The apparent vigilante slaying of the CEO of the largest health insurance corporation in the United States may have opened a political Pandora’s box, the reverberating effects of which we’ve only begun to witness.
At the outset, I want to state in no uncertain terms — so that I can’t be accused of suggesting otherwise — that extrajudicial proceedings such as shooting an unarmed man in the back outside of his hotel are no way to run a civilized society, wherein a system of laws governs the activities of man. As such, I would never endorse such activity.
Related: SHOCK Statistic: 4.1% of Deaths in Canada Due to Government Euthanasia (MAID)
That said, it ought not to surprise anyone that a person might be indignant enough over the conduct of UnitedHealth (or any other health insurance giant) to snap and do what the suspect shooter, Luigi Mangione, allegedly did.
Indeed, the simple and undeniable fact is that the fiscal health of the entire “health insurance” industry is premised on gatekeeping their own clients’ ability to access medical care: the more claims they reject, the blacker their bottom lines get.
That they would do just that — reject as many claims as they legally can according to laws that they often essentially write themselves through Congressional members on the take — is to be expected, given the incentive structure. In fact, it could be argued that not continually innovating ways to deny medical care to their alleged “clients” would be fiduciary malpractice in that they have an obligation to maximize profits for their shareholders.
Incredibly, in the immediate aftermath of the assassination, just a day after Brian Thompson’s killing, UnitedHealth Group CEO Andrew Witty copped to the systematic denial of healthcare as an essential component of their business model.
Via Quartz (emphasis added):
UnitedHealth Group CEO Andrew Witty defended the company’s claim denial practices in a leaked video recorded after the fatal shooting of Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealth’s insurance subsidiary. The video has sparked another round of online backlash against the company regarding how it evaluates medical claims.
“We make sure that care is safe, appropriate, and is delivered when people need it and we guard against the pressures that exist for unsafe or unnecessary care to be delivered in a way that makes the whole system too complex and ultimately unsustainable,” Witty told employees in a video leaked to journalist Ken Klippenstein.
The video was recorded just one day after Thompson was fatally shot in New York City on the morning of Dec.4…
UnitedHealthcare’s denial rate for post-acute care — health care needed to transition people out of hospitals and back into their homes — for people with Medicare Advantage plans rose to 22.7% in 2022, from 10.9% in 2020.
But wait, there’s more!
That spike in rejected claims referenced above just happens to coincide with the company’s reported adoption of AI to evaluate them. In other words, the valued clients of UnitedHealth are no longer even granted the dignity of having their cancer treatments rejected by a human but rather by an unfeeling machine programmed to deny coverage.
Via Quartz (emphasis added):
The fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on Wednesday has sparked public scrutiny of health insurers, especially regarding their use of AI in evaluating claims. The incident also comes as several insurance providers have been facing litigation over their coverage practices and the potential impact they have on patient care...
In October, a report from the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations showed that the nation’s insurers have been using AI-powered tools to deny some claims from Medicare Advantage plan subscribers.
The report found that UnitedHealthcare’s denial rate for post-acute care — health care needed to transition people out of hospitals and back into their homes — for people with Medicare Advantage plans rose to 22.7% in 2022, from 10.9% in 2020.
The rise coincides with UnitedHealthcare’s implementation of an AI model called nH Predict, originally developed by naviHealth, a subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group that has since been rebranded.
The claim that the industry is burdened by a moral obligation to “guard against pressure that exist for unsafe or unnecessary care to be delivered” is, of course, ludicrous. Corporations are money-making machines; this is what they are built to achieve; any claim to the contrary is pure PR spin.
Related: Study: COVID-Vaxxed Kids SIX TIMES Likelier to Die Than Unvaxxed Peers
Up until five days ago, consider that Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield was full-steam ahead in a bid to place time caps on anesthesia treatments accompanying surgeries, the reversal coming likely only because public knowledge and subsequent outrage came on the backs of the much-publicized assassination of the Brian Thompson.
Maybe anesthesia that spans the full length of surgery is one of those “unnecessary care” cases the UnitedHealth Group CEO referenced.
Via CNN (emphasis added):
After sharp criticism from anesthesiologists, an insurance company is halting its plan to limit the amount of time it would cover anesthesia used in surgeries and procedures. Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield said on Thursday it would no longer move forward with the policy change…
Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield insurance representing Connecticut, New York and Missouri had previously said that, starting in February, it would deny any claims for anesthesia services that exceeded specific time limits set for surgeries and procedures.
Anthem had said the change was part of an effort to make health care more affordable by reducing overbilling for anesthesia.
After raising alarm about the proposed plan, one major professional group of anesthesiologists said on Friday it was “pleased that Anthem has reversed course on its deeply flawed policy proposal to no longer pay for anesthesia care if the surgery or procedure goes beyond an arbitrary, Anthem-set time limit, regardless of how long the surgical procedure actually takes.”
Lest we chalk this behavior up to the imperatives of the “free market,” consider what Obamacare did to mandate Americans to purchase health insurance plans or face tax penalties.
In a video I have shared before due to its remarkable content, Democrat bulldog Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz appeared on MSNBC with Dylan Ratigan to spike the football in 2009 after the passage of Obamacare.
Instead of the softball interview she likely anticipated, she got wrecked with facts, specifically that the industry, for all intents and purposes, wrote the damn bill that mandates Americans buy its shoddy products under penalty of law, resulting in an immediate surge in stock prices across the board.
I have only presented here an hors d'oeuvre of the sins of the health insurance industry — which, I would note, does not actually provide any hands-on services of any value whatsoever, healthcare-related or otherwise; you likely have your own stories of wrongfully denied claims and resulting financial hardship and unnecessary stress.We can, I would hope, condemn the slaughter of business executives in the streets of America while simultaneously recognizing that the healthcare insurance industry has well earned all of the contempt heaped upon it.
