"The decision was controversial at the time — but outrage erupted this week after the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York City cast a spotlight on divisive insurance decisions."
NYPD is offering $10,000 in taxpayer money for info about the shooter. Wouldn't it be awful if people called their tip line 800-577-TIPS with random information so that they couldn't find the guy who shot the poor, millionaire CEO?
Isn’t it amazing that when a CEO of a fucking insurance company is killed that a 10k reward is offered within hours but when children are killed in their schools or any other horrible crime is committed upon the poor the most we get is “thoughts and prayers”
I think school shootings usually do get a serious police response, but yeah, I’m with you on the rich/poor difference. You don’t see hundreds of cops searching Central Park when some “nobody” (low net worth) is killed.
I mean they normally do but sometimes you get events like in Texas where police just surround the school and let the shooter freely search the school. If it had been a private school full of the elites children it would’ve never happened. Of course no school should ever be attacked.
For the record, I had the United Healthcare Medicare Advantage plan until they kicked me off because they say they no longer offer the plan “in my area.” I think it was more about the $8K MRI that I had but can’t prove it. Nobody else “in my area” got cut off…?
Out of all I that I've used UHC was the best coverage for me, they paid 100% of my cataract surgery & 95% of a 5 day hospital stay
I wish Brian Thompson's family well & I hope the killer will be caught & punished appropriately
Its a damn shame the goverment has allowed these companies to hide denial rates for private plans outsidr of healthcare marketplace. This is still very helpful. I thankfully never had united!
I know this is a joke, but to anyone looking for plans... I was with Oscar and had a really good experience! Plan wasn't cheap, but it was pretty smooth sailing and they covered so much compared to other companies I've dealt with.
Ah yes, saying a millionaire who made his money off the suffering and deaths of the poor deserves to die is exactly the same as Neo-Nazis wanting to exterminate minorities /s
Guessing that this could have been related to a dissatisfied patient or family of a patient providing their patient satisfaction feedback in a slightly different way…
Frankly one might call it Karma when people who are earning outrageous amounts by putting in place policies designed to deny medical care to those who need it meet an unfortunate end.
Living in the US would give me angst and stress every day worrying I, and my loved ones, would get sick or be in an accident. I can’t believe that Americans tolerate not having socialized medicine like most other advanced economies.
If you are in Canada and have private insurance & are expecting med coverage for the expensive stuff, including some cancer treatments, or for LTD, you will soon see that it isn’t very different here.
Yup. “Drained pool politics.” Named for when, in the 1950s, public pools in the U.S. became open to all races and many cities drained their pools rather than integrate them. Racist white Americans would rather go without than share. It’s so sad. It’s disgusting really.
That is exactly what it does. Lived 37 years in Germany and now in US since 10+ years and I have experienced both. Existential fear is new to me since I moved here
We’re taught that we’re “special” and it wouldn’t work with our economy. The stress is absolutely real and I dread not only having an accident where I need to go to the hospital, but having to pay for the ambulance ride there.
If special means worrying that if you get sick, and your medical debts will bankrupt you, I would worry about the cognitive abilities of my fellow Americans.
My mother fell and busted her head open & refused an ambulance ride (EMT’s were there) because the last time she was in ambulance her share was $1,800.00 after insurance. She waited while bleeding heavily from the head for my brother to arrive and take her. She’s 87 and was petrified of the costs.
I’m so so sorry that happened to your mother. We here in Canada do have a healthcare system that’s under seige, but we never have to worry that we’ll be bankrupt, and we know we’re getting wonderful care from our medical practitioners.
I envy you and the Europeans. I thought we made progress in the last decade but half of the population voted for fascism. Our priorities are distracted with immigration, inflation, hate and anger. QoL policies simply going extinct in America.
I’m not saying our healthcare is perfect. It can most definitely do with more funding, and wait times can be an issue, but it’s excellent care. We would never want to lose it.
Non-Urgent care is definitely wanting; but if I was to walk out and get hit by a car hospitals would go head over heels to save my life and I'd not have to pay a penny.
On another note, it’s all they needed to come to power, to grift and enrich themselves and the ultra wealthy. Capitalism has gone to far and greedy, more lives will be lost and impacted. Monopolised 2 party system no longer works. We need the real alternative.
It's someone called Lisa Erickson and she better be having some illuminating thoughts like "Maybe people should have access to life-saving medicine, procedures and treatments"
I have them, and they're making me buy two medications when I was only buying one before. There's no real reason for it. I assume it's because they just want more money out of me
my cofounder is in the hospital RIGHT NOW fighting with them becuase the whole hospital 'just dropped united, outright', and hes an organ transplant recipient, so its .. not good for us.
