One story that we couldn’t keep out of the press and that contributed most to my decision to walk away from my career in 2008 involved Nataline Sarkisyan, a 17-year-old leukemia patient in California whose scheduled liver transplant was postponed at the last minute when Cigna told her surgeons it wouldn’t pay. Cigna’s medical director, 2,500 miles away from Ms. Sarkisyan, said she was too sick for the procedure. Her family stirred up so much media attention that Cigna relented, but it was too late. She died a few hours after Cigna’s change of heart.
Ms. Sarkisyan’s death affected me personally and deeply. As a father, I couldn’t imagine the depth of despair her parents were facing. I turned in my notice a few weeks later. I could not in good conscience continue being a spokesman for an industry that was making it increasingly difficult for Americans to get often lifesaving care.
One of my last acts before resigning was helping to plan a meeting for investors and Wall Street financial analysts — similar to the one that UnitedHealthcare canceled after Mr. Thompson’s horrific killing. These annual investor days, like the consumerism idea I helped spread, reveal an uncomfortable truth about our health insurance system: that shareholders, not patient outcomes, tend to drive decisions at for-profit health insurance companies.
What a frustrating article. We have an author that admits to being part of an effort to decrease access to healthcare and refers to the death of a monster in a human suit as a tragedy. He also admits he fucked up and has gone on to work with organizations that advocate for the right to healthcare.
I think I’m frustrated with this piece because it feels so lukewarm. Maybe that’s by design so that it reaches a wider audience. I’m just tired of seeing the insurance industry and its executives handled with kid gloves. It is unambiguously evil to make the kind of money they make off of healthcare.
In his own example his company literally killed a child with leukemia and the tone is still so weak.
He cannot escape in his narrative that he got his. He did the damned work and was able to move on with his conscious. He quit, the company replaced him, nothing fundamentally changed. He feels better, kids still dead.
The article isn’t a tale of redemption: it is about deflecting blame from executives to shareholders.
Which is just a subtle way of portraying a publicly traded company as less desireable than a fully privatized company that apparently would make different decisions about how to profit off dying people.
This is exactly why healthcare cannot be a private service. Companies will optimize the patients out of the equation in search of more profit.
The only way it could not be devastating if there was a competing service that had no profit incentive like a public healthcare system.
Maybe it should be illegal for certain industries to be publicly traded companies. The pursuit of profit to please faceless investors is a recipe for blind and insatiable pursuit of profit. The stock market is basically a ponzi scheme at this point with so many layers separating humans on one end from the humans on the other end of the profit/product dynamic, that it becomes a system that blindly drives itself.
reveal an uncomfortable truth about our health insurance system: that shareholders, not patient outcomes, tend to drive decisions at for-profit health
For any diabetics on Lemmy this is the exact same sentiment I hate about dexcom. My son has autism and cannot manage his own diabetes, this his G7 is a lifesaver literally for my ex and I to manage his diabetes for him.
Numerous interactions with the company, and his Endo, have made is very clear that diabetics are second to making money in all their decision making at dexcom. It’s disgusting. For the record I’m a Canadian as well, and because of the autism we get the G7 via a government subscription at no cost. That doesn’t mean we don’t still have to deal with dexcom on all bullshit issues like sensor failures.
Oh I’ve read his book he’s great. I see a lot of people here debating his morality but the important aspect of his book is that he describes the actual tactics in detail.
Quitting before you make CEO could be a smart career move.
Smart staying alive move
it took an impromptu visit to a free medical clinic, held near where I grew up in the mountains of East Tennessee, to come face to face with the true consequences of our consumerism strategy.
At a county fairground in Wise, Va., I witnessed people standing in lines that stretched out of view, waiting to see physicians who were stationed in animal stalls. The event’s organizers, from a nonprofit called Remote Area Medical, told me that of the thousands of people who came to this three-day clinic every year, some had health insurance but did not have enough money in the bank to cover their out-of-pocket obligations.
That shook me to my core. I was forced to come to terms with the fact that I was playing a leading role in a system that made desperate people wait months or longer to get care in animal stalls or go deep into medical debt.
And yet he still calls the death of Brian Thompson “tragic.”
The death of a mass murderer is cause for celebration.
I hate this “He had a family that loved him!”
