checkmate my own physician’s decision to have a preventative procedure performed which would have saved my life, and kept my body from being as damaged as it now is.
So, yeah, it’s bad to have people being murdered for no other reason than they’re part of a evil, corrupt system that they personally profit from, and likely had no hand in the decision-making.
At the same time, I almost died. My life has been completely upended, and I’m not sure if I’ll ever recover sufficiently to work full-time again. (And I wasn’t planning on retiring for a very long time. I’m still not ready to retire; I’m too young to retire!)
From a financial standpoint, it was sheer bone-headed stupidity. I’m no math genius, but even I can tell you that shelling out $4,700 for a procedure, and however much for the preventative work afterwards, is significantly less than the $1.6 million UHC was on the hook for.
My Grandmother had a saying for this: “Being penny-wise and dollar-foolish.”
With both my frustration and chafing at being unable to do the things I used to do, to the heartbreak and pain my family and friends had to live through during the first several months of my recovery, I do find it hard to summon up much sympathy for one grossly-overpaid individual being murdered.
And in my ugly truth moment, the first thing I said when someone told me about this individual being murdered was, “So?” I mean, it’s not like it’s going to change anything. UHC is still going to be a shitty insurance company.
The ability to pay for and receive healthcare in this country lags behind every other Western, industrialized nation on the planet. And the biggest reason is insurance companies like United Healthcare.
And that is my United Healthcare story.