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Assassination of United Healthcare CEO

It's amazing, really, the just naked, craven, and useless appeal to emotion this is.
No, it's a statement of fact. You are trying to pooh-pooh this murder away as a symbolic act, like a dummy of Thompson was burned in effigy. A real person was really shot in the back and killed on a real street, while on his way to explain to his investors that profits were down (read: paying out more).
The victims of his policies also had families.
42 pages in, and we are still waiting to hear about them. Handwaving that "everybody knows this" ain't ◊◊◊◊ for an argument.
It supports the general theme in the US that the lives of the rich, prominent, and powerful are worth more than us lesser scum.
Projection and mind-reading aren't your strong suits.
That it gets reversed 70% of the time should suffice as probable cause for felony fraud. That's the point.
No it's not. As pointed out ...repeatedly... most of the denials are for doctor misbilling, and get straightened out in the reconsideration process. You're starting to sound like you have a tin foil hat on.

And... yet again,,, you ducked the point. You claimed there was some incomprehensible legalese that no one could understand. I demonstrated that you were full of ◊◊◊◊ and the appeal form was so simple that a child could navigate it. Most denied people don't even lift a finger to pursue it. Of those that do, the misbilling and other problems are straightened out in the vast majority.
They are taking shots hoping that sick people won't be able to respond. Even that is ignoring the damage the delay can cause.
The doctor miscoding and missing filing deadlines is not the fault or responsibility of the insurer or the insured.
This wasn't a reasoned policy response. It was a representation of the impotent rage felt towards a machine that does things like deny 70% of legitimate claims. It was a one person riot, more or less.
They had a ◊◊◊◊◊◊ up program. When challenged, it corrected. Yes, that's a hassle for the insured, and yes, the courts are dealing with that now. Keep in mind that this all rests on the plaintiffs claim at this point. Are they usually purely objective, ya think?
Rising costs are a red herring. It's more the inefficiencies and crap outcomes. Spending money on healthcare is a good thing in and of itself. The mess created by injecting profit seeking into a service/good where market forces break down is too complicated to clearly analyze, but the difference between countries that do not have this problem and the US is not exactly hard to parse.

Luigi will very possibly upon closer examination turn out to be just a violent lunatic looking for a plausible target, but that's always going to be the first wave. It's an amazing testament to the general restraint of the American people that ceo assassinations aren't way more common than they are.
Agreed on the last part, both points.
 
Let me see if I understand:
  1. UHI covers the treatment.
  2. The patient receives the life-saving treatment.
  3. The doctor misfiles the insurance compensation claim.
  4. UHI denies the claim.
  5. The doctor contests the denial, corrects the errors in their filing.
  6. UHI pays out the claim to the doctor.
  7. "UHI denies claims, people are dying, murder is an understandable response to this state of affairs."
 
It's like when lawyers want appreciation for helping people navigate the insanely complex, self-serving, and inefficient system that the legal profession is responsible for creating and maintaining.

Via lobbying insurance companies have more say in healthcare policy than anyone else. They lobby legislatures to further their interests (profit). Which in the end is why the US system is the mess that it is. It isn't isolated to that industry though. This was inevitable. At some point there was going to be a Luigi and popular support of same.
This is an assumption that supports your chosen narrative, but it's not actually true. AMA, various medical associations, and NAIC all have larger lobbying power than insurance provider have. There's a ton of stuff that gets forced on insurance that benefits providers and harms policyholders and insurers.

For consideration... US Preventive Task Force takes guidance almost exclusively from medical lobbyist groups. Some of the things that insurers are required to provide as preventive to policyholders are very expensive and overall wasteful. Some of that is turning, but it's still crazy. For example, insurers are required by law to cover a preventive mammogram every year for females over a certain age. Mammograms run a couple of thousand in cost - but the policyholders pay $0 when they get the scan done. That cost doesn't evaporate though, it gets passed on to ALL policyholders in the form of higher premiums because the providers still demand to get paid - they're not required to do the work for free, or even to reduce their charges for them.

Don't misunderstand me - I'm all for early detection. But the reality is that if a female doesn't have a family history of breast cancer, and doesn't have other contributing risk factors, an annual mammogram is overkill. Once every three years is more than sufficient sufficient for the vast majority of females.

