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Health Insurance

CEO Shooting Exposes Injustices That Get Too Little Attention

February 27, 2025 Peter Greenhill, Popular Resistance. , , ,
“In a fairer world, Brian Thompson wouldn’t have been murdered. He would already have been put behind bars,” writes foreign policy analyst Sunjeev Bery.  And Bery is right.  Others have made this point over the last few years, that companies like UnitedHealth are deep cesspools of irredeemable, psychopathic corruption, which in UnitedHealth’s specific case prevents doctors from relieving suffering and saving lives.  The shooting of Thompson, their CEO, calls attention to many serious flaws in our society besides the corruption of the profit-obsessed health insurance industry, but let’s focus on just two.

US Health Insurance System Is Failing, Say Doctors

January 27, 2025 Michael Sainato, The Guardian. , , , ,
American doctors are accusing US health insurance giants of causing deadly delays to vital medical procedures and care – and putting profits ahead of their patients’ health. Firms including United Healthcare have denied basic scans, and taken months to reconsider, according to physicians who spoke to the Guardian. “There’s good evidence that these kinds of delays literally kill people,” said Dr Ed Weisbart, former chief medical officer for Express Scripts, one of the largest prescription benefits managers in the US. “For some people, this isn’t just an inconvenience and an annoyance and an aggravation.

Doctor And Patients Protest UnitedHealth’s Record Earnings

January 23, 2025 Chris Mills Rodrigo, Inequality.org. , , , ,
America’s largest health care company, the UnitedHealth Group, pulled in over $100 billion in revenue in just the fourth quarter of 2024 alone. For the full year, the giant’s insurance division, UnitedHealthcare, reported record revenue of $298.2 billion, the company announced last Thursday. These staggering revenue totals actually fell below investor expectations. UnitedHealth Group shares, right after the announcement, slipped 6 percent on the New York Stock Exchange. Meanwhile, just outside that capitalist bastion, victims of our for-profit healthcare system — doctors and patients alike — were braving freezing temperatures to call out the suffering that engineered UnitedHealth’s exorbitant earnings.

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

January 7, 2025 Jay Feinman, Scheer Post. , , ,
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. , , ,
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. , , , , , ,
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. , , , , ,
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. , , , , , , , , , ,
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. , , ,
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. , , ,
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. , , , , ,
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. , , ,
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. , , ,
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. , , ,
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. , , ,
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.
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