Did you appeal? Sometimes it’s a coding error, unfortunately a lot of stress is due to stupid mistakes and complications like this by the hospital billing
Please call the insurance company to appeal this denial. It looks like it was improperly denied due, potentially, to coding issues by your doctor. Make sure you say the magic word “appeal” in speaking to United’s customer service representative.
I’ve sent several messages with no response. Every time I call them it’s a nightmare, I was also encouraged to call my provider to investigate. Hate how much work WE have to do for them to do their job. Thank you for this advice :-)
Non sequitur but that drama led to them firing (and threatening to de tenure) our then-department chair. I have very low expectations for any communication with the school, but you have more insight than me so I’m sure I’m getting ahead of myself here haha
😂. No ,a guy shot the claims guy who denied bone marrow transplant for a rare disease for his daughter. She died
No CEO Spoiler alert (he was convicted)
I would have voted not guilty No fucks left to give for these people who make money off sick people
Given the miscarriage of justice that we've seen play out with the president elect, I will never be able to find someone guilty in this sham justice system.
And if they call me for jury duty, I will explain this in no uncertain terms.
Better yet, you can nod along and convince them you have average feelings and obedience about it. Then, play the trap card and insist on not guilty, come nullification or hung jury.
They can waste their money. This guy appears that he was a professional. So they can just stay in their home and live in fear and count their money 🤷♀️
Brother, if /anyone/ deserves it, it's the CEO of a company who's entire purpose is being a useless healthcare middleman trying to prevent you from getting healthcare
These people are some of the closest thing there is to pure evil
Emphatically yes. And I hope more people that deny healthcare claims get shot. Maybe if they fear for their own lives they'll stop denying care for others.
I don’t think murdering health insurance CEOs will lead to better corporate health insurance, but since there’s no such thing as “better” corporate health insurance, I won’t be upset if some people consider his killing “a good start.”
This is a side effect of people being fed-up with the circus of claim denials and ever rising costs for insurance. Not saying he deserved it, but this is a cry for the yearning of bread.
Why not? You want ultimate power? You get to pay the ultimate price when the consequences come due. China doesn't have much trouble executing billionaires when they go too far over the line. FA *has* to have FO.
The bigger story is how these “health” companies deny access to necessary care (that is often approved on a second submission) causing pain, suffering and delayed diagnoses.
"It’s unclear how much UnitedHealth saves by using nH Predict, but Stat estimated it to be hundreds of millions of dollars annually. In 2022, UnitedHealth Group’s CEO made $20.9 million in total compensation. Four other top executives made between about $10 and $16 million each."
Such a horrific take. It doesn’t matter how awful someone is. Murder on the streets of NY is an unacceptable form of vigilante capital punishment that puts everyone in danger and is pure chaos.
Health care companies auto denying claims en masse for life-saving medical care is a form of legalized mass murder that puts everyone in danger. But that's fine with you, because they died "quietly."
HOW was he murdered-by a gun. WHICH party has aggressively fought gun control? Now which party do you suppose UHC and even Brian himself donated to the most? Tangential consequences are a thing. He was human. He was God's child. But he will be missed by few outside of shareholders.
so a mass murderer got what was coming to him and I'm supposed to feel bad? it's not like he died painfully over the course of several months due to being denied treatment like his victims did. he got off way too easy
Just curious, did you criticize people when they made fun of how many trans people have committed suicide or do you reserve your criticism for people celebrating the death of one of the most evil people on the planet?
We certainly won’t get it in the courts. All the murders he oversaw were legal. It’s sick and disgusting. But the world is a better place without him in it. I won’t apologize for recognizing that
At the very least, leave his kids out of it. They didn’t choose their dad’s job. I say that as someone that deeply loathes the current for-profit healthcare system in the US.
There is a lot of research that shows CEO's demonstrate an extremely high level of psychopathic behavior, so I would assume the kids are now better off.
The real innovation going on here is that normally people who got denied their insurance claims would post the "guess I'll die" meme. None of us stopped to consider "guess YOU'LL die"
Anthem denied labs that I HAD to have to get diagnosed with hEDS. To get the diagnosis the genetic testing for the other subtypes has to come back negative. It did. They charged me full price because it came back negative even though they covered my appointment..but the labs were required. Ugh.
We used to have Humana and tbh it was pretty good. I don’t ever remember them denying a claim, even for a surgery that I needed that a lot of insurances try to write off as cosmetic even when needed (it’s not cosmetic my sternum was pushing on my heart). Too bad we had to switch.
November 2021. That's the month mom died, age 91 & still sharp, just a day after eating homemade apple pie with the family. The nurse said she was doing well & very strong after she suffered a small heart attack, so we didn't stay. She died alone because of care-denying UHC Medicare "Advantage."
The CEO of United "healthcare" was just murdered. Fun fact: If employees of United put dependents who are eligible for coverage elsewhere on their United health insurance plans, they have to pay extra.