And it's not just that insurers are required to provide them "free" (not actually free) to insured individuals - insurers are also monitored for how many females in the age range actually get their mammograms, and if the metrics aren't met there are consequences for the insurer, like loss of accreditation status for URAC and HEDIS measures - things that are required for ACA and Medicare Advantage.
I can't realistically sue my health insurance company for incorrect, negligent, arbitrary, or even malicious denials of care. It is a nightmare of a process at best. Heck, given the nature of the legal system I have no recourse for any manner of corporate nonsense. Sure, in theory I may have causes of action but in reality most people don't have the time and resources to do this given that damages aren't often going to be worth the trouble and risk. "Tort Reform" has across the board prevented any sort of real reform that helps those injured make themselves whole. It has also removed tort as a real deterrent to wrongdoing.
You know, if you actually read any of your insurance materials you'd see that there are LOTS of ways you can address decisions that you think are incorrect. Every insurer is required to provide information on how to submit appeals and grievance objections with every denied claim, but it's also included in benefit books and your policy documentation, and should be available on your insurer's website. And those appeals and grievances aren't going into a black hole at the insurer - they get reported to the department of insurance, and in some cases to the federal government.

Beyond the initial appeal, there are several stages - and with each additional stage, the escalation compounds. It will include state regulators, outside medical opinions, legal review on behalf of the policyholder paid for by the insurer. Hell, you can complain directly to your state's insurance regulator without even going through a formal appeal process! You can complain to the national association of insurance commissioners! You can complain to CMS for ACA and Medicare related issues!

Not a single bit of that requires tort reform or lawsuits. The regulatory environment around health insurance is in place to protect policyholders.
Denial of sufficient remedy for harm is going to create a lashing out. Mostly this gets redirected in stupid ways like antisemitism or Trumpism rather than direct violence against the henchmen of capital.

In the end we make choices when we decide what to do for money. If a person has any other options to survive and works to hurt or make other people miserable for profit that person is morally responsible. Just because they are in a c-suite or further away from the consequences means nothing. That they themselves might be acting perfectly legally and within that role ethically means nothing if it supports and maintains this systematic harm.

This assassination brings that home in a way that makes a lot of people who wear suits, work in offices, and care a bit much about stock market reforms nervous, and rightly so.
Not "rightly so". It's anarchistic mafia-style intimidation. Supporting it is completely undemocratic and terroristic in nature.
 
egal obstructionism. Modern conservative jurisprudence on the whole is not as much about removing rights as making any effective remedy burdensome at best and useless at worst. That a letter went out with a bunch of legal pig latin on it allowing him to while sick or in pain use a bunch of time and energy to go through a formalistic layered process meant to exhaust him, well, that's still crap. The insurance company knows it can weaponize this knowing that the process costs less than just paying out.
BS. You're making assumptions to support your "eat the rich" narrative. Have you even bothered to look into what the process is and how hard it is to follow? No, you're just assuming it's in legal mumbo jumbo, completely obfuscated for policyholders, and full or red tape.

Here's a five second google search - this pulled up for Medicare Advantage, but the language and process is pretty much the same for every type of coverage - as it is required to be!


If UnitedHealthcare makes a coverage decision that you're not satisfied with, you can "appeal" the decision.



When you make an appeal, the Medicare Part D Appeals and Grievance Department reviews the coverage decision to check to see if all of the rules were properly followed. Your appeal is handled by different reviewers than those who made the original unfavorable decision.





When to appeal a coverage decision​



You have a limited amount of time to appeal a coverage decision. You'll need to submit your appeal:


  • within 65 days of the date the unfavorable determination was issued or
  • within 65 days from the date of the denial of reimbursement request
Note: This limit may be extended for good cause. Include in your written request the reason why you could not file within the regular timeframe.

How to appeal a coverage decision​

Appeal Level 1 – You can ask UnitedHealthcare to review an unfavorable coverage decision — even if only part of the decision is not what you requested. An appeal to the plan about a Medicare Part D drug is also called a plan "redetermination."



Information on how to file an Appeal Level 1 is included in the unfavorable coverage decision letter. If UnitedHealthcare doesn't make a decision within 7 calendar days, your appeal will automatically move to Appeal Level 2.



Appeal Level 2 – If UnitedHealthcare reviewed your appeal at Appeal Level 1 and didn't decide in your favor, you have the right to appeal to the Independent Review Entity (IRE).
Back to Top

How to file an appeal​

When you file an appeal, include any paperwork that may help UnitedHealthcare research your case. Also, make sure to provide your name, your member identification number, your date of birth, and the drug you need.

