30 Days of US Healthcare: United Healthcare For All

Day 20
30 Days of US Healthcare
• 30 Days of US Healthcare

[@olenickel6013]

Physician owned hospitals? Outlawed. Insurance owned hospitals? Perfectly legal. Legislators saw nothing wrong with this.

[@TN-rf7nt]

Vote. Every. Single. One. Out. Regardless of party. Vote them all out.

[@thundergato84]

​@@TN-rf7ntEh. I'm giving up on voting. Hardly anything has changed. It's only gotten worse.

[@RedCurlyQ1]

Yup. You're vote counts for nothing. The bribes have already been paid.

[@FoxyFemBoi]

​@TN-rf7nt Voting is fine, but it's not the primary way things change. That's a lie we've been told by people asking for our vote. It's by pressuring people in positions of power and being disruptive that things ACTUALLY change (like strikes or protests that actually disrupt something especially the people whose attention you're trying to get, sanctioned protest doesn't do as much). Politicians will frequently take credit for doing things that was really only done because of outside agitation. Voting is primarily to try to have someone in power who is at least maybe more likely to listen to large movements nd grass roots organizing.

[@darlenefraser3022]

It’s the voters that vote the legislators in.

[@NativeNiches]

I don’t know if I can stomach another week of learning about American health care.

[@floricel_112]

we didn't even learn about healthcare so far! All it's been about is united!

[@DaTimmeh]

@@floricel_112I see you’re catching on…

[@Barracius]

Sounds like you have digestive distress. And with these United Healthcare brand Tums, you can be helped.

[@rockets4kids]

Optum has a diet plan just for you!

[@yannicmeyer421]

"health" "care"

[@cyberrb25]

And at that point, a sane policymaker would say "either you dissolve like a sugar cube into many competitors, or you are under our control and become our public healthcare at rates set by us, either paid by the citizen or by the administration". But it's the US.

[@lennierofthethirdfaneofchu7286]

Any sane policymaker would have prevented such things years ago. You know, a public option to the AHCA or Medicare for all?

[@ShawFujikawa]

That is a good point, how does this consolidation not trigger anti-monopoly laws? I know they exist in the US.

[@mhug162]

Or alternatively, get rid of the (corporate endorsed) red tape that prevents genuine competition.

[@TrogdorBurnin8or]

At this point a sane policymaker would back away from the lobbists, nobody gets hurt, I'll do whatever the fuck you want me to do. When we start talking about actual measures that would address this system, which is an order of magnitude larger than the US Military and larger than the economy of every country but ours and China's, it is absolutely a discussion about asymmetric warfare. The annual budget of the US healthcare system is comparable to our spending on the entirety of World War 2. Can a single sane legislator unilaterally make us invade Europe and the Pacific? No? Then back away slowly and avert your gaze to reduce the chance that US Healthcare sees you as a threat.

[@humantwist-offcap9514]

@@ShawFujikawabecause insurance companies and hospitals lobbied for changes to antitrust laws that are directed at physicians, and away from themselves

[@clems_first]

This is turning more and more into a dystopian story. Wait

[@dominictemple]

Turning...?

[@liberalsockpuppet4772]

It's already here. 100% true.

[@Acide950]

Pretty sure if this was in fiction it would be critiqued as overblown and "unrealistic"

[@ArgzeroYT]

We've lived in a dystopia for ages

[@mar10ssj1]

Always has been.

[@rebekahg6426]

Every time you bring up Optum, I get so angry- because of how true it is. My nana was trapped under Optum and they wouldn't cooperate with me at all. I was her sole caretaker for thirteen dang years and they'd ignore anything I said and would come up with any other alternative than what was obviously the problem. Literally, anything and everything. When the Optum doctors finally admitted to the things we'd been insisting for literally years, it was too late. The problem? Dementia. She passed away in April. I'm still angry, and grieving. The family's trying to make legal things happen but they keep getting stopped.

