High-profile killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO in New York

Wonder who were should kill next, bank CEOs who caused the financial crisis? Student loan company CEOs or hospital heads who charge a shit ton for operations?
People who post braindead takes online
 
This lad will be neck deep in clunge (or willy, if he so prefers) if he ever gets out.

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It does make sense when you study the complexity and issues involved. What you wrote is just an overly simplistic misunderstanding of how healthcare and health insurance works in the US. It's not at all as simple as you think.
  1. Denying claims does increase the costs because it leads to less payouts which means the cost of procedures/treatments rises across the board to cover cases where insurers have denied payments
  2. Vertical integration means the distinction you made doesn't exist in reality. HMOs, like Kaiser, are providers as well as payers.
  3. 1 health insurance employee to every 2 doctors in the US. Health insurance raises premiums to pay for all their employees that extract value from the system. It's an old stat from when I researched this so its probably a different number but the principle applies.
Of course health insurance companies are not the only cause of the problem. You have private equity owning hospitals, pharma companies charging outrageous prices for life saving medicine like insulin, and the overall completely twisted incentive systems that exist that come between doctors and patients but health insurance companies whether they are vertically integrated like United, HMO like Kaiser or even just an insurance company are absolutely part of the problem of the cost of healthcare in the US. In short, no insurance worker should be deciding which treatments are approved or not, that should solely come from doctors and patients.
The bigger question is should private companies have anything to do with healthcare? Because I can't agree with the last part. If I am offering you insurance, surely, I have a say in what you are covered by the premiums you have paid, if not, why should I get into the business in the first place?
 
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The healthcare system in the US is a joke. Kids just out of college barely getting by with student loans have to come with $200-$300 a month for a basic plan with high deductibles. Then we have tax paying citizens who have to pay close to $800 per month for a decent policy. Citizens of any country should not be denied healthcare and shouldn't have to find hundreds of dollars monthly just to be able to get basic healthcare.
It really is.

When my sisters were in uni(they schooled in the US), I had to fork out thousands of dollars over four years so they wouldn't be scared of going to a doctor. It's a shithole.
During my A Levels in Nigeria, I had a teacher who was married to an American lady. The lady and her entire family moved to Nigeria for a few months just for her delivery. I always found that weird. "Surely, America is the best place to give birth", I used to think. Little did I know the young family was avoiding bankruptcy.
 
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Don't they usually have high profile murderers strapped up with kevlar when the police produce them at court? I guess they weren't expecting many people to want revenge for this one.
 
I also technically work in insurance so double the money on my head!
Has anyone on here (or even on social media generally) called for regular joes working in insurance to be killed? Or is this a scenario you're just making up in your head?
 
Has anyone on here (or even on social media generally) called for regular joes working in insurance to be killed? Or is this a scenario you're just making up in your head?
No, he's just taking it all very personally.
 
Funny Luigi, hot guy and eat-the-rich jokes aside... This is a relatively intelligent man (compared to the average person) going through some form of psychosis right? He planned things fairly well and he probably had a motive, but he seems a bit unhinged too. Him being reported missing for several weeks before the murder is also weird.
 
Has anyone on here (or even on social media generally) called for regular joes working in insurance to be killed? Or is this a scenario you're just making up in your head?

I've had posts saying that people who work on this industry do so knowing what type of work is done. I asked others whether it's right to kill the claims investigators who decide on declining claims, or underwriters who decide on rejecting insurance for unhealthy people. Technically, those people contribute as well to the industry that exploits unhealthy people who need healthcare the most.

Then a few people compared the healthcare industries to Nazis so I had an idea where the discussion was going.
 
Funny Luigi, hot guy and eat-the-rich jokes aside... This is a relatively intelligent man (compared to the average person) going through some form of psychosis right? He planned things fairly well and he probably had a motive, but he seems a bit unhinged too. Him being reported missing for several weeks before the murder is also weird.
If he was really suffering from back surgery and related financial bills and that radicalized him into committing murder, then it's just a really sad story all around.
 
Funny Luigi, hot guy and eat-the-rich jokes aside... This is a relatively intelligent man (compared to the average person) going through some form of psychosis right? He planned things fairly well and he probably had a motive, but he seems a bit unhinged too. Him being reported missing for several weeks before the murder is also weird.
Isn't he an ivy league graduate? I'm willing to bet he's got a few more brain cells than Iain Dowie.
 
If he was really suffering from back surgery and related financial bills and that radicalized him into committing murder, then it's just a really sad story all around.

Yeah, psychosis or not, that is sad.
 
If he was really suffering from back surgery and related financial bills and that radicalized him into committing murder, then it's just a really sad story all around.
Apparently his mother also had similar issues before him. He is also from a wealthy family, so it doesn't seem like it was a situation that just throwing money at could solve.
 
