The Health Industry

The assassination of United Healthcare CEO, with words engraved on the shell casings that seem to refer to the 2010 book Delay, Deny, Defend should prompt examination of how bloated and sick the health system pricing and coverage is.

I read a science fiction book this year about climate collapse where activists resorted to this tactic of assassination. The Ministry for the Future

(My phone service is low and touchstones won’t resolve. I will edit later.)

Poor Americans are finally united over something. Folk art emerging for a folk hero, posted on Reddit by SprocketTheWetToad (no other attribution), under the title "A sketch of the UHC Assassin being carried with reverence by Americans":



Today in Washington Square park there was an informal gathering of UHC shooter's lookalikes.

People are celebrating! Capitalist scumbags maybe take note?

The not-so-lost art of balladeering... gilded age minstrelsy for gilded age problems

https://popcrush.com/philip-labes-song-health-insurance-ceo-shooting/

The shooter is now dubbed #theclaimsadjuster on X?

https://www.instagram.com/p/DDUf8VXv2_P/?img_index=1&igsh=YjJvYWczZ3JiZm1j

Brian Thompson's portrait in thousands of stamps spelling out "DENY", posted by a throwaway account on Reddit, attribution: "Titled “Deny Defund Depose”, ink on paper, full credit to the amazing u/Old_Lengthiness3898"

I had no idea it was this complex. The insurance company delays paying doctors, but offers them loans at usurious rates so they can get by?

Layers and layers of profit strategies

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DDXk2CjPFQb/?igsh=YXYzazc1Z3FkMmhu

America has a health care industry and a health care prevention industry. What the latter gets up to would be a criminal offense in a civilized country.

I wound up in the ER here in Santiago de Chile a few weeks back with an upper respiratory infection exacerbating asthma. Went to what is reputedly the most expensive and arguably the best hospital in the country (La Clínica Alemana). Waited about 30 minutes, got X-rayed to rule out pneumonia and nebulized, then walked out later that night with a bill for US$300 and change. In the U.S., there would be an extra zero. Inhalers were likewise less than 10% the U.S. cash/pre-insurance deductible price. And all this in a full-throttle neoliberal country. (Plenty of places, I would have paid zilch). I'm not sure I want to "adjust" back.

Wendell Potter, Cigna executive now advocates for Medicare for all:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DDmzSm_OrXG/?igsh=MTQ0ZjZ2bDl1dndwdw==

>8 davidgn: About twenty years ago, a friend of mine told me that her son, who was in Costa Rica at the time, had called her to say he'd needed a root canal. She said she'd immediately started talking about flights to get him home, worrying about the cost, etc, etc., before he clarified that he'd needed the procedure, and he'd had it done, and that Costa Rican dentists were better equipped than anything he'd ever seen in the States, and it had cost him about $20.

My experience is similar: the two times I've needed emergency medical attention in my life both happened overseas. One of them was an accident when I was a child in Finland, the other was more recent, severe burns on my feet when I was on Crete. (the latter was my own stupidity - I'd failed to realize that the sand on a south-facing dune in July would be warmish) In both cases, I got treatment well above any standard I've ever heard of in a US emergency room, and in both cases the charge was strictly nominal. In fact, as my mother tells the story, the Finnish clinic actually handed her cash to pay for the taxi that she'd called to take us to the clinic, because that's what free health care for all means.

I'm constantly amazed by the can't-do attitude of American health policy. I mean, the south side of Crete is the ass end of the ass end of the most economically bedraggled state in Europe, and they can manage to have excellent medical care within easy reach, for free. The idea that America can't manage to provide health care at that level is simply idiotic, but it's taken as gospel by policy people here. Why do we put up with this?

I can't seem to find updates about the woman in Florida who was arrested by the FBI when in an altercation with a health insurance clerk she uttered what was considered a threat (despite obvious circumstances like anger, the heat of the moment, or the fact that she didn't possess a gun)

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czenlg5d5rjo

and the bail requested was $100 000.

Thou shalt not even think mean thoughts about thine capitalist overlords!

>11 LolaWalser: There’s a bit of an update on the Guardian - apparently if convicted she faces up to 15 year’s imprisonment. See
Briana Boston had reportedly just had a medical claim denied when she said to the person on the phone: ‘Delay, deny, depose’.

PS The arrested woman Briana Boston has now been freed, no charges.

Congressional testimony on “Deny” way back in 1996:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DDiNkhEuUSk/?igsh=MXZ1dGtnZWZhd3hwYQ==

Dr. Linda Peeno, HMO (Humana) whistleblower since 2007

SiCKO
Damaged Care

I see she is still speaking out the past spring; but can only find it on Substack. It might have a paywall

https://open.substack.com/pub/somepeopleeverybody/p/the-fine-print-exclusive-com...

She describes being pressured to deny a heart transplant claim as not necessary while the patient is on the operating table and the donor heart is waiting in its box.

Michael Moore was asked to comment on Luigi.

In response, he put SiCKO up on YouTube for free viewing:

https://www.google.com/search?q=sicko&client=safari&sca_esv=ba35034d32aa...

Medical directors of health insurance companies are sometimes doctors who have had big malpractice settlements or disciplined by state boards

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DD2Kv8dxfiy/?igsh=NGd4NTFnZXM3cWJs

https://www.propublica.org/article/malpractice-settlements-doctors-working-for-i...

>11 LolaWalser: Reminds me a bit of this case:

https://www.vol1brooklyn.com/2020/10/15/the-strange-case-of-patient-c-an-excerpt...