Because while I’m sure that’s true… ya know who else had families that loved them?
The various people who died of treatable illness because this assclown denied the healthcare THAT THEY PAID INTO in order to save a couple of dollars despite wiping his ass with Benjamins on the regular.
To his co-workers, Brian Thompson was just another suit and tie who punched out at 5 and met up with the boys for drinks before seeing the Mrs.
To his customers, he was the man responsible for the deaths of fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters.
Ban For-Profit healthcare
Stalin and Hitler had families too, doesn’t mean I’m gonna stop being happy they dead
It’s an unfortunate reality of our condition that a few rich people have to die so that the rest of the biosphere may be saved
To be fair, Hitler did have some admirable traits. I mean he did kill Hitler after all.
I wish more fascists would follow the example Hitler left for them in that bunker of his…
His wife lived separated since 2017.
He got DUI last year.
He wasn’t a saint, he was an asshole in private, like we all knew. The media lied about him.
It kind of meets classical definition of tragic in that his downfall was the result of his own actions.
It is tragic that it takes an assassination to bring the deplorable condition of our healthcare system to the front of the public consciousness, and also tragic if that’s what it takes to effect change. The karmic justice itself doesn’t have to be tragic for the event to be “tragic”.
I’m gunna go out on a limb and predict this guy doesn’t get shot unless he goes hunting with the Cheneys regularly.
The only good exec is an ex-exec.
Thankfully, since this one retired of his own volition, it is no longer necessary to retire him.
TBF he is still an exec. Just not an insurance exec.
Wendell Potter, a former vice president for corporate communications at Cigna, is the president of the Center for Health and Democracy and writes the newsletter “Health Care Un-Covered.”
The Center for Health and Democracy(CHD) is a non-profit organization led by renowned healthcare expert and insurance industry whistleblower Wendell Potter that works to transform America’s system of health coverage. The organization’s core belief is that healthcare should be driven not by industry profits and greed, but by the needs and rights of every American to get the quality care they need without concern for cost.
hm. yeah. i’m still cool with him being exempted from Claims Adjustment.
We call it playing Mario Party over here
oh man i love that
when luigi wins by doing nothing XD
It is exactly as I expected.
The conclusion of this essay should be neither surprising nor outrageous. A corporation is a machine specifically designed for the sole purpose of maximizing shareholder value. If that’s not what it’s doing, it’s malfunctioning.
We the people have, via our elected representatives, chosen to have a system where corporations control what healthcare we can receive. If you want to blame someone (which isn’t productive) then blame the fellow Americans whose votes have supported and continue to support the current system. They’re the ones whose job is to make decisions guided by morality.
Blaming corporations is particularly unproductive because they can’t make decisions guided by morality. If they appear to do so, it’s because creating that appearance is expected to maximize shareholder value and the appearance will be maintained only as long as it continues to maximize shareholder value.
People laugh at the products with warnings on them against doing something that should obviously be a bad idea. Well this thing says “aim away from face” and the public keeps aiming the thing at its face. Whose fault is that?
How can you blame millions of people and feel content to leave it at that?
I cannot help but ask why a bear steps into a bear trap. And when I learn why the bear steps into the bear trap, I cannot help but stop blaming the bear.
I think it’s ironic and even darkly funny that people maintain a system that most of them hate, and that they blame the part of that system that has the least ability to do anything other than what it does, but I don’t blame anyone. As I said, blame isn’t productive in this situation. (What would it even mean to blame “fellow Americans”?)
Blame doesn’t even provide the satisfaction of knowing who to hate, despite what some confused people think. The responsibility is so diffuse that it isn’t even responsibility anymore. Each person is just a snowflake in an avalanche.
I do support attempts to improve the system, although so far that has meant only that I voted for Democrats. I’m just a single snowflake too.
I was an intake rep for an insurance site. It sucked. I was so disenfranchised that I chose a new career. Now I work at an elementary school, and it’s awesome!
Having said that, the glee that I see people projecting about Mr. Thompson’s murder is horrible.
The fact that so many instances on Lemmy celebrate murder–especially .world–disgusts me.
UnitedHealthcare sucks. The insurance industry sucks.
Murder is never the way to solve those issues though.
He basically facilitated mass murder… Most people will feel good when such a person is killed.