Mail or Fax​

Write a letter describing your appeal or use the Redetermination Request Form (PDF) (67.62 KB). Mail or fax the letter or completed form to UnitedHealthcare.



Mail: Medicare Part D Appeals and Grievances Department
PO Box 6106, M/S CA 124-0197
Cypress, CA 90630



Fax: 1-866-308-6296

Email​

Write a letter describing your appeal through secure email to UnitedHealthcare.

Online​

Use the online submission form to submit your appeal request.




Call (expedited)​

If you need an expedited (fast) appeal, call UnitedHealthcare.


Ooooh, that's so complicated, nobody could possibly make any sense of it at all!!!!!!1
 
When an insurance company decides to overrule a doctor by denying treatment coverage it should be considered an extraordinary event taken with extreme caution and massive penalties for negligence much less bad faith. If there is excessive care by a or multiple doctors that should be addressed with the medical licensing board on a policy level and not by placing a bureaucratic burden on the person seeking treatment.
So your take is that insurers should be obligated to pay for 1) services not covered by the contract and 2) excessive and inappropriate treatments regardless of how much those treatments cost, and regardless of how much it would increase premiums for everyone... because a doctor said so?

Do you also think your auto insurer should be required to replace your tires when the tread gets low, even though it's not covered by your insurance policy, and even though there's still actually enough tread depth to make it another year... because your mechanic said you should do it?
 
an inevitability every time in history when wealth inequality becomes too great.
Have you.. like... looked at history? Wealth inequality has been the standard pretty much since we developed agriculture. And it's only been mildly challenged in extremely recent history. I mean, I suppose if your definition of "history" starts when Marx was actively publishing your view makes sense...
 
I think you don't know history.

Revolts by peasants who lost their land due to debt were a common thing since ancient Mesopotamia, everywhere where there wasn't a regular debt amnesty (that's why that's in the Bible).
China's history and many of it's rulers came to power from such uprisings.
European's history is full of peasant revolts.
And of course there is the tiny thing called the French Revolution without which there would have been no US.

The reason why inequality has gotten so bad is because, unusually, no major war has devastated the rich countries in a long time, the traditional way to reduce inequality.

The billionaire class is sitting on a powder keg, and they know it, hence their pathetic hobby of building end -of-the-world shelters for themselves and hiring private security in bulk.
 
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Have you.. like... looked at history? Wealth inequality has been the standard pretty much since we developed agriculture. And it's only been mildly challenged in extremely recent history. I mean, I suppose if your definition of "history" starts when Marx was actively publishing your view makes sense...
"too"
 
The billionaire class is sitting on a powder keg, and they know it, hence their pathetic hobby of building end -of-the-world shelters for themselves and hiring private security in bulk.
And then the billionaires suddenly learn that when they're surrounded by armed muscle it's the armed muscle who are actually in charge. More than a few emperors and monarchs learned that too late with their guards.
 
If only United Healthcare would have used some of that money on Cybersecurity instead of lavish CEO pay:
“Change Healthcare has determined the estimated total number of individuals impacted by the Change Healthcare cyberattack is approximately 190 million,” said Tyler Mason, a spokesperson for UnitedHealth Group. Source

Seriously sounds like a terribly run company all around. More focused on profit than anything else, which I suppose is the American way! Although, most don't suffer ransomware attacks resulting in millions in payouts. Some, but not many:
In this context, it is worth saying that the company paid the ransom demand to the attackers....However, when an affiliate struck Change Healthcare, and managed to extort it for $22 million, things changed. Instead of sharing the spoils, ALPHV’s operators took it all and disappeared from the face of the earth. The affiliate, which was left holding gigabytes of sensitive data, later rebranded to RansomHub, and became one of the greater threats.

They demanded a second payment, but it is unclear if that ever happened. RansomHub did remove Change Healthcare’s entry from its data leak site, suggesting that the victim firm may have paid it.

I've never been more happy to not be a customer than I am now. I'm sure it was just that they were more focused on paying out 90% to keep their clients and customers well taken care of than they were focused on protecting their personal information. Gotta put those customers first!
 
I think you don't know history.

Revolts by peasants who lost their land due to debt were a common thing since ancient Mesopotamia, everywhere where there wasn't a regular debt amnesty (that's why that's in the Bible).
China's history and many of it's rulers came to power from such uprisings.
European's history is full of peasant revolts.
And of course there is the tiny thing called the French Revolution without which there would have been no US.

The reason why inequality has gotten so bad is because, unusually, no major war has devastated the rich countries in a long time, the traditional way to reduce inequality.

