Health Insurance

‘Delay, Deny, Defend’ Author: Americans’ Rage At Insurers

January 7, 2025 Jay Feinman, Scheer Post. Educate! Capitalism, Health Care, Health Insurance, Luigi Mangione

My book “Delay, Deny, Defend: Why Insurance Companies Don’t Pay Claims and What You Can Do About It” was thrust into the spotlight recently, after UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was shot and killed in what authorities say was a targeted attack outside the company’s annual investors conference. Investigators at the scene found bullet casings inscribed with the words “delay,” “deny” and “depose.” The unsettling echo of the book’s title struck me and many others. That killing – and the torrent of online outrage that followed – put Americans’ unhappiness with health insurers at the front of the national conversation.

America’s Health Insurance Grinches

December 29, 2024 Lynn Parramore, Institute for New Economic Thinking. Educate! Greed, Health Care, Health Insurance, Profiteers

In the past two weeks, one thing has become crystal clear in America: the public outrage after the assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson exposed a seething fury over the health insurance racket. No amount of media finger-wagging at public perversity or partisan attempts to frame Luigi Mangione’s act as a statement from the left or right can hide the reality: the people, from all sides, are livid about the healthcare system—and with good reason. In the 21st century, Americans have expressed their view that healthcare is deteriorating, not advancing.

NYT Panics Over Outrage At Insurance Companies

December 18, 2024 Ari Paul, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. Educate! Brian Thompson, Health Care, Health Insurance, Luigi Mangione, New York Times (NYT), UnitedHealthcare, universal healthcare

In the wake of the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson and the arrest of alleged shooter Luigi Mangione, I wrote (FAIR.org, 12/11/24) about how Murdoch outlets like the Wall Street Journal and New York Post, as well as Jeff Bezos’ Washington Post editorial board, not only decried the widespread support for Mangione but fought back against legitimate criticism of the health insurance industry. Now the New York Times is in full-scale panic mode over the widespread boiling anger against the health insurance industry the killing has laid bare.

Behind UnitedHealthcare’s CEO Is A Larger System Of Corporate Rule

December 13, 2024 Derek Seidman, Truthout. Educate!, Strategize! Corporatism, health, Health Insurance, Profiteers, United Healthcare

The killing of UnitedHealthcare’s Brian Thompson — a brazen assassination of a wealthy CEO in the streets of midtown Manhattan — shocked the United States. But the tsunami of mass anger unleashed against a hated for-profit health care system has so far defined the story in the news. The killing sparked a deluge of personal testimonies of horrifying experiences with health insurance corporations. Dark humor around the shooting continues to flood social media. Millions of people in the U.S. viscerally hate health insurance corporations, and see these companies and their CEOs as symbols of the worst kind of corporate greed.

US Healthcare Corporations Reap Profit From Human Misery

December 12, 2024 Natalia Marques, People's Dispatch. Educate! Assassination, Brian Thompson, Class Struggle, Corporate America, Corporate greed, health, Health Care, Health Insurance, Luigi Mangione, Medicare for all, United States

The assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on December 4 has sparked a reaction that few may have suspected. The perpetrator has received an outpouring of popular support, and a profound debate on the brutality of the US for-profit healthcare system has been sparked, with many accusing healthcare corporations of reaping their profits directly from human misery. Thompson was shot and killed while heading to an investors meeting in Midtown Manhattan on December 4. Police have arrested 26-year-old Luigi Mangione in connection with the crime, who quickly has become a working class hero in the eyes of many in the US public, especially after his alleged manifesto revealed that he was motivated by outrage towards healthcare corporations.

How Health Insurance Became A Boon For Business

December 9, 2024 Juan Cruz Ferre, Left Voice. Educate! Class Struggle, Health Care, Health Insurance, Profiteers

UnitedHealth CEO Brian Thompson was killed in a targeted shooting outside a Hilton hotel in Midtown Manhattan on December 4, 2024, when he was about to speak at an investor conference. While mourning and preoccupation spread among economic and political elites, a mix of celebration and snark dominated social media commentary. There has been an outpouring of empathy for the perpetrator, shirts with the murder scene printed on it, and even a UnitedHealth CEO shooter look-alike contest in Washington Square Park.

The ‘Silent Violence’ Of Corporate Greed And Power

December 7, 2024 Ralph Nader. Educate! Class Struggle, Corporate greed, Health Care, Health Insurance

For decades consumer groups have been sounding clarion calls for action against the “silent violence” causing massive casualties that arise from the unbridled power of corporate greed, criminal negligence or indifference. They cite statistical and case studies that the media and lawmakers mostly ignored or relegated to low levels of enforcement. Corporate bosses just have their corporate lawyers and public relations hacks brush away such warnings and pleas. One day stories they knew would not have legs if they just kept quiet or mumbled some general words of regret, promising some vague improvements to their products and services.

UnitedHealth’s Playbook For Limiting Coverage Puts Countless People At Risk

November 20, 2024 Annie Waldman, ProPublica. Educate! Denials, health, Health Insurance, Insurance, mental health, UnitedHealthcare

For years, it was a mystery: Seemingly out of the blue, therapists would feel like they’d tripped some invisible wire and become a target of UnitedHealth Group. A company representative with the Orwellian title “care advocate” would call and grill them about why they’d seen a patient twice a week or weekly for six months. In case after case, United would refuse to cover care, leaving patients to pay out-of-pocket or go without it. The severity of their issues seemed not to matter. Around 2016, government officials began to pry open United’s black box.