Murder of high level people has always been a very effective way for the lower classes to fight back when the elite has taken too much for themselves. It’s often the only way to affect change if the elite is corrupt enough.
The problem is it’s not good for stability which hurts the stock markets and the elites.
I hope Luigi spends the rest of his very long life in prison. He’s a fucking scumbag murderer. I don’t give a fuck what Lemmy thinks.
The thing is, Brian Thompson himself is a murderer, and now he can never kill again.
So if you think murder is ok, then what Brian Thompson did isn’t wrong either. So insurance execs can just think, “Well, they murder us, it must be ok to murder them!”
See how that works?
So no, murder isn’t the answer. And I hope Luigi spends the rest of his very long life in prison.
It’s sad that you’re getting down voted. That does not bode well
Right? Lemmy is rapidly approaching a mindset where they think that it’s ok to murder people they don’t like. CEO’s now. Anyone they don’t agree with, next.
Doesn’t matter though. Society is NOT Lemmy, and the majority of society doesn’t agree with Lemmy’s views. Thankfully.
Luigi is going to prison, no matter how mad Lemmy is about it.
I mean, you are right, murder shouldn’t be the way to change this. But one has to look at the whole thing and wonder, can it change through non-violent means at all? People have been long complaining about the system, there’s groups advocating for universal/free healthcare for a long time. How much change did that bring? Maybe the murder will have similar small impact in the long run, we will have to see. But then actions will just get increasingly more extreme over time.
But one has to look at the whole thing and wonder, can it change through non-violent means at all?
Doesn’t matter. I will never advocate murder. I don’t care what the argument is. If you don’t like a product, then don’t use it. But don’t fucking murder a person walking down the street because you are pissed at the company he works for.
Thank God that most of society doesn’t think the way Lemmy does when it comes to this subject!
I had a shit insurance company. They never paid any of my claims. So you know what I did? I dropped them. I went uninsured because the insurance company wasn’t doing shit. So I stopped giving them money.
And you know what? If everyone did that, then the health insurance company would go out of business. You don’t HAVE to pay for health insurance if you feel it’s denying every fucking claim. Because if they are denying every claim, then you don’t really have health insurance. So you are no worse off for not having it.
The Democrats didn’t do shit about it. The Republicans didn’t do shit about it. But if we all stopped paying premiums, then guess what? People would wake up.
But you don’t fucking murder people to make your point. I don’t give a fuck what your point is.
Luigi committed murder. The jury won’t let him off just because they don’t like insurance companies. I hope he gets life in prison. Lemmy can feel free to write him all the fan letters they want, but doesn’t change my mind about it.
You despise the French revolution and thinks it should never have happened?
I’m not talking about the French revolution. I am talking about right now, here in the US.
And I hope Luigi spends the rest of his very long life in prison. He’s a fucking scumbag murderer. I don’t give a fuck what Lemmy thinks.
And I’m talking about another time in history in a country where the elite had taken too many of the resources for themselves, that the average person could no longer accept which, resulted in violence that affected massive changes…
I don’t and won’t advocate murder, bro. You aren’t going to change my mind.
I’m trying to have a discussion and understand your point of view. I’m not trying to change your mind.
I’m just saying that pretty much any time in history where major changes happened in the power structure of a country or region, it happened through violence.
If everyone dropped their health insurance tomorrow, a lot more people would die and face bankruptcy and homelessness. People don’t want to hurt themselves in order to change the system; they want to hurt their oppressors in order to stop the oppression.
I’m talking about people who think that every claim is being denied. If every claim you are posting is being denied, then you don’t really have insurance.
And regardless, murdering someone isn’t the answer.
So, what is your view or a way to change? As you say, not everyone is getting their claims denied, but we all have to go through bs claim denial that is thrown at us so that the profits of our insurers can go up. So what is the answer? Abandoning our insurers isn’t practical, as the poster above you said, so what recommendations do you have?
Murder isn’t the answer. I didn’t say I had a solution. I said that I don’t think murder is the solution. And I don’t care how much hate or how many downvotes I get. I’m not going to advocate murder. Ever.
No amount of deepthroating rich murderous boot will save you when your turn comes to face off to your insurance company, and it will come.
