You made it that way and don’t pretend you didn’t. Blaming other for doing what you do isn’t any kind of excuse, shitheads.
Lots of lies in here, but some truth:
Witty said that Thompson was among the people working in the health care industry who “try to do their best for those they serve.”
We believe that. The problem is who he served. It wasn’t his policy holders, that’s for sure.
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”
Oh ok, does that mean you’re going to take that $22,000,000,000 you stole from your customers by denying their claims and actually take care of them like you were supposed to in the first fucking place then?
No?
Hmm…
“No employees — be they the people who answer customer calls or nurses who visit patients in their homes — should have to fear for their and their loved ones’ safety,” Witty wrote.
There’s something we can all agree on. Executive fear though…
They should be exactly as uncertain of their survival as the people that they’re deciding claims on.
No insurance customer should have to fear dying because their medically necessary procedures are denied. Of all the things wrong with Healthcare, prior authorization should be target number 1 for legislators. It should be 100% illegal for insurance companies to require pre-authorization.
If a doctor regularly prescribes unnecessary treatments or medication, let the proper ayluthorities investigate and pull their credentials, if necessary. Don’t kill thousands of people to save a buck and say it’s to protect them from unnecessary procedures.
They shouldn’t have to fear for their safety either, they should just do right by their customers and it wouldn’t be a problem.
Now ask him if his industry should even exist. His answer to that question is the only thing I care about.
The NYT op-ed is a fascinating read. Very much in the style US oligarchs. Pompous, but still trying to be folksy. Dishonest, but with an attempt to enable plausible deniability.
a brilliant, kind man who was working to make health care better for everyone.
If that was Thompson’s goal, he wouldn’t be working for a US health insurance company.
We understand and share the desire to build a health care system that works better for everyone. That is the purpose of our organization.
This is clearly false. This a for profit corporation.
I wonder what the goal of this piece is?
The goal is to try to present themselves as reasonable people, because nothing about what they do is reasonable and that’s why public opinion is so firmly against them.
The goal of this is to try and persuade the majority of people that he was reasonable. Right now, they’re scared as there are a lot of people talking about serious change. Social change.
Little, however, will come of it unless it coalesces and drags along the majority into opting out of the system.
Until he was arrested, Mangione was Neo in the Matrix. Now he’s be captured, the Agent Smiths of this world are cleaning up
And to shift blame
They have to make a statement, they’re attempting to not hide but also not enrage further. They, of course, because they can’t be honest nor fix the structural issue that is the cause of the problem in the first place, failed.
“It’s the system we have to work in, not us.”
Plausible deniability.
Their goal is to delay judgement on claims until people die, deny as many claims as legally possible so they can keep as much middleman money they didn’t earn as possible. That’s it.
From the article:
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.”
This is a complete lie
UHC. Leader in denials under Thompson
Thompson accused of insider trading
Record profits for UHC under Thompson. 20-25% of claims denied
they will never admit the truth; for-profit health insurance should not exist.
Are non-profit insurers really any better? Many of the blues are non-profits
not really. theyve started a race condition with providers causing prices to skyrocket.
but ya gotta start somewhere
To Witty: No shit Sherlock.
Well, obviously it was flawed. This kind and honest working class CEO didn’t get the healthcare he required while he was bleeding out like a kindergartener at nap time.
Don’t worry. United and all the other murderers are going to make sure they raise our premiums so they can afford a permanent trauma team to follow all the hard working execs around and ensure this tragedy never has to happen again.
And if some poors need to have even more basic human rights taken away to keep the investors happy? That is a risk we are all willing to take to protect those hard working execs.
“We understand and share the desire to build a health care system that works better for everyone. That is the purpose of our organization,” he wrote.
Liar, liar, pants on fire.
“Once we’ve finished draining the blood from the neck of the people we ensure their remaining time is as comfortable and wonderful as is possible. That is the purpose of our organization.”
“Once we’ve finished draining the blood from the neck of the people we ensure their remaining time is as comfortable and wonderful as is possible**. That is the purpose of our organization.”
**Without violating any end of life profitability constraints, of course.
PR working overtime here. You can’t serve shit soup and tell us you understand it’s flawed and it has potato in it. We’re not going to eat it. Universal healthcare for all please.
Universal healthcare for all
please.Or else
The healthcare system IS flawed.
They are the flaw.
Isn’t the second part of this meme supposed to be something that is not true?
Sort of. It’s mostly about shifting the blame.
Yeah, it would fit the meme format better if the second panel were revised: “No, it’s only the healthcare system that is flawed.”
Or even more accurate: “No it’s the people who complain about healthcare costs who are wrong!”
It’s both.
“We know the health system does not work as well as it should, and we understand people’s frustrations with it. No one would design a system like the one we have,” Witty wrote. “And no one did. It’s a patchwork built over decades.”
So it’s nobody’s fault. And nobody can fix it I guess. Oh well, guess we just take it then. Good to know nobody is responsible for a despicable system that kills when it should heal.
The thing that gets me is that it’s true. It’s a patchwork… of so many people taking more than they should and giving less than they should. If UHC tomorrow used every penny of the premiums they charge purely to cover healthcare, they still wouldn’t fix the problem. A fix would require change to the pharmacies, the drug companies, the medical equipment companies, the hospitals and hospital networks, and more levels of bullshit middlemen than I even know exist. No single person, be they President or CEO or billionaire, can fix it.
He is still an asshole though. He is just pointing to the problem and saying “Good people are trying to fix it.” Are they? Where’s the evidence? I would love to read an article that made me think, “Yes, the healthcare industry is making one small step in the right direction” but it hasn’t come up. If this dude wants me to sympathize with him or with Brian Thompson, he should say ONE THING that either of them has ever done to address the problems of the industry and make things genuinely better for everyone. My money is that he can’t.
