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...

People are scouring the archives now to build a case against for profit healthcare.
This from 2018

Goldman Sachs asks in biotech research report: 'Is curing patients a sustainable business model?'

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/11/goldman-asks-is-curing-patients-a-sustainable-bu...

UnitedHealth, employer of slain exec Brian Thompson, found to have overcharged some cancer patients for drugs by over 1,000%

https://fortune.com/2025/01/15/ftc-pbms-unitedhealth-brian-thompson-cvs-caremark...

>20 2wonderY: With my cancer treatment my insurance pretty much picked up everything. The revlimid (lenalidomide) chemo drug that I would take every day out of pocket costs about $25,000 a month. I was on that almost 3 years. That's one drug and oncologists like to go at cancers in threes. There's a lot more to it than just the drugs and I don't know how someone without insurance in the United States could go about paying for it without going into bankruptcy. The drugs--not just chemo---opiates were a regular part of my life for a while, all kinds of infusions, a stem cell transplant, a longish hospital stay in a private room (during covid---there wasn't any choice otherwise anyway), rehab. If I were to guess it's over a million, maybe even over two. The insurance even picked up hotels, travel costs and food.

I don't really have proof but this is what I think. I was a postal clerk. When I retired I was making about $55,000 a year. Where I live that's a good job. Western NY along the Pa. border is a pretty depressed area and has always been at least during my lifetime. That's not great money in a lot of places but it's pretty good where I live and working for the Post office I was also union and part of being in a postal union is I had health insurance plans to pick from and when I retired because of our union's agreement with the Postal Service I could take my insurance into retirement with me. I'm in a group plan with 100's of thousands of others and I think that being in a group plan made a difference. These health insurance companies much less likely to fuck with you. Most people when they retire do not get to take their health insurance with them. They have to search and find new health care insurance as individuals and individuals are a lot more likely to get picked off because they're kind of on their own.

My experience with health insurance is not a bad one. It could have been a lot worse but that doesn't mean this system works and it certainly doesn't work for everyone and really what does a health insurance company do but drive up health cares costs and make profits for their own bottom line and their shareholders? They are capitalist entities and making money is the main goal of a capitalist entity. Because people can't afford.....they go without and if something happens they fall through the cracks or they don't have enough or the right kind of insurance for what they end up needing or their health insurance company screws them like we'll probably find out happened to Mr. Mangione. Our system is full of holes to fall into. There's loads of those stories. We shouldn't have to deal with this bullshit. We need a national health care system that covers everyone and our govt. could give us this. Our govt. would rather pay for bullets and bombs and shit that nobody needs. Our politicians love being capitalists and love the idea of being the world's No. 1 empire and most of them are corrupt as all get out and being in congress or the Senate they have their health care all taken care of. These empirical ambitions are kind of fucked and kind of stupid. It's not just one party to blame on this.....it's both.

>21 lriley: It's not just one party to blame on this.....it's both

Yes - and your electorate which doesn't insist on such a simple and basic human right as health care. We have a National Health Service in UK because at the end of World War II the electorate rejected Churchill (despite his personal popularity and their overwhelming gratitude to him for his war service) and the right wing Tory party and instead chose the Labour party precisely because of its commitment to health and other social services for the people. Our NHS has been worn down by the last 14 years of Tory misrule, but this is at least one of the reasons why the Tories were rejected and Labour elected in the 2024 elections, to repair the NHS.

>22 John5918: It is parsed to people as socialism---which for a lot of United States citizens is a code word for communism and we have lots and lots of would be anti-communist warriors. I know you're very religious John---many Americans who think like that are staunch catholics, baptists and evangelicals. Quite often their priests and preachers encourage that kind of thinking. Many of my own family are staunch catholics too who believe such. I had a conversation with my brother (who has been in and out of the hospital for extended stays 3 times in the last 3/4 months) just a week or so ago who told me that Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris are communists which is absurd. But he's not stupid---he's had a high functioning life and my brother's opinion is not an outlier opinion. A lot of people think that.

Sometimes people come around on the health care issue when they're crushed by the system or someone very close to them is. They have to see it up close. It's like for Thomas seeing was believing or at least that's how that story goes in the New Testament....but that's often true in real life too. Sometimes it seems to me that a lot of different things going on here in the United States are slowing converging like a runaway train towards a major catastrophe. This is not a happy country.

>23 lriley:

Fair comment about many religious people, particularly in the USA. The rich body of Catholic teaching on peace and on social, economic and climate justice known as Catholic Social Doctrine was often ironically described as Catholicism's best kept secret - many Catholics are still simply not aware of it. Unfortunately many Catholics (and other Christians) in the USA have bought into the culture war and allowed their faith to be coopted and corrupted by far right wing ideology. It seems inconceivable to me how they can justify this, but as you say, they are intelligent people who mean well. It's as if there are two sets of people living in different worlds, one a rational, pluralistic, centrist and tolerant world which includes the best aspects of traditional religions ("Love thy neighbour as thyself", justice and peace, etc), and the other a far right world based on conspiracy theories, fake news, division and culture wars.

>24 John5918: Let's also keep in mind what's known as Obamacare was Barack Obama's attempt to sort out the health care mess which he didn't do at all. For it to get fixed it always had to go to a government run health care system that covered everyone. The insurance industry and pharmaceutical companies have spent a lot of money keeping it the way it just as they want and basically they got Barack to accept a compromised position and then we got to hear excuses like we can't put all these hard working health insurance agents and employees out of work. Like it ever really bothered any politician putting millions of factory/industrial workers out of a job when it came to passing free trade bills. So when 2016 came around and Bernie was bringing this back up----Hillary Clinton was no---'we've just fixed the health care system and we're not going there' and Hillary became the nominee. For the dems it was all over there and then. So republicans parse this as socialism/communism.....meanwhile the other side doesn't want to touch Obama's most legacy so-called accomplishment and that was the biggest thing he got through in his 8 years....his legacy rides on that.