No amount of deepthroating murdering scumbags like Luigi will save you when it comes to your bitching about society on Lemmy.
Also Luigi was one of the rich people you all seem to hate so much. And his family was rich.
And I hope he spends the rest of his life in prison and is all pissed off because prison doesn’t have very good vegan options and doesn’t recycle. :)
Every thing whe have here in the US came from blood of others. The native Americans, the British, the slaves, the immigrant workers, etc. We wouldn’t be here as a country if it weren’t for revolution, and we wouldn’t be without slaves but for civil war. I know you wish it weren’t true because revolution and war are no fun, but if you think this system will change itself without a fight, I’m afraid you haven’t been paying attention.
I don’t care. Murder is wrong. And I hope Luigi spends the rest of his very long life in prison. He’s a fucking scumbag murderer. I don’t give a fuck what Lemmy thinks.
Murder is wrong.
Is it wrong when a police officer kills a perp in self defense?
Is it wrong when they do it to save the lives of others?
Is it wrong if their boss told them to do it?
Is it wrong if their government told them to do it?
Where do you draw the line on murder?
I think murder is wrong. I’ve said this. No line. Thx.
The problem with your “drop them if they don’t cover you” bit is that people generally won’t find out until something serious happens, and then they’re screwed regardless, OR their employer pays a good chunk of their premiums, so they figure they’re better off to keep that and hope something winds up covered.
Not American, but we studied this in school. The insurance/free market problem is twofold - healthcare is a captive industry, and the knowledge base required to understand what is and isn’t a good plan is well beyond most of the population.
Healthcare is a captive industry in that no one can stop using it entirely. Car insurance? Never get a car, you avoid it. Arguments of car-driven infrastructure aside, that’s not a captive industry. So you, at some point in your life, are going to need healthcare. But, you have no idea how bad it’s going to be, what’s going to be wrong with you, etc. so your needs are extremely unknown. Again, to use a car insurance comparison, your choices are fairly limited here in Canada at least. The govt has set minimum standards that all insurers must provide, and then you can choose to increase above that. But those minimum standards cover enough that you’re very unlikely to be totally screwed with enormous debt after an accident no matter what causes the accident, etc.
This leads to the fact that healthcare is so ridiculously complicated that sorting out what is and isn’t covered by various insurers (who regularly change their plans) is beyond the average person. They have no way of knowing how much a surgery for appendicitis might cost, and if the 2mil max Plan A covers will be enough. Now multiply that by a thousand illnesses.
Healthcare should not be left to the free market - at a minimum, there needs to be a robust, extensive, and functional public insurance to avoid stupidity like bankruptcy from basic, lifesaving surgeries.
Healthcare should not be left to the free market
Totally agree. Murdering an insurance CEO isn’t the answer tho. Which was my original point.
I would agree, except that this has been a problem ongoing for the last twenty years with no progress made by protesting/following legal channels. From my perspective, without the threat of violence, both US parties have too much to gain by maintaining the status quo to respond to general peaceful protesting or trying to legally change things. If your perspective is that these people are causing deaths, and the legal system isn’t willing to change quickly enough, an argument could be made that the slow protests/incremental change is causing more deaths.
except that this has been a problem ongoing for the last twenty years with no progress made by protesting/following legal channels.
Cool. Doesn’t matter. I don’t think murder is the answer, and I will never advocate it. Lemmy will be on the wrong side of history when it comes to this subject. Cold-blooded murder is never the answer.
And if Luigi would have had some Republican tattoos and history and did this, you all would be crying and memeing about how he should be in prison.
You don’t HAVE to pay for health insurance if you feel it’s denying every fucking claim.
Don’t they also go to great lengths to conceal information on their practices? And for most people what health insurance is available depends on their employer? There are a lot of obstacles to the public being sufficiently informed and able to exercise agency to solve this from a consumer level. Not to say you’re wrong about murder not being a good solution to this though.
Indeed. It’s a very privileged idea that “If you don’t like someone’s services, you’re free to shop around until you find something you’re comfortable with.”
This only applies to the rich. Everyone else is fucked over by monopolies.
You think I like having Spectrum Internet? There’s no other game in town that provides internet to this street. You think I like having health insurance that completely ignores my teeth? It’s all I can afford.
