United Healthcare CEO shot to death in front of NYC investor meeting

[californiagrown]

Even if it ends up true that argument still doesn't justify extrajudicial murder because it relies on a belief, not facts. And you should read my post #881 above (or at least the last paragraph). Denying claims is not the primary way insurance companies generate revenue. Insurance companies have more devious ways to rip you off.

Im not justifying vigilante murder. But i am pointing out that it defies logic to say that Brian Thompson was a great guy who never did anything shitty during his career. That was the entire intent of my posts.

[bennymac]

90% of Canadians live within 150 miles of the US border. And they can cross the border and pay cash for that hernia surgery to have it done immediately if they want - typical price will be around $5000 usd.

The Shouldice hospital in Canada only does hernia surgeries, does 7000 of them a year, and is no charge (except to travel there) unless you want a semi private room - then it’s $500 usd for 3 nights including meals and medications. Wait time is 2 months to get it booked.

You can get a private pay knee MRI in Canada tomorrow at the cost of $600 usd.

To be clear none of those facts excuse the barriers and inefficiencies that exist in Canada’s health care system - but the picture of patients in Canada being completely held hostage by wait times for treatment is more complicated than how people with a binary view of US vs Canada systems want it to seem - especially people who only get their opinions from echo chambers, some guy I know, and news articles.

[MultiVerse]

The main thing to recognize is a lot of foreign health care systems once held up as exemplars haven't performed nearly as well over the past decade. Back in the 2000s when Obamacare was being debated it made more sense to argue single payer health care systems worked better than the American model. Now that isn't necessarily the case. Just look at how wait times (measured in weeks) changed over time in Canada:



That doesn't mean we can't learn from other health care systems. But it's important to acknowledge single payer systems are working far less well than they used to

[bennymac]

It doesn’t matter what first world system you look at - fact is healthcare/medicine is night and day more complicated in 2024 than it was 30 years ago. Comparison can be made to how powerful an IBM desktop was in 1993 to your 2024 iPhone.

More people get diagnosed, more treatments available, those treatments are both more expensive and more time consuming to deliver, people are living longer, people/families are demanding more care during end of life etc etc etc.

This all happened while both the US and Canada decided - *in the 1990s* - that there were too many doctors and that medical school admissions needed to be drastically cut back. And they did that. Hard to imagine how they came to that conclusion.

The resulting shortage of doctors in the first 2 decades of this century is in part the ripple effect of that decision - and it happened while, as I described above, the practice of medicine got significantly more complex. Perfect storm. Or should I say perfect shitstorm.

[evdog]

I'm part of a cross-border family. Per relatives, re: hernia surgery
- One year wait in Canada, but free.
- USA "how's Wednesday?" IIRC, the bill was just shy of 10 grand.

I've had an ACL repair done when I lived in Vancouver and here in San Diego.

In Vancouver I had to see a family doctor to get a referral to an ortho surgeon. The one he wanted me to see turned out to be the Canucks team doctor, and there was an 11 month wait for earliest appt. Once I got in to see him and ACL tear was confirmed I had my choice of surgery dates, the earliest available being a couple weeks out. I never got an MRI. The surgeon just manipulated my knee and could tell the ACL was torn based on which directions he could bend/twist and which he couldn't. Surgery was no cost under Canada Health Act. What the act doesn't cover is hard goods like crutches. I had to pay $25 for those. And maybe $6 copay for percocet. One of my options was no surgery and get a $1000 brace that would give me 50% stability. The cost of the brace would not be covered. I also got had a couple months of physical therapy covered.

Should also mention when I originally tore it I went to the ER. There was no swelling, so they took an xray which of course didn't show anything. So they sent me home with a painkiller prescription and said go see a doctor if it isn't better in six weeks.


In San Diego there was no need for a referral, and I never went to ER or urgent care. I just called up a surgeon's office and made an appointment. He did the same sort of exam as the other surgeon. But insurance wouldn't improve surgery without an MRI to prove the ACL was torn. He wouldn't do surgery until the swelling had gone down so I had to wait a few weeks. Surgery was about 5 weeks after the tear. I got every bill in the mail from every provider. Total out of pocket was $4k. Insurance paid around $12-13k. Original amount of all the bills was over $60k. I had to fight it out with a few providers who screwed up billings and overbilled me out of pocket for costs before I'd hit the deductible. And the insurance company tried to deny part of the surgery bill that they claimed was not approved.