The billionaire class is sitting on a powder keg, and they know it, hence their pathetic hobby of building end -of-the-world shelters for themselves and hiring private security in bulk.
Which of those half a dozen or so revolts has actually resulted in anything even remotely like wealth equality?

None of them. They all just swap out who gets the unequal wealth, they don't equalize it at all.
 
Most of them.
Reducing wealth inequality is as easy as destroying what the rich have,if they won't share.

Debt amnesty is something very common and regular in history, another big way to reverse wealth transfer to the Rich.
 
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So... you think that France has wealth equality? China?
obvious strawman.

I didn't say Wealth Equality, I said less Wealth Inequality.
And there are 3 ways to do it,, all done frequently all throughout human history, everywhere in the world:
- debt cancellation (by the State or by burning tax/bank/property records): used to be done every 7 years or, at the latest, when a new Ruler is crowned: it's what is written of in the Bible and on the Rosetta Stone
- looting (by the State, Armies or rioters): done all throughout history wherever anyone got too much wealth;
- destruction in war (incredibly regular in history)


the point is that the long, continuous accumulation of wealth in the West, especially the US, is unprecedented in world history, where wealth would be automatically siphoned off the top to pay for wars or be destroyed in one. Wars, Peasant revolts, as well as the war against the Catholic Church in Europe to take the wealth of the Monasteries, as well as taking the money from (Jewish) Bankers to is the NORM.
We have been guarding private wealth too well for too long, and the result is the highest private wealth inequality in history - and you have to be living under a rock to think it is sustainable.

do you think that we just have to accept that a handful of people have more assets than 2/3rd of the poorer of the world combined?
 
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Another great music video from Dusty Smith:
Well, we did somethin’ big, y’all, ain’t you proud?
The Gulf of Mexico? Yeah, it’s ours now.
Forget the bills you can’t afford to pay,
We’ll rename some water and call it a day!

[Chorus]Oh, at least we did this, ain’t it grand?
Slappin’ new names on stolen land.
No healthcare, no raises, but what a twist
We fixed nothin’ else, but at least we did this!
 
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So I guess you agree that you misrepresented my posts?

Ask an honest question, and you will get an honest answer.

I guess you won't answer my honest question: do you believe that extreme wealth inequality is something we just have to accept?
 
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So I guess you agree that you misrepresented my posts?

Ask an honest question, and you will get an honest answer.

I guess you won't answer my honest question: do you believe that extreme wealth inequality is something we just have to accept?
I think that some degree of wealth inequality is necessary; without at least some people having so much money that the marginal value is negligible, we won't have people willing to invest in very risky new endeavors - and then we don't have innovation. Historically, the greatest advances in technology and science occur when very wealthy patrons gain an interest in a new idea and are willing to pay a whole lot of money to try out an idea. Sometimes those patrons are governments... but when that happens, the investments are almost always in innovations that have military applications. Private patrons throughout the renaissance and reformation were almost entirely responsible for major technological and scientific advances. In modern times, those patrons tend to be tied to corporate ventures. That doesn't guarantee that the innovations are going to be noble or beneficial, of course... but the innovations can't occur without wealth inequality.

Whether anyone personally likes Elon Musk or not is irrelevant to the fact that electric vehicle and battery tech, as well as space technology, have benefits immensely from Musk having a metric ◊◊◊◊ ton of money, and being willing to lose money in order to move those fields forward. Musk isn't coming up with the ideas all by themself, they're funding the people who do. SpaceX is next-level stuff, and it's leapfrogged well past what NASA and government funded endeavors have been able to do over the last several decades. Musk doesn't need to be an aerospace engineer - but they do have to have an *interest* in space travel, and a *willingness* to see a hundred million dollar rocket explode in order to learn what not to do and make it better.

As to what constitutes extreme wealth inequality... that's going to be a personal threshold. You may not want any inequality at all, and that's fine. Maybe you don't want any billionaires, because you think that's too much money for any one person to have. I don't care what your personal line in the sand is. For me... as long as those billionaires are acting as patrons for innovation and advancement, I don't care how much they have. Musk, Gates, Jobs have all made massively significant contributions to our technology and knowledge. The Waltons, not so much.
 
It's always extreme wealth inequality if one person has some money that it won't affect their standard of living at all it they lost some and others don't have enough to live.
In any community in which Private Property is not put above the survival of people would have long ago expropriated Muak.
But then, we all are just horrible people.