This is not getting fixed because for one party it's anathema and for the other party.....well they're just not interested and most importantly for both sides there's a lot of campaign donor $'s to either be anti or not interested.

A Texas pharmacist spells out corporate grift in government programs

https://www.instagram.com/forestparkpharmacy?igsh=MWhuNzc5ZnN6cnFyOQ==

Hah! Forgot I posted this already.

Health care CEO admits to hiring private investigators to look into Texas lawmakers, patients

https://www.kvue.com/article/news/politics/texas-legislature/texas-superior-heal...

Texas Republicans are not happy

https://www.texastribune.org/2025/03/27/texas-paxton-medicaid-superior-healthpla...

Blackrock is suing UnitedHealth for providing too much care after their CEO was murdered. It’s cut back on investor profits

https://www.instagram.com/p/DKkgfZHShBk/?igsh=MWtoOWVpbjdvcXgwag==

https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/unitedhealth-sue...

In a proposed class action filed in Manhattan federal court, shareholders said the insurer defrauded them after the December 4 shooting of UnitedHealthcare Chief Executive Brian Thompson by shifting away from strategies that led to higher-than-average claims denials, without revealing the impact on profitability.

Gary Cox, CEO of Health Care Software Company Convicted of $1B Fraud Conspiracy

As part of the scheme, Cox connected pharmacies, durable medical equipment (DME) suppliers, and marketers with telemedicine companies that would accept illegal kickbacks and bribes in exchange for signed doctors’ orders transmitted using the DMERx platform. Cox and his co-conspirators received payments for coordinating these illegal kickback transactions and referring the completed doctors’ orders to the DME suppliers, pharmacies, and telemarketers that paid kickbacks and bribes for the orders.

The fraudulent doctors’ orders generated by DMERx falsely represented that a doctor had examined and treated the Medicare beneficiaries when in fact purported telemedicine companies paid doctors to sign the orders without regard to medical necessity, based only on a brief telephone call with the beneficiary or no interaction with the beneficiary at all. The DME suppliers and pharmacies that paid illegal kickbacks in exchange for these doctors’ orders billed Medicare and other insurers more than $1 billion. Medicare and the insurers paid more than $360 million based on these claims. According to evidence presented at trial, Cox and his co-conspirators concealed the scheme through sham contracts and by eliminating from doctors’ orders what one co-conspirator described as “dangerous words” that might cause Medicare to audit the scheme’s DME suppliers.

https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdfl/pr/ceo-health-care-software-company-convicted-...

https://www.instagram.com/p/DKvONgzCSq6/?igsh=MTA3MmY3a3V5YnRvag==

Why don’t they send him to San Salvador to serve his prison sentence?

>22 John5918: >23 lriley: Although "socialist" Tommy Douglas, as premier of Saskatchewan and leader of the federal New Democratic Party (NDP) is rightfully regarded as the father of Canadian Medicare, it had wide support. PM Lester Pearson (Liberal) and even Opposition Party leader Brian Mulroney (Progressive Conservative Party) played important roles, the latter by supporting passage of the Canada Health Act. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3107117/

Eric Topol {cardiologist scientist, Scripps} ‪@erictopol.bsky.social‬ | June 28, 2025 at 10:55 AM:
"Insurance conglomerates, such as UnitedHealthcare and CVS–Aetna, now control physicians, home care, pharmacies, and pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs)."
-------------------------------------------------------

Erin C. Fuse Brown 2025. Defining Health Care “Corporatization”. NEJM June 28, 2025. DOI: 10.1056/NEJMp2415485 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2415485

Abstract
“Corporatization” of health care, a process predicted decades ago, now refers to the general trend throughout the industry toward higher levels of integrated control by consolidated profit-seeking enterprises.

Don't Be Fooled: Trump Is Gutting Our Healthcare System
N. Adam Brown | 29 July 2025

— The administration's small "wins" {artificial food dyes, etc.} are a distraction from their real agenda

... Over the past 6 months, the Trump administration has unleashed a relentless assault on science, reason, and evidence-based policymaking while dismantling our social safety support systems, including Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP). The administration also has cut funding and gutted agencies meant to protect transportation safety and provide aid after natural disasters. Its MAHA wins are little more than public relations stunts, mere crumbs tossed to a public that is grasping for good news.

Here are five truths about the Trump public health agenda.
NIH Grants Are Being Gutted
Misinformation Flowing From the Top
The Undermining of Medicare, Medicaid, ACA, FDA, and Veterans' Health
Medical Education Is Under Attack
Other Cuts Also Have Health Implications

https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/prescriptionsforabrokensystem/116720

A physician tries to explain the tangle of interests that make drug prescribing so difficult.

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTMKYsoWr/

He recently had to deal with it for a patient here where the sole medicine that actually worked was denied and would cost the patient $6000/month

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTMK21yhf/

Health insurance company denies payment for an emergency tracheotomy

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTMogqDee/

And a colostomy bag is ruled not medically necessary

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTMoE1No9/

The city of Lexington, Kentucky has allocated $1million to erase medical debt of residents. In the first round, they cleared $12.6million for 6,400 families.

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTre6qkXw/

Uber for Nurses

Lowest bidder gets the assignment

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTkxRVSQ6/