You think I like having Spectrum Internet? There’s no other game in town that provides internet to this street.
Then have the balls to not have internet. How far are you willing to go to stand up for yourself?
But fucking murder is too far. Do you think someone should fucking murder the Spectrum CEO? Lots of Lemmy do think that. And it’s fucking disgusting.
I don’t think they’re saying to murder spectrum, but maybe you can see the parallel between people who can’t choose the healthcare they can get and those who can? The vast majority of people get it through their employer and healthcare is expensive. “Switching company” is simply not an option for most people, so when their claims are denied, they might be being told to die. In contrast, I simply care little for the jackass that took advantage of everyone and ran into karma. Not saying we have to murder ceos, but I won’t feel bad for them. As someone said previously, your “go somewhere else” speech just screams privilege.
Not saying we have to murder ceos, but I won’t feel bad for them.
And that’s fine in my eyes. But many on Lemmy are openly advocating for murder and some have even been saying that there needs to be a hitlist. That’s my issue.
And how am I “privileged”? I work for minimum wage as a teacher’s assistant at an elementary school. I make far, FAR less that the average Lemmy poster. And I’m older, so I get to face ageism too. And I grew up in poverty.
I’ve went without insurance most of my life, friend. And I’ve usually made too little to pay for private insurance, but too much for medicare.
My “go somewhere else” is based on if every claim was getting denied, I would just drop insurance. Because if every claim is getting denied, I’m not really having insurance am I?
What part of my life do you think is “privileged”? lmao
I make less than you. I have always made less than you do.
The vast majority of Lemmy is “privileged,” and so much so, that they don’t even have context for what that word means.
Don’t they also go to great lengths to conceal information on their practices?
Every time I have gotten denied, I get a letter. They list what gets paid for and what doesn’t.
And for most people what health insurance is available depends on their employer?
No, you don’t HAVE to take the health insurance that your employer offers. You can deny it. In most instances tho, it’s worth it to keep it. Which is why the “revolution” that Lemmy thinks is going to happen, won’t.
The only real revolutionary change on that will come by voting for politicians who don’t worship the insurance companies money. And guess what? BOTH the Democrats and the Republicans worship insurance company money.
Which is why we need a third party. When I mentioned that and supported third parties before the election, the .world instance permabanned me! LMAO
Which is also part of the problem. People are too afraid to actually be uncomfortable for a bit in order to bring change.
But that doesn’t mean people should fucking murder CEO’s. WTF?!
Every time I have gotten denied, I get a letter. They list what gets paid for and what doesn’t.
Spending years putting up with a company is a pretty steep price to pay to learn the basics of how they do business. Consumer choices can’t effect change very well if they are largely kept in the dark is my point, and they are.
From the book Delay, Deny, Defend:
Companies could report on how many claims are filed with them, how long it takes to process the claims, how many claims are denied, how many policyholders have to resort to suing the companies to have their claims satisfied, and how those suits turn out. They could report the information to state regulators or use it in their advertising. Then the scope of the problem nationally would be easy to determine, and consumers would know who the worst offenders are. In fact, some states require insurance companies to report these numbers, and the NAIC has begun to collect the data. But the reporting and collection are secret, at the insistence of the insurance companies. If they wanted to refute the existence of delay, deny, defend, they could do so. Their silence speaks louder than any numbers.
Which is why we need a third party. When I mentioned that and supported third parties before the election, the .world instance permabanned me! LMAO
Yeah I also voted third party, they don’t really like it. Idk how much good it will do, or what the best solution would be, but the people calling for more murders I think are generally falling for the “something must be done, this is something, therefore this must be done” fallacy.
Fair points.
Corporatist.
Because I disagree with murder? Ok. Cool!
Please stop interacting with children you are awful
you are awful
Because I don’t advocate murder?! Say what?!
Too myopic to be a good caregiver.
You’d let a kid run into traffic because “grabbing their arm would be against the rules”
I don’t give a fuck how you frame it. Or try to bully me. I don’t and I won’t advocate murder.
And Luigi is going to prison. And I can’t wait until he gets sentenced, and then I’ll come on here and watch you all bitch and moan about it.
Lol
He’s going to prison. Accept it. :)
There’s a difference between being in jail and being morally in the wrong 🤡
