Saturday, December 7, 2024

Health Care in America

Read this if you want a clue as to why people would give a ticker-tape parade to the shooter of the UHC CEO.

"Breaking Bad", if you recall, was about a man who turned to making meth in order to pay his medical bills after a diagnosis of lung cancer. That show could not be made in most of the rest of the developed world because everyone there has health insurance.

10 comments:

  1. There are more than a few businesses where profit is guarenteed
    at least one involves breaking kneecaps if you don't pay. The other
    takes advantage of the money you paid and then allows you to die.

    Health care needs a little more control.

    Eck!

    ReplyDelete
  2. The lawsuit alleges that UnitedHealthcare uses artificial intelligence to deny claims from Medicare Advantage policyholders. The lawsuit claims that the company knowingly uses an algorithm that makes errors 90% of the time because it also knows that only about 0.2% of policy holders will appeal the decision to deny their claims. Last month the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations hammered UnitedHealth for dramatic increases in their denial rates for post-acute care between 2019 and 2022 as it switched to AI authorizations.
    https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/december-5-2024?r=1ptlbu&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email&triedRedirect=true

    ReplyDelete
  3. Well, it is not like we are having a party. Some people probably loved him and we send thoughts and prayers. Which is probably more than he ever thought to do. I will save my grief for his victims.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thoughts and prayers are out of network. Claims denied.

      Delete
  4. Why top internet sleuths say they won't help find the UnitedHealthcare CEO killer
    https://www.yahoo.com/news/why-top-internet-sleuths-wont-021107977.html

    ReplyDelete
  5. With all types of insurance. There should be laws against raising rates if bonuses were given out to upper management the previous year

    ReplyDelete
  6. Even Medicare is a fucking pain in the ass. We signed my wife up for Medicare, a Medigap policy, and a Part D prescription policy. So now we have three deductibles to pay, and three insurance cards. We know my wife has Parkinson's disease but her appointment with a neurologist isn't until February (the appointment was made in October). So we have no idea if the prescription plan will pay for whatever meds she'll be taking because we have no idea yet. I can sort of understand why people buy Part C (Advantage) plans. It seems easier, but they don't tell you about the shit sandwich you're going to eat until later. Health insurance should be fundamentally simple. Everyone's care is paid, costs are controlled, all is well. But we can't even make the plan that's supposed to be simple, simple.

    ReplyDelete
  7. When I was in rehab from my stroke, I had no insurance, having missed the open enrollment period for the Kaiser that my employer offered because I was working 13 hour days and was never awake when the office was open.
    I spent the whole time worrying about whether my MediCal would be approved, as nobody bothered to tell me that it takes 120 days no matter what.
    Still, though, I got good care, and wasn't having to fight my insurance company for every day there like some of the other patients were.
    You only get one shot at initial stroke recovery, and how well it goes will affect you for the rest of your life, so I was appalled at the travails of the patients I met who had to concentrate on not being discharged instead of learning how to walk again.
    Medicare and MediCal keep trying to get me to sign up for private insurance, and I am still a hard no on that. If my medical expenses were such that getting them covered was a problem under standard Medicare and MediCal, I would have to consider it, but because I did well in rehab 16 years ago, they just aren't.

    -Doug in Sugar Pine

    ReplyDelete
  8. What DGC said. If you happen to live where the Novant, Atrium and Cone guilds exist, you are pretty good with an Advantage plan for most part. if you have something like Lynch syndrome and you need Duke and UNC to keep you alive. That's where real medicare comes in best. You have to change your medigap and Part D policies on a regular basis. The Advantage thing is mostly a government ripoff.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I change my Part D policy almost every year.

      Delete

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