Has anyone on here (or even on social media generally) called for regular joes working in insurance to be killed? Or is this a scenario you're just making up in your head?

There is always the possibility they are not being fully serious? That's my constant hope.
 
I've had posts saying that people who work on this industry do so knowing what type of work is done. I asked others whether it's right to kill the claims investigators who decide on declining claims, or underwriters who decide on rejecting insurance for unhealthy people. Technically, those people contribute as well to the industry that exploits unhealthy people who need healthcare the most.

Then a few people compared the healthcare industries to Nazis so I had an idea where the discussion was going.
Aren't you in Germany?
 
That’s a lot of research you’ve done to basically prove my point. All those administrative costs in the US amount to 8.3% of the total healthcare spend. Now tell me again how they’re the main cause of these crazy healthcare bills?

1. 8% is a significantly higher number than administrative costs anywhere else. This 8% is also clearly the least useful cost, and has virtually nothing to do with patient care. The fact that Medicare, dealing with the same hospitals and doctors, keeps admin costs to 1%, tells you what a boondoggle it is. The other exorbitant markups at least serve some purpose.


2. I don't know if you know how the US system works. There are no "real" sums of money involved anywhere.
It's been a while, so I've forgotten the exact numbers, but:
2 years ago, I had 2 ER visits and was then hospitalised for 2 days, during which time I received no surgery or treatment, or even a diagnosis (by luck and coincidence, I had figured out what the infection was, and it was confirmed 2 weeks after discharge). I did have a CT scan, some saline drip, and many mostly-routine blood tests, apart from the stay itself. By insane luck, I was covered by insurance despite being between jobs (a loophole that I learnt was removed next year).
I spent, out of pocket, about $1200 split over 4 bills. Now the fun part:

The bills nominally added up to some 10 or 20k. In theory, insurance spent 9 or 19k to cover me.

In reality, the insurers spent about 2 or 4000. Because the nominal bill amount is a number plucked from thin air. One of the insurance companies gave me the fine print, which suggested that was the ratio of my spending to theirs.

It's a madhouse system. And the reason it can function like this is because of the intervening layer of insurance and the associated bureacracy, which means that costs and prices are totally meaningless. It may not be directly in the insurers' interests for these prices to stay high, but it is in their interests for the prices and costs to be as opaque and meaningless as possible.


3. You know how I said it may not be in their interest for costs to stay high? Well, they do have one reason for it:



8% of 5 trillion sounds better than 8% of 3.5 trillion!

Once the mob decides someone/something is the bad guy then everything is the fault of that bad guy.
give it a rest cmon
 
People who post braindead takes online
And don’t respond to valid criticism or counter arguments. This idea that comparing something to the third Reich is somehow always wrong is one of the weirdest developments within the internet in the last few years.
 
3. You know how I said it may not be in their interest for costs to stay high? Well, they do have one reason for it:



8% of 5 trillion sounds better than 8% of 3.5 trillion!

Ooof, another one where Pogue will be utterly unable to make heads or tails of a simple premise.
 
The bigger question is should private companies have anything to do with healthcare? Because I can't agree with the last part. If I am offering you insurance, surely, I have a say in what you are covered by the premiums you have paid, if not, why should I get into the business in the first place?

Well that's a separate question. You first said it didn't make sense how insurance companies could contribute to higher costs. That was incorrect as pointed out with three basic examples.

Whether or not people think for-profit companies should be involved in healthcare, they are involved because there is profit to be made which, indeed, is a bigger question. Should a company be allowed to profit off healthcare is a question US citizens have never voted on and haven't had much influence on for a variety of reasons unfortunately, primarily the money in lobbying and how entities like for-profit insurance, private equity and big pharma has far more influence on US politicians than the majority of citizens who, when polled, consistently show majority support for single-payer, public options.
 
1. 8% is a significantly higher number than administrative costs anywhere else. This 8% is also clearly the least useful cost, and has virtually nothing to do with patient care. The fact that Medicare, dealing with the same hospitals and doctors, keeps admin costs to 1%, tells you what a boondoggle it is. The other exorbitant markups at least serve some purpose.


2. I don't know if you know how the US system works. There are no "real" sums of money involved anywhere.
It's been a while, so I've forgotten the exact numbers, but:
2 years ago, I had 2 ER visits and was then hospitalised for 2 days, during which time I received no surgery or treatment, or even a diagnosis (by luck and coincidence, I had figured out what the infection was, and it was confirmed 2 weeks after discharge). I did have a CT scan, some saline drip, and many mostly-routine blood tests, apart from the stay itself. By insane luck, I was covered by insurance despite being between jobs (a loophole that I learnt was removed next year).
I spent, out of pocket, about $1200 split over 4 bills. Now the fun part:

The bills nominally added up to some 10 or 20k. In theory, insurance spent 9 or 19k to cover me.