[@amandamiller6995]

My deepest condolences for the passing of your beloved Nana. I'm very sure you are still in the deepest of grief for her. I hope one day you will be able to remember 💓💓💓 the good times you had together instead of just obsessing over the painful last few days you had in sickness there at the end. I really loved my Grandmother TOO and I spent so many wonderful ❤️❤️❤️ times with her. We can always choose to focus on the things about our families that we want to. It's like looking at a telescope or a microscope. Do we want to zero in on the good things which bring us pleasure or just the painful memories that twist them into raw tears. Every time I see a flower 🌺🌹 I remember how much my Grandmother and I loved to walk in her flower garden and spend these cherished times together. As long as we recall their names, they are not truly dead to us. Because they are still living in our hearts ❤️ and minds and souls.

[@norniea]

So, so very sorry for your loss😢

[@taylor3950]

They tried to pretend she didn’t have dementia? Something incredibly easy to test for?! That’s absolutely criminal

[@radroach9201]

Yeah, you can't really sue these entities anymore... and they know it.

[@LoDart210]

Sorry for the horrible things you went though. Hopefully we can change this country.

[@mazzymoo8136]

As a Brit, hearing insurance jargon in the same sentence as healthcare just blows my brain.

[@magnusbruce4051]

The one thing I could related to is having every medical interaction in your life with the same healthcare provider. I guess some people go private for some things, especially dentistry, but it's not like I would chose a private hospital over my local NHS one in an emergency. Particularly because the nearest private hospital to me has no emergency department.

[@mazzymoo8136]

@@magnusbruce4051 I work in an Emergency Dept. I don't think there are any private EDs. 🤔 (There's a private minor injuries unit in London I believe) We're SO lucky to have the NHS, it might be a lumbering Behemoth at times, but I think it's a mark of a civilised society that treats its sick, whatever their means. In the words of Nye Bevan: "Illness is neither an indulgence for which people have to pay, nor an offence for which they should be penalised, but a misfortune, the cost of which should be shared by the community"💙

[@JonThomas92]

Don't you worry, the Tories will have your NHS privatized before you know it

[@vyndaio]

Bad news, your own government is looking at how the US runs their legalized extortion racket (healthcare) and they see the fat payday that results. They want that....badly. You're next.

[@RoonMian]

Well, from my German perspective healthcare does include some insurance jargon like the beautiful German word "Beitragsbemessungsgrenze" and our system isn't so bad (Current Mirror Mirror study ranks UK at number 4 out of 11 of the most developed countries, Germany is number 5).

[@BroRecon]

Time to reinvigorate trust busting

[@jonarecker]

And all of those politicians risk losing their sweet campaign finances and under the table perks?? No no.

[@ABCTest-bj3bd]

"Socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor" describes our current system. Almost all the past directors of the FTC have left to become lobbyists. Now, donors to both parties are trying to have the current directory, Lina Khan removed, because she doesn't want America to be controlled by monopolies. Lina Khan is one of the few FTC directors who will pursue the Antitrust acts to prevent manipulation of markets.

[@silversleeper1193]

It’s always so much fun telling patients who just had an in network hearing test that their UHC hearing aid benefits aren’t in network because they go through a third party program, but also that third party is still owned by UHC, but because I don’t work for “UHC Hearing Professionals”, they’ve decided they won’t pay me 🙃

[@tamarinmangold1414]

This is absolutely ludicrous! 😵‍💫🤦‍♀️🙈

[@MSte21]

Screwing over the patient and the healthcare professional in one go. Cunning in their evil.

[@Tactical_Turtwig]

I really sympathize with how disenchanted Jimothy increasingly becomes at every time UHC is happy or smiles.....and I don't even work in the medical field.

[@justahugenerd1278]

Lmfao yeah him being like “oh no” at the good news is so real

[@cphilips502]

He's going to end up as the volunteer administrator in Rural, the way he's going. He'll fit in with his looks.

[@Annie_Annie__]

Seriously. I got seriously ill several months ago, and the hospital screwed up the billing paperwork badly. So, we were trying to work with the hospital and get it sorted (somehow we never seemed to be talking to the right department that could fix it). All during that process the insurance was claiming that we were lying about the mistakes the hospital made just to get out of paying and stopping just short of calling us thieves and scammers (ironic, huh?) and threatening to send us to collections. This was only over the course of 4-6 weeks. They were threatening us with collections the day we got the first bill. We were thisclose to consulting a lawyer, when suddenly one day we got a bill that looked right and was several thousand dollars less than the first one they were trying to force us to pay. But during the course of that whole thing we were definitely tempted to just get on a payment plan and pay what they were asking. I was exhausted and still recovering from being so sick. My husband was exhausted because now he was working full time _and_ doing most of the household chores, including taking care of our kid. We just didn’t know how we could fight it. We felt like we were being screwed over deliberately and that there was nothing we could do about it because the entire system was designed to be against us. The system is _deliberately_ difficult or impossible to navigate. It _deliberately_ takes advantage of you when you’re at your weakest and most vulnerable; when you’re least likely to be able to advocate for yourself. It’s so easy to just curl up in to a ball, give up, and set up a plan to pay what they’re demanding,rather than keep fighting. And they know that, plus, they’re counting on it.

