UnitedHealth Group leader breaks silence on CEO murder, says health care system is flawed
UnitedHealth Group leader breaks silence on CEO murder, says health care system is flawed
Andrew Witty, the CEO of UnitedHealth Group, memorialized slain executive Brian Thompson in an op-ed and acknowledged industry flaws.
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This is so much bullshit:
Witty added that Thompson was "never content with the status quo" and praised the CEO for advocating for ideas that "were aimed at making health care more affordable, more transparent, more intuitive, more compassionate — and more human."
Yeah, fucking sure. Here's what happened under his watch:
- Emergency Room Visit Denials: In 2021, the company planned to deny insurance payments for non-critical visits to hospital emergency rooms, a move criticized by the American Hospital Association for potentially deterring patients from seeking necessary emergency care.
- Automated Claim Denials: The company began utilizing artificial intelligence to automate claim denials, raising concerns about the fairness and accuracy of such automated processes in evaluating individual patient claims.
- Insider Trading Allegations: Thompson faced allegations of insider trading, with reports indicating he sold a significant portion of his shares shortly before a Department of Justice antitrust investigation into UnitedHealth Group became public, leading to a drop in the company's stock price.
This is just lip service by the new boss. They could drop their rates, have more transparent claims process or any one of a hundred moves that THEY could initiate and would not require new legislation. Guess what, since that gets in the way of profit, they won't bother. People are already getting bored of this news cycle. In another week everyone will be talking about something else and UHC will still be raking in profits taken from the wallets of cancer patients.
Actions speak louder than words and I don't see any actions here!
Yeah, the profit motive makes it literally impossible to improve. Human nature is trash. The only hope we have is to form institutions. But in the United States anyhow, that's not in style. What is in style? "Fuck you, I got mine"
How is it human nature when it's literally the system that is the problem? This is not about individuals, but about systems, specifically the profit motive
Competition for the most profit under capitalism is literally the driving factor for all of this. If you don't do it, someone else will take your place and do it instead
You're missing the point entirely. Which was that the current system is just letting the worst of human nature run wild
(Not who responded to you, but) I agree with you when you put it as “the worst of human nature.” I take issue with the idea that all of human nature is trash.
The systems we live in absolutely bring out the worst in people because it drives desperation. Desperate people will do what they must no matter how they hurt people, and the whole “hurt people hurt people” then runs rampant.
But human nature also contains the helpers, community, love, and so much more. We need systems that encourage those things, not to write off all our problems as just how we are.
Yeah I am with you actually. I should've written "can be trash" really. there's a lot of good in people but the worst people tend to seize power unfortunately. Hence the shitty systems that make even good people into worse people
Emergency Room Visit Denials
Wait, do American hospitals charge people for visiting patients in the ER? Or is this about reimbursements for transport and parking?
Assuming you're not being sarcastic, "visit" in this context is talking about the patient themselves going to and using the ER, not a bystander visiting a patient who is already there.
Ah, that makes more sense. I misread. With all of the horror stories I hear about American health care, it seemed farfetched, but not entirely out of the realm of possibility.
You've probably given them a new revenue stream idea.
They do, often at elevated rates. A simple visit and x-ray, perhaps to check on an ankle after a serious mis-step, can easily hit several thousand dollars in charges beyond any transport costs.
So according to their plan, patients are expected to know whether their chest pain is actually a heart attack before they go to the ER, and if they guess wrong, they're bankrupt?