It was a lot of work to deal with and keep track of all the billings. Not sure how someone like a cancer patient or someone with a major injury with long recovery would be able to deal with it.


I had a couple other surgeries in BC. One for a broken wrist and one for a broken hand. I can confirm when you need surgery asap, you get it. Hand was next day, while wrist was a few days later. On the other hand my mom had both knees replaced a few years ago. She waited close to two years for the first one and another year (to allow for recovery time) for the second. I would probably have to wait longer for ACL surgery today. Is it worth dealing with wait time to not have to go out of pocket or deal with medical bills shuffled between providers and insurance companies who don't give a shit about you?

[MultiVerse]

Anecdotes are always fraught, but for what it's worth here's a knee replacement horror story: Woman waits 6 years for knee replacement. Gets surgery but has complication. Has to wait 8 days for follow-up procedure because there are no beds. Because of delay, she now needs amputation:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manit...tion-1.7411886

It doesn’t matter what first world system you look at - fact is healthcare/medicine is night and day more complicated in 2024 than it was 30 years ago. Comparison can be made to how powerful an IBM desktop was in 1993 to your 2024 iPhone.

More people get diagnosed, more treatments available, those treatments are both more expensive and more time consuming to deliver, people are living longer, people/families are demanding more care during end of life etc etc etc.

This all happened while both the US and Canada decided - *in the 1990s* - that there were too many doctors and that medical school admissions needed to be drastically cut back. And they did that. Hard to imagine how they came to that conclusion.

The resulting shortage of doctors in the first 2 decades of this century is in part the ripple effect of that decision - and it happened while, as I described above, the practice of medicine got significantly more complex. Perfect storm. Or should I say perfect shitstorm.

Yeah, more complicated in part due to lots of improvements depending on specialty. Cancer survival rates have improved over time. Treating acute cardiovascular disease, in terms of cost efficiency, is vastly improved. Although we see little improvement treating mental illness, for example.

An important takeaway is spending more on health care doesn't get us much. Whereas spending more on health care R&D gets us a lot.

[bennymac]

Evdog - was it Dr McConkey you saw in Canada about your knee?

[evdog]

No, it was Dr Regan. He's apparently still with the team. https://www.nhl.com/canucks/team/hockey-operations

[jono]

The way insurance companies grow is for the cost of the treatments they cover to grow too so that they can charge higher premiums. The entire system is rigged against the people paying for it

Denying claims is not the primary way insurance companies generate revenue. Insurance companies have more devious ways to rip you off.

Gross revenue, no. Net? Denial is very much the primary way it's generated, it just isn't simple to understand the accounting. By design.

Yeah, it's total chaos. It's also worth mentioning insurers employ tens-of-thousands of doctors and nurses to review claims

1) Insurance companies employing "tens-of-thousands of doctors and nurses" to do anything but provide care directly reduces supply. Insurers are obviously fine with that, meaning the net result reduces care but increases their bottom lines.

2) The rubber stamp brigade is partly "external" to the insurers in the sense that they only work for another subsidiary of the insurer's parent company (external =/= independent). So payments to that group are a "service" the insurer can use to reduce their own profits while their sister company kicks up the profit to the parent. That's why Brian was so popular with his parent company despite such a low on-paper profit margin--ostensibly much lower than the ACA allows. Luckily the shareholders own the parent company, which profits much more. Wink, nod, and pat Brian on the back, he's doing great!

Insurance accounting is a shell game. It's not even an open secret, it's just open. An employee of my insurer's external claim denial reviewer told me so directly--and triumphantly: "We're all Asuris!" IOW, don't bother complaining to my boss, he's good with it.

If you're going through insurance company accounting without looking at what they pay to all other subsidiaries of their parent you're just helping them lie to you.

Congress could reclassify any entity that owns equity in an insurer as the insurer under the ACA. CEOs, like drug dealers, prefer the risk. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

[jono]

DA Bragg: "He was trying to terrorize health insurance CEOs who have been busy strangling babys in their cribs for money, almost literally!"
Jury: .........

Too much to hope that introducing terrorism charges opens a barn door for the defense to drive through all the reasoning that leads to nullification?

[MultiVerse]

I think we agree on a lot, Jono, in the sense we're saying similar things. I.e. tens-of-thousands of doctors and nurses review claims, not provide care.