In reality, the insurers spent about 2 or 4000. Because the nominal bill amount is a number plucked from thin air. One of the insurance companies gave me the fine print, which suggested that was the ratio of my spending to theirs.

It's a madhouse system. And the reason it can function like this is because of the intervening layer of insurance and the associated bureacracy, which means that costs and prices are totally meaningless. It may not be directly in the insurers' interests for these prices to stay high, but it is in their interests for the prices and costs to be as opaque and meaningless as possible.


3. You know how I said it may not be in their interest for costs to stay high? Well, they do have one reason for it:



8% of 5 trillion sounds better than 8% of 3.5 trillion!


give it a rest cmon


Ok so that stuff about MLR is news to me and the first reasonable reason anyone has given for insurers being complicit in excessive healthcare costs. It’s obviously a US specific phenomenon, presumably put in place to prevent profiteering, with unintented consequences. Even the guy you’re retweeting mentions a caveat, though, that they still need to keep their premiums competitive, which is an incentive to control spending despite this loophole.

Outside that specific context I can guarantee that insurers provide downward pressure on prices. I know this because I’ve been party to negotiations with them. If for some reason this isn’t working in the US then that’s just more evidence they need to tear their whole healthcare system up and start again. I’ll get off my hobby horse now. I’ve been saying since the beginning that the US systems is a shambles, so more than happy to agree on that.
 
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Aren't you in Germany?

Does that make me a Nazi? :lol:

Yea I live in Germany now and work in a reinsurance company (basically a company that insures insurers) but before I worked in a private insurance company in Pakistan.

As I went up the ladder I had to get more involved with setting up and deciding on product features. I've worked on a few products that were targeted to provide cheap insurance to poorer people, for whom insurance outreach in Pakistan is very low, and have seen some conditions I wasn't very comfortable with myself have to be added. Ultimately those conditions had to be added otherwise the cost of the product would be out of reach for those people for whom we were developing the product.

This is why I've said time and time again, multiple times in this thread, that a basic public insurance cover has to be provided by that government. So many of the issues faced as a consequence of private insurance will be removed then.
 
Does that make me a Nazi? :lol:

Yea I live in Germany now and work in a reinsurance company (basically a company that insures insurers) but before I worked in a private insurance company in Pakistan.

As I went up the ladder I had to get more involved with setting up and deciding on product features. I've worked on a few products that were targeted to provide cheap insurance to poorer people, for whom insurance outreach in Pakistan is very low, and have seen some conditions I wasn't very comfortable with myself have to be added. Ultimately those conditions had to be added otherwise the cost of the product would be out of reach for those people for whom we were developing the product.

This is why I've said time and time again, multiple times in this thread, that a basic public insurance cover has to be provided by that government. So many of the issues faced as a consequence of private insurance will be removed then.

No, it makes you part of a system that is morally and socially better, even if it's not perfect. Which makes your little meltdown a bit silly because no one has a particular issue with you.
 
No, it makes you part of a system that is morally and socially better, even if it's not perfect. Which makes your little meltdown a bit silly because no one has a particular issue with you.

So I can't comment on matters outside of Germany even if they relate to a profession I directly work in and have studied since my certification examinations were US based?

I was pointing out that killing these CEOs is not going to solve the societal issues being faced but I feel people know that but just want to vent out they anger at the system by killing people involved with it.
 
So I can't comment on matters outside of Germany even if they relate to a profession I directly work in and have studied since my certification examinations were US based?

I was pointing out that killing these CEOs is not going to solve the societal issues being faced but I feel people know that but just want to vent out they anger at the system by killing people involved with it.

It looks like you and a few others have completely misinterpreted the sentiment around the US and even the world. No one is actually suggesting we go out and start killing "people involved with it" to solve the issues, I think you're taking obviously snarky posts too seriously. People are simply not expressing any sympathy for someone being killed who is clearly a horrible person and a very important part of the problem (obviously not the entire problem).

And for the record, something good has literally already come out of it as Anthem just reversed their horrible decision in large part due to awareness and sentiment around this event.
 
So I can't comment on matters outside of Germany even if they relate to a profession I directly work in?

I was pointing out that looking these CEOs is not going to solve the societal issues being faced but I feel people know that but just want to vent out they anger at the system by killing people involved with it.

You can comment on whatever you want, just don't act as if you were the target of anything.

And your last point is bit silly, we are not talking about a random person, we are talking about one of the leader of the system, one of the engineers, one of the people that literally bribe and lobby for mesures that add money in his pockets at the expense of the lives of thousands of people every year. It's genuinely strange how some of you try to mitigate the role of one of the actual decision maker.

And to be clear, yes any murder is wrong, it shouldn't be the norm and it shouldn't go unpunished but some murders have an understandable context. If you leverage people lives in order to make money, you put yourself in an extremely dangerous position.