No, really. It's true.
So the list of suspects is now: everyone insured OR employed by United
this isn't specifically a united thing. the company I work for uses BCBS and i have to pay a dependent surcharge for my wife to be covered. I don't think it applies to my kids, but it's still ridiculous.
Well the more people the more of a charge to you. But she’s referring to the fact that if your wife worked somewhere and that company offered any insurance but she chose yours instead, you pay an actual penalty plus the additional cost of adding another person.
nope. I don't work for a health insurance company. But I do work for a friggin enormous company so the nickel and diming is hilarious in a dystopian way.
I didn’t do it, but I did send an appeal letter that started with “Dear F*ck Face” before my wife talked me into changing it. All because they denied a claim for GAP coverage for a scan that can’t be done in network, yet UHC swears it can(it can’t).
Funny, I just serendipitously changed from United to Cigna during this switching period. United's 2025 premium rocketed, and they had been giving me a hard time about various prescriptions, including charging me full boat for one that should have been far less. Cigna does have a better denial rate.
How many of those are providers attempting to bill for services not rendered? I happen to know that it's most. Their obsession with efficiency drives down costs throughout the market. But let's pretend that gramma's knee replacement surgery at 80 while in palliative care makes sense. 32% less hustle
And so you cheer the murder of a man. Just like any terrorist, you people like you don't believe that anything is off-limits as long as it is done in the name of a cause.
lol. What cause? It was just a 2A enthusiast who was celebrating his right to bear arms and got a little carried away. It's just something we have to get used to.
Murder is never acceptable. Murder in this nation may be more common than we would prefer, but we do not celebrate it. We do not cheer an act of murder. And the fact that some of you are only demonstrates how morally bankrupt you are.
Kaiser's numbers seem artificial, because while they don't reject claims you are generally locked into their ecosystem, so they can choose to just not offer care as an option
UnitedHealthcare is the poster child for a greedy, broken system—raking in billions while screwing over patients with denied treatments and inflated bills.
We don't know each other but 2015, I had 4 major abdominal surgeries; in summer of 2022 and in Nov 2023 I had yet another. All requiring many hospital stays. I am lucky regarding UHC claims although many others were not.
13 years ago I was diagnosed w breast cancer while on United. My total oop was $150 out of a total of ~$75,000, including lumpectomy & rads. I have no complaints about United at that time.
On Medicare never Advantage plans. I won’t put any intermediary btw me & my medical decisions or clinicians.
Claims at UHC are denied by licensed medical directors only within their medical practice and training based on evidence-based medicine. Nurses, claims administrators, and the CEO do not and cannot deny a claim. The amount of lies being spread and the inhumane comments on this site is disgusting.
So? They profited off him murdering people too. Fuck them. What about the families of the people who were auto denied life saving coverage because Thompson authorized a botched AI machine to handle claims to save money?
I’m sorry you’re mad sane people aren’t upset a greed driven monster that headed a company that it is no means hyperbole to suggest has caused the deaths of millions by denying their claims got what was coming to him
Keep in mind a CEO is just another employee that answers to a boss. They aren't evil dictators that control companies. If they don't do what they're told they get fired.
The investors and board of directors are the real problem.
Just because they get paid a lot doesn't make them some kind of evil dictator that needs to be assassinated.
The problems you're looking for are at a higher level.
They'll simply get a new CEO and more of our premiums will go towards protection.
I’m not justifying his murder but you make him sound like he’s equivalent to an employee in a call center who’s just doing his job. He was 100% complicit and knew full well of the company’s business practices.
I know, but a lot of people think this killing was justified.
And yes he absolutely knew, he was in charge of it. And he was just doing his job which is to make the shareholders rich.
And now that he's dead UHC will just get another CEO to do the same thing.
Yep it is, maybe not to the same degree. And don't get me wrong insurance companies and their policies and their profiteering all suck. But we keep asking for it.
I hope you get to meet the families of the people who died horribly and needlessly due to United's practices of stealing money from the sick and dying. Or do they not count because they're not rich enough?
yeah fair point, but honestly the line between restraint and allowing people to express their frustrations is difficult - i tend to oppose celebrating death, but there's no denying the pain that his business decisions has caused and the emotional release that entails for those affected by U.S PHI.
He deserved it, and so do other healthcare CEOs. I won't feel bad for a second. Why should I be better when those animals make millions doing far worse than laughing about someone's death.
I'm sure if what ever is seen in that chart was replaced by hospitals just getting a budget from government (or those insurance companies) and doctors got to use their professional discretion to do their job, the sky would start raining fire and brimstone and devil would ascend to rule the heavens.
@kenklippenstein.bsky.social That's convenient data for a narrative, but I'm curious where it came from, because I don't see any sign that claims denials are public data.