And I agree on the case for reclassifying these large vertically integrated companies. Where I disagree is how they generate most of their profits. For big insurers like United and Cigna health care delivery, not primarily denying claims, is where the money is. It's more than just an accounting trick. By providing health services, insurers can drive consumers into using their own providers, pharmacies, PBMs, their own labs, their own medical devices, and many other parts of the hospital system.

So, for example, rather than denying claims these companies can compel all sorts of medically questionable procedures & tests for Medicare patients and then bill state & federal governments. Screening tests, devices, and unusual diagnoses etc. are big money for vertically integrated insurer/providers:

https://www.wsj.com/health/healthcar...nosis-057dca8b

[Core Shot]

Basically Coreshot.

I ain’t shooting nobody

has he posted since the arrest?

Shaking the tree boss

kaczynski has been awfully quiet since this shit unfolded.

Read his manifesto. Very articulate and many good points. Ted, dude, you can’t blow people up and be taken seriously.

This handsome douche that women want to date in prison was smart. U penn. but what a fucking weak manifesto. I wouldn’t even call it that.

Amazed by people cheering this assassination

Yeah. Healthcare sucks at times. And the ceo was a douche. But it’s the system. Change the system.

What's kinda nutty about that is the wide discrepancy from one source to next. His had a different ordering than mine which is more or less par for the course. Probably has to with looking at median vs average etc. USA today, for example, uses BLS data to show top U.S. occupation salaries with yet another ordering:

Neurosurgery: $920,500
Orthopedic surgery: $788,600
Dermatology: $655,200
Cardiac surgery: $607,300
Ophthalmology: $597,000

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money...y/75969535007/

https://www.bls.gov/ooh/highest-paying.htm

I’m all for that pay. Except derm. What a snooze racket.
And optho is also overpaid.
GP gets paid Jack shit as does PEDS.
4 years college
4 years med
3 years residency
That’s gotta be worth something.

[stealurface831]

I’m already entirely outraged by the national weather service’s forecasting failures in the tragic tornado outbreak which will occur in a few weeks.


Sent from my iPhone using TGR Forums

https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/12/...scotts-valley/

[stealurface831]

just come to me if yall want to know what happens next.

[ötzi]

I’m all for that pay. Except derm. What a snooze racket.

Years ago I was smoking a joint with my cousin and, right out of the blue, he says, "Ya know, if I was gonna be a doctor, I'd be a dermatologist." I asked why, and he said, "Their patients never get better but they never die. It's a great racket."

[ötzi]

just come to me if yall want to know what happens next.

I'm kinda curious, honestly. Spill.

[J. Barron DeJong]

Yeah. Healthcare sucks at times. And the ceo was a douche. But it’s the system. Change the system.

These companies are spending millions and millions of dollars to make sure that doesn’t happen.

If that money has been spent lobbying to change the system for good, instead of keeping the bad system in place, I’d have much more sympathy for the dead CEO.

[summit]

ACA was the most expensive lobbying fight in human history. The winners were the insurance corps and hospital corps.

[MakersTeleMark]

I think boeing and grumman entered the chat honestly.

[MultiVerse]

Big Healthcare adopted its "cost plus" model from the defense industry

I ain’t shooting nobody

Shaking the tree boss

Read his manifesto. Very articulate and many good points. Ted, dude, you can’t blow people up and be taken seriously.

Kaczynski just wanted to kill people. That's it, that's all there is to it: "he spent far more time tormenting his neighbors than he did on his grandiose plans to bring down industrial society. He killed dogs for their barking, strung razor wire across dirt bike paths and fantasized about murdering a neighboring toddler. The manifesto and its carefully constructed veneer of Luddite and anarchist philosophies were a con to lure others into his world of despair and hatred."

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/14/o...unabomber.html

[jono]

Boeing and Grumman are amateurs. Can you imagine anyone trying to enforce anti-trust laws against "vertically integrated" healthcare corps? Me either.

[MakersTeleMark]

You are a fucking moran. There was LSD and chicks to bang. Sorry, should have quoted multistupid.

[MultiVerse]

Are you on LSD right now?

[rideit]

Haha, I haven’t been with UH for a few years, this just hit my inbox.
Hilarious.
*Happiness Guaranteed*!

WTF. (Probably a spoof email, but still)

[rideit]