In Vermont, Where Almost Everyone Has Insurance, Many Can’t Get Care

November 8, 2024 Phil Galewitz, MedPage Today. Educate! Health Care, Health Insurance, Profiteers, Vermont

On a warm autumn morning, Roger Brown walked through a grove of towering trees whose sap fuels his maple syrup business. He was checking for damage after recent flooding. But these days, his workers' health worries him more than his trees'. The cost of Slopeside Syrup's employee health insurance premiums spiked 24% this year. Next year it will rise 14%. The jumps mean less money to pay workers, and expensive insurance coverage that doesn't ensure employees can get care, Brown said. "Vermont is seen as the most progressive state, so how is healthcare here so screwed up?"

Inside The Company Helping America’s Biggest Health Insurers Deny Coverage

October 24, 2024 T. Christian Miller, Patrick Rucker and David Armstrong, ProPublica. Educate! health, Health Care, Health Insurance, Profiteers

Every day, patients across America crack open envelopes with bad news. Yet another health insurer has decided not to pay for a treatment that their doctor has recommended. Sometimes it’s a no for an MRI for a high school wrestler with a strained back. Sometimes for a cancer procedure that will help a grandmother with a throat tumor. Sometimes for a heart scan for a truck driver feeling short of breath. But the insurance companies don’t always make these decisions. Instead, they often outsource medical reviews to a largely hidden industry that makes money by turning down doctors’ requests for payments, known as prior authorizations. Call it the denials for dollars business.

Health Insurance Claim Denied?

May 13, 2023 Maya Miller, Pro Publica. Resist! Appeals, Denials, Health Care, Health Insurance

When a health insurance company is deciding whether to pay for your medical treatment, the company generates a file around your claim. All the records associated with your case should be part of your file. This includes documents explaining the reasons your claim was denied. You have a right to see this file. Federal regulations require most health insurance plans to give people an opportunity to review documents related to their claim for free. So if your insurer talks to your doctor, if a nurse takes notes, or if two people speak about it on the phone, all of those records should be available to you.

How Cigna Saves Millions By Rejecting Claims Without Reading Them

March 25, 2023 Patrick Rucker, Maya Miller and David Armstrong, ProPublica. Educate! Cigna, Health Care, Health Insurance, Maryland

When a stubborn pain in Nick van Terheyden’s bones would not subside, his doctor had a hunch what was wrong. Without enough vitamin D in the blood, the body will pull that vital nutrient from the bones. Left untreated, a vitamin D deficiency can lead to osteoporosis. A blood test in the fall of 2021 confirmed the doctor’s diagnosis, and van Terheyden expected his company’s insurance plan, managed by Cigna, to cover the cost of the bloodwork. Instead, Cigna sent van Terheyden a letter explaining that it would not pay for the $350 test because it was not “medically necessary.” The letter was signed by one of Cigna’s medical directors, a doctor employed by the company to review insurance claims.

Report Shows Big Insurance Profiting Massively From Medicare Privatization

February 28, 2023 Jake Johnson, Common Dreams. Educate! Health Care, Health Insurance, Medicaid, Medicare

A new analysis released Monday shows that insurance giants are benefiting hugely from the accelerating privatization of Medicare and Medicaid, which for-profit companies have infiltrated via government programs such as Medicare Advantage. According to the report from Wendell Potter, a former insurance executive who now advocates for systemic healthcare reform, government programs are now the source of roughly 90% of the health plan revenues of Humana, Centene, and Molina. Over the past decade, Potter found, the seven top for-profit insurance companies in the U.S.—the three mentioned above plus UnitedHealth, Cigna, CVS/Aetna, and Elevance—have seen their combined revenues from taxpayer-backed programs soar by 500%, reaching $577 billion in 2022 compared to $116.3 billion in 2012.

Universal Health Care Could Have Saved US Lives During COVID

June 14, 2022 Rachel Nuwer, Scientific American. Educate! COVID-19, Deaths, Health Insurance, universal healthcare

Americans spend more on health care than people in any other nation. Yet in any given year, the piecemeal nature of the American medical insurance system causes many preventable deaths and unnecessary costs. Not surprisingly, COVID-19 only exacerbated this already dire public health issue, as evidenced by the U.S.’s elevated mortality, compared with that of other high-income countries. A new study quantifies the severity of the impact of the pandemic on Americans who did not have access to health insurance. According to findings published on Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, from the pandemic’s beginning until mid-March 2022, universal health care could have saved more than 338,000 lives from COVID-19 alone.

High-Deductible Health Plans Make Income Inequality Worse

May 9, 2022 Mark Kreidler, Capital and Main. Educate! Class Struggle, Finance and the Economy, Health Care, Health Insurance

Anyone holding a high-deductible health plan understands the dynamic: When it costs more for people to access health care, they’re going to think twice before using it. It’s a system designed to hold down costs by discouraging service. But there’s something even more insidious about such plans. For lower income California families already living paycheck to paycheck, a single medical need can sink them deeper into financial peril. This type of health care keeps poor people poor. That is precisely what worries Malissa Sanchez, whose employer in Los Angeles essentially forced a high deductible health plan (HDHP) on her in April when it eliminated a direct-payment system that previously allowed her to buy her own coverage. “The new plan just isn’t as good,” said Sanchez, 30.

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