I would argue that at wealth inequality beyond 3 orders of magnitude is immoral, and any wealth inequality while people are starving is obviously immoral.

No actual Christian could defend the wealth of a Musk or Trump.
 
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I would argue that at wealth inequality beyond 3 orders of magnitude is immoral, and any wealth inequality while people are starving is obviously immoral.
When are you planning to send every penny of your Ethiopia? Or are you excluding yourself from your own rules, because you have decided that 'those people way over there' don't matter?

I quite sure that your own personal wealth is well beyond three orders of magnitude higher than that of the average person in Bolivia.
 
When are you planning to send every penny of your Ethiopia? Or are you excluding yourself from your own rules, because you have decided that 'those people way over there' don't matter?

I quite sure that your own personal wealth is well beyond three orders of magnitude higher than that of the average person in Bolivia.
So?
I pay more taxes and donate more than Musk, percentage wise of wealth, by orders of magnitude.
And I would be happy to donate most of my wealth if I happen to be still more wealthy by a factor of 1,000 after everyone richer than me has had their wealth distributed. In my community, I would be more likely to receive money than have to donate it.
Gates is the 3rd largest contributor to the WHO (now 2nd, after Germany, since the US has quit), and it doesn't hurt his wealth in the least. So it's not hard to do something other than just exploit everyone to get more than you could every need.

Simple question: is there, in your mind, any amount of wealth that should not be tolerated? Musk is projected to be a trillionaire within the next decade.
When is it okay to loot the grain silo of the profiteer because people are starving?
 
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Simple question: is there, in your mind, any amount of wealth that should not be tolerated?
My threshold isn't based on amount.

If the individual gathering wealth has obtained that wealth by directly harming others or by actual theft, then there's a problem that should be addressed. If they've gathered their wealth by other people voluntarily giving it to them in exchange for something those customers want... I don't give a crap how much they have. If they do useful things with their wealth, I'm happy for them to be wealthy.
 
Introducing...more illegal activity at UHC! The gift that keeps on giving.

In an investigation that took four years to build, North Carolina Insurance Commissioner Mike Causey fined the healthcare provider $3.4 million Friday claiming the company incorrectly handled balance billing.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

In this case, Commissioner Causey said in his investigation he found multiple instances where UnitedHealthcare of NC did not follow its own procedures to negotiate with non-contracted facilities and providers for anesthesia services and emergency room services — footing members with the leftover balance. Source

This is quite possibly the most ineptly run business I have seen in a long time. Cybersecurity nightmares, ripping its patients off, deny first policy, but hey! They're totally paying out 90% of every penny they bring in. We can trust that because they told us that's the truth and, as has been shown multiple times in this thread, they can be trusted! They only break the law....sometimes.
 
At least in New York, the healthcare system is rather absurd and absolutely maddening to navigate.

Here's one example that illustrates this and shows why the public might be frustrated with it.

I used to know a woman. Let's call her Annie. She was obese and diagnosed with slight curvature of the spine and hunched shoulders. She went to a physician who recommended physical therapy for her back.

Annie later- let's say a few weeks later- felt crippling pain in her knees. She went to a 2nd doctor, who diagnosed her with arthritis. This was due to her obesity. The 2nd doctor recommended treatment and wrote a prescription for it. The insurance company was obligated to pay for at least 20 sessions a year (they later extended it to 40.)

So case closed, right? Annie got treatment, right?

Wrong! The insurance company denied her arthritis treatments on the basis of "But you are already in treatment for your back!"

So, they cancelled the back treatments and replaced them with arthritis treatments? Nope. Cause healthcare is like a rollercoaster. Once the back treatments are already in motion, they can't be stopped. You have to "ride them out" before beginning a new thing.

But surely the prescription for the back stuff could be somehow merged with the prescription for arthritis treatments? Nope, cause they didn't stem from the same doctor. Two different doctors had diagnosed two different problems....and that is somehow held against you.

But surely this wasn't even about corporate greed. The insurance company wouldn't be even saving money by denying Annie knee treatments cause they'd be obligated to pay for 20 sessions anyway, regardless if they were back treatments or knee treatments? Yeah, that's how a normal person thinks. These people aren't normal and won't listen to sense.

So Annie would hobble into physical therapy, walking like a cripple, and beg the therapist to do something, anything, for her legs- and the woman would coldly say "I can't even lay a finger on them. I am not allowed to. " and give her useless back rubs.

And that's healthcare in New York for you.
 
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