NOT, NOT, NOT defending insurance companies, just curious.
No, it's good to keep the populace informed so that they know the person who is dead was a literal mass murderer. Or do you only consider it murder when it happens to a rich man?
I don't see it as a zero sum game. He might be an awful man (I really don't know), but he was murdered in cold blood on a Manhattan street. He has 2 sons and I hope there's enough humanity left that we can feel for them. Thanks for your thoughts. Best wishes for the holidays. 🇨🇦
Comments
https://www.kenklippenstein.com
"The decision was controversial at the time — but outrage erupted this week after the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York City cast a spotlight on divisive insurance decisions."
https://www.axios.com/2024/12/05/blue-cross-blue-shield-anesthesia-anthem-connecticut-new-york
don’t care about facts, only memes.
I would have thought Oscar's reject rates would have been 50%+.
I wish Brian Thompson's family well & I hope the killer will be caught & punished appropriately
DENY DEFEND DEPOSE $DDD https://pump.fun/coin/DMQAKMd45QTsBhGLkzG9TeqZGYPuJLrvVbbzHnsUpump
(and eat the rich and punch nazis,,,with Glee!)
and you call yourself a writer
It's people's lives.
I'm shocked it's taken this long for something like this to happen.
this does not include the $2000+ of bills they wouldn't cover when I almost went blind in one eye because of a series of negligent eye specialists :)
https://www.propublica.org/article/unitedhealth-healthcare-insurance-denial-ulcerative-colitis
My department (as a collective) got in a massive fight with college admin last year specifically about grad student healthcare bc of this shit
Ballot box
Jury box
Ammo box
It needs to be 4 episodes long just to clear all suspects
List of denied claims….. 😳
No CEO Spoiler alert (he was convicted)
I would have voted not guilty No fucks left to give for these people who make money off sick people
And if they call me for jury duty, I will explain this in no uncertain terms.
These people are some of the closest thing there is to pure evil
Clearly he was testing and didn't cross that threshold.
Do better.
I just don't know if we should be setting a standard where a certain claim denial rate justifies shooting the CEO.
🤷🏾♀️
we celebrate monsters being slayn here
I'm going to repeat what someone else asks you, how often do you get this upset about people who treat the suicide rate of trans youth as a meme?
They've been buying up insurance companies to grow market share for years
This gives them better purchasing power, yet they raise prices
And
Control over the market, which they exploit by pressuring everybody from healthcare providers, competition, government and customers
1) someone angry over insurance denial.
2) Corporate hit.
3) I literally don’t care.
2 of these are definitely true.
https://www.asahq.org/about-asa/newsroom/news-releases/2024/11/anthem-blue-cross-blue-shield-will-not-pay-complete-duration-of-anesthesia-for-surgical-procedures
No, really. It's true.
So the list of suspects is now: everyone insured OR employed by United
Thompson's total compensation was $10.2 million!
but I digress... CAPITALISM!!!
Did I forget to mention that the coverage they provide their employees is GARBAGE?
Status: Denied
I think this shows what modern liberalism has really become.
https://open.substack.com/pub/thesocialgadfly/p/a-people-who-feel-as-though-they?r=4mu3u7&utm_medium=ios
https://bsky.app/profile/godpod.bsky.social/post/3lcio7t6ekc2w
On Medicare never Advantage plans. I won’t put any intermediary btw me & my medical decisions or clinicians.
What do you think insurance CEO’s do?
UHC’s goal is 100% pure profit.
They don't matter to you because they're poor.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The investors and board of directors are the real problem.
The problems you're looking for are at a higher level.
They'll simply get a new CEO and more of our premiums will go towards protection.
And yes he absolutely knew, he was in charge of it. And he was just doing his job which is to make the shareholders rich.
And now that he's dead UHC will just get another CEO to do the same thing.
But you can keep killing CEOs daily and they'll keep replacing them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_orders
I'm trans, homeless, unemployed, living in a minivan in tbe desert, and I need $30 tomorrow for food. Can anyone help?
Trying to get a lifepo4 batrery too, need $150 for that, lets me use a fridge.
My paypal/venmo/ca$ are all nullthegreat
I love it, thank you ❤️
Too soon?
It is totally fair and in fact essential to criticize health care execs for their actions. But cheering for their murder is anything but OK.
I thought I would reshare an important thought from my post, which you may have missed. I hope you will continue to advocate for a better system.
To the surprise of no one who has ever had UHC insurance.
Be better.
Why do you assume this is a dunk on the kilt man and not a celebration of his legacy?
We need to do better if we want this dumpster fire to improve - we have to lead the way. Let’s face it - getting down in the mud hasn’t worked.
NOT, NOT, NOT defending insurance companies, just curious.