Now Here's a Controversial Opinion on the United Healthcare Executive's Murder

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I'm sure that some of you heard that a United Healthcare Executive was killed in broad daylight today. If not, here's a link to the developing story.

Being directly in the healthcare industry, I have quite a controversial view on this event. I will preface it by saying that I in no way condone violence against another human being, and I do hope that the gunman is found and punished appropriately. All that said... I don't really feel sympathy for the murdered executive. I'm just kind of numb towards the news.

This sounds kind of evil and cruel, I know. I can't really say that I'm proud of how numb I am to this news.

I would never celebrate someone's death. I find that disgusting, even if it's the death of someone horrible, including criminals convicted of terrible crimes, and I'm certainly not celebrating this. But I lack sympathy. Health insurance companies also lack sympathy for the human beings they hurt. Health insurance companies treat health as a commodity or an asset to be manipulated for their own profit. They remove the humanity from health. They hurt so many people because of the denials, red tape, and pushbacks they give. They make the jobs of physicians harder, and in totality, make healthcare more expensive. They do help some people, but they hurt plenty.

So how can I feel sympathy for the person who is the CEO of such a company that openly and knowingly hurts so many people? Of course, he's hired to make decisions to elevate the company, but these decisions are money-centered, not health-centered. The decisions made by a CEO of such a company are designed and known to hurt people in favor of making larger profit margins. The choice to lead a company as CEO, and to make these decisions, are completely conscious and known. The moral bar is so low that I simply cannot feel bad for someone who knows that their decisions hurt people - and I do hold myself to the same standard, God forbid this ever happens (thus far, my job errors have not been intentional and not severe, but I have consciously made poor decisions with how I treat my family at times - and I take accountability for this and try to fix it).

That's my reasoning for not feeling sympathy for this executive. It's further colored by the fact that I've personally seen how this company's regulations and recent denials have caused strife for people. They're simply middlemen and vampires. I hate insurance companies.

My intention is to eventually open a direct primary care practice. Under this model, patients pay a monthly (or similar) fee for my services, and I provide my services without insurance involvement. This brings more accountability to the patient and to the physician, and eliminates the middlemen; costs for healthcare sometimes become lower than by using insurance companies (where, depending on the plan, patients can still end up paying thousands of dollars out of pocket despite having the insurance plan), and physicians are actually able to practice medicine how they want, rather than how the insurance companies want. This model works best for patients who are generally healthy and willing to take care of their health. Sounds like a win-win to me.

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18 comments
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I totally agree with you. Insurance companies I have also seen in my life they simply dont care for the morality and plight of people. And it's not just about health insurance, the insurance and the business around it is so webbed in our society that the only thing that matters is money.

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I'm frankly not a fan of insurance companies acting as middlemen. The original idea behind them was great, but when they end up controlling both parties that utilize them, then their original purpose has been defeated.

Should still say RIP to the CEO. He was still a human being with a family, and I do sympathize for his family. That's a painful loss for them.

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(Edited)

Yeah......we should be humane, RIP to the CEO.

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We've been suffering under anarchotyranny for decades. The elite get to do whatever they want to us without consequence. Meanwhile I have to report a $600 transaction or I get the full hammer of the law. I know that vigilantism and assassination are the poorest form of justice, but if that's all the justice we're going to get right now, I'll take it! It would be a darn shame if something similar happened to the entire Pfizer C-suite.

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I applaud you for trying to reform the medical industrial complex. Have you heard of Crowd Health? Or the Surgery Center of Oklahoma? They are trying to do what you're trying to do.

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I used to feel the same but there is a nuance here. Generally speaking insurance companies can be a good source of oversight. A doctor might make a mistake and the insurance company could catch it. I do think millions of dollars of profit for an insurance company is inefficiency from the point of view of the client. An insurance company that is barely scraping by is the one I would like to use. Unfortunately, by denying a valid claim they avoid keeping their promise and keep more money. The company is collectively rewarded by not fulfilling its function.

On the other hand, when agreements are not kept, and the law is useless, violence is what must follow. I have a suspicion this particular company delayed and denied to the wrong family. Indeed if they have denied thousands of claims in a year, linking based on motive becomes impractical. Fortunately or not.

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Funny, I was actually thinking about that nuance just earlier today because I myself know that physicians and their offices have been, with increasing frequency, billing for services not rendered. If insurance companies actually compensated the physicians fairly (rather than keeping the compensation identical to or les than it was decades ago - you read that right!) then this type of fraud wouldn't occur nearly as much. They're preventing physicians from earning even inflation-adjusted amounts for the same services. It's terrible.

Now, regarding actual errors from the physician side - definitely, those do exist and should be caught and punished appropriately. However, I'm yet to hear of an insurance company preventing a medical error lol! It seems that more damage comes from physicians not being able to practice the way they should, and instead conforming to the restrictions placed by insurance companies.

I would be interested to find out the motive once this killer is caught. At least one positive thing came out of this: executives might now become a little bit more fearful of denying at such extreme rates that UnitedHealthcare has been doing (approximately 1/3 of claims!).

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The idea is not punishment. The doctor say puts a diagnosis of hypothyroidism but her handwriting is really poor, and the it looks like hyperthyroidism and the treatment prescribed is not something that treats hyperthyroidism. When you take it to the insurance for approval the administrator can say "no." Now, there is no malpractice because the error is caught. The patient doesn't get the wrong medicine. This is the kind of problem I had once.

The clerical error shouldn't happen. If people have really poor handwriting, we pretty much can type everything including prescriptions. However I do have a feeling higher level problems could happen. There should be a double budget in an insurance company. The value of 80% of the premium should go to customer payouts and be inaccessible except for payouts. The 20% should be for running the company.

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I didn't know about this fact, nor did I read the news. We already have too many misfortunes here. I'm impressed by your positioning because you feel very qualified to comment within your area. And in the end, your insight seems like a type of business that we don't have here in Brazil. Does this already exist there?

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The direct primary care model does indeed exist here, and has been spreading among practitioners over the course of the past 20 or so years! I'm not sure how well this model would work in the Brazilian economy, however.

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Most people I know hold this opinion. I (and most people) have a hard time sympathizing with someone who used an AI with a 90% error rate to increase denial rates all the way up to 32%, causing plenty of clients to die in the process. Brian Thompson did all of that scummy stuff just to generate some additional profit for shareholders

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