The patient's doctor criticized the insurance company, saying that the treatment was necessary to prevent her from dying.
  • ExtremeDullard@lemmy.sdf.org
    1·
    11 months ago

    You’d think UHC would strive to behave impeccably with all the publicity around them lately. But no: they’re so shameless and so greedy they even behave rotten when everybody is busy dissecting their every moves. Amazing…

    • SirSamuel@lemmy.world
      0·
      11 months ago

      CEO’s come and go and one just went

      The ingredients you got bake the cake you get

      So, if you get sick, cross your fingers for luck

      ‘Cause old Richard T. Burke ain’t givin’ a fuck

      • Jesse Wells, United Health
    • normalexit@lemmy.world
      0·
      11 months ago

      I don’t think you can pivot a 465 billion dollar company. Especially one where being unethical is a profit making feature.

      They won’t fix themselves, hell why even reign it in if the system rewards bad behavior?

    • psud@aussie.zone
      0·
      11 months ago

      In Corey Doctorow’s short story (Radicalized, in the collection Radicalized) the health fund attackers typically used explosives against the entire board and their support staff

      I wonder if that would be more effective

    • halcyoncmdr@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      11 months ago

      Because doing otherwise wouldn’t maximize profits. There’s no actual competition in the market for consumers to choose. Nearly all Americans get insurance through their work, and have absolutely no say in what companies those options are from, and those options might only change at the end of the year if the company changes their insurance partner (which I’m sure takes months to negotiate). UHC has no reason to change unless they are forced to. Customer Satisfaction in the industry is abysmal because there’s no incentive for the companies to actually be good.

    • irotsoma@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      11 months ago

      What incentivize do they have? The vast majority of their customers have no choice but to be their customers. They just need to keep the companies that companies contract with to set up benefits happy. That’s a very small pool and most aren’t customers of theirs. And especially with the anti-regulation party coming into power, there’s no reason to fear government intervention. But even before that, it wasnt really a threat.

      • JovialMicrobial@lemm.ee
        0·
        11 months ago

        My employer had to hire a lawyer to get their insurance company to cover us and stop denying claims. It’s beyond fucked up out there.

    • nutsack@lemmy.world
      0·
      11 months ago

      they know that the publicity is temporary and does not matter because a corporation is not a democracy

    • TheDemonBuer@lemmy.world
      0·
      11 months ago

      They had their underwriters run the numbers and they determined it’s more profitable to continue business as usual and just invest in private security for executives.

    • ReallyActuallyFrankenstein@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
      0·
      11 months ago

      The simplest explanation is they literally can’t change, they’ve built this level of callousness into their DNA. It’s useful confirmation that for-profit health insurance is beyond saving.

      • Hideakikarate@sh.itjust.works
        0·
        11 months ago

        If that were the case, they’d have off’d the CEO themselves. That’s multi-millions that could go back to other higher-ups. Then we have a Highlander situation.

        • boonhet@lemm.ee
          0·
          11 months ago

          The CEO serves a very important role in that they get all the fallout for what the board probably wants, and then if there’s enough bad publicity, they can fire the CEO and pretend that the CEO acted entirely out of their own volition.

          I mean that’s not to say they’re not greedy bloodsuckers, but they’re greedy bloodsuckers that the board needs. Because the board are even bigger greedy bloodsuckers and want to stay out of the news.

          • otp@sh.itjust.works
            0·
            11 months ago

            If course, the board can also play innocent in any bad decisions, because they can just say “It’s what the shareholders want!” or “It’s what the consultants told us!”

  • poo@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    11 months ago

    Huh, guess a few more CEOs need to catch some bullets before things change. Mario Brothers, you know what to do!

    • uis@lemm.ee
      0·
      11 months ago

      Because work needs to be systemic. Not one-time adventure, but every tuesday in the morning.

      • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
        0·
        11 months ago

        You can kill an infinite number of people across all of time, but it’s not going to change the fact that profit exists to be made. The only solution is legislative. We have to vote DNC, like we did in 2010, but instead of stopping at 58 we need to get to 60. Only then will there be progressive reform with no compromise.

        • pyre@lemmy.world
          0·
          11 months ago

          you’ve had 60. it doesn’t matter. what you need is to vote local and in primaries. you can’t keep letting the party establishment rot take hold and hope it will lead to change in the general elections.

            • pyre@lemmy.world
              0·
              11 months ago

              when Obama was elected. democrats had the presidency, the house and senate, with a supermajority. guess what they did with it: dick.

                • pyre@lemmy.world
                  0·
                  11 months ago

                  yeah really, idk whay that is but a table only gives you a snapshot. 111th congress I believe had at one time majorities in both houses, and a 60-40, including the democratic caucusing independents.

  • Chekhovs_Gun@lemmy.world
    0·
    11 months ago

    I bet the new United Healthcare CEO (or whomever is in currently in charge) is le pooping their pants right about now.

      • borari@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        0·
        11 months ago

        Tell me you didn’t go to law school without telling me you didn’t go to law school.

        Edit - As American prisons are a form of institutional violence, your warning that posting Wikipedia links “could be in violation of Federal law” is in itself a call for violence against the original poster. You can self report to the gulags.

    • SeaJ@lemm.eeOP
      0·
      11 months ago

      Stephen Helmsley:

      He was managing partner and chief financial officer at Arthur Andersen.

      Super shocking that he was doing insider trading at UHC. They hired a known crook and paid him tens of millions a year.

  • MisterFrog@lemmy.world
    0·
    11 months ago

    You must wonder if the board has a death wish at this point, otherwise they must be confident their 24/7 security is up the task

    • ExtremeDullard@lemmy.sdf.org
      0·
      11 months ago

      I think they probably count on the Edward Snowden effect - i.e. people are massively outraged for a few weeks, then they lose interest, move on to the next hot topic and nothing changes.