[@Brineytoes]

I see articles in the journals all the time about nurse and physician burnout. I have yet to see anything about the lack of ethics in this practice. Doc Glauc, you are the only one who has seen what’s happening and showing the world how odious it really is. Few people understand what a code of ethics even is wen it comes to business practices. Professional medical dilemmas are something else altogether. People need to learn what CONFLICT OF INTEREST IS. You are describing it to a T. Thank you.

[@orderfirst8907]

33 years medical office: claims and authorizations. I have worked with UHC and Optum for the past 10 years. Providers hate it. 2024 Optum takes over the Everett Clinic and the Polyclinic. I worked for Providence. I am a patient at EC. Their medical support staff has no idea how to get authorizations for services from Optum or UHC. I have to call and get the authorizations myself to make sure that my provider gets paid and the bill doesn't get passed on to me, because even though the provider is not supposed to bill me for making the mistake of not getting the prior authorization, I will still get billed. Yeah, insurance in the USA.

[@HisameArtwork]

must be nice to have such knowledge. how many americans know they have to do this?

[@kliether33]

It's funny how you say the provider's "mistake" and fault their support staff. Why isn't it the responsibility of UHC to pay for the flipping services that physicians deem necessary? Why does anyone have to call to ask mommy and daddy for permission to take care of people? This is a rigged system.

[@dianagibbs3550]

You shouldn't have to have been in a medical office or insurance agency in order to get healthcare! *cry*

[@safaiaryu12]

​@@HisameArtworkI certainly didn't... and I have been sick my whole damn life. Sigh.

[@MSte21]

@@HisameArtwork I bet it's virtually none.

[@obsessionmine]

Trapped within an exploitative system, watching horrors be perpetuated on the daily while his every effort to oppose them is drowned out by the sheer immensity of corporate greed. Jimothy is all of us 😔

[@KeeliaSilvis]

I love that Jimothy has learned to immediately react with "oh man ☹️😩" when there is "great news" from United.

[@kellisnow587]

"Optum Eats: half the salt and twice the red tape." Thank you for that line 😂

[@ianwells7916]

One thing I have learned in my 33 years of American life is that if I ever have an intrusive thought along the lines of "I could really screw people over quite a bit if I..." someone else will have had it too; and have the power and lack of scruples to act on it.

[@kimberadisme]

Hilarious in the skit! But as a dietitian I don't feel great about that 😥It's hard enough to get an appropriate diet ordered half of the time and more red tape is just ☠️

[@Tser]

This series is honestly such an important documentary.

[@MSte21]

Holy shit, that ending was absolutely chilling. Government-operated healthcare for all = Bad, but I guess Private Equity-owned healthcare for all = Good. Oh America.

[@maggie6152]

Who likes Banana Republics?! We do!

[@souldancersbyjennifer]

Capitalism is freedom they said...

[@Brineytoes]

Have we just been sold a bill of goods about government-operated healthcare being bad? I’d like to explore that.

[@JD-qq8fz]

Time to burn it dowwwwwwn. Our elected "representatives" do nothing of the sort.

[@And3aPet]

Cry 😢

[@The_Egg21]

Okay, genuine question. How the hell is UnitedHealth Group not a monopoly under the Sherman Antitrust Act. This is a prime example of vertical integration. I just looked it up, and there was a recent (October 2022) ruling that allowed UHG to acquire Change Healthcare, which is a healthcare data/claim system. Edit: The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 only really affects horizontal integration (buying up competitors). What I'm really referring to is the Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914, which addresses vertical integration anti-competitive mergers.

[@silphion5241]

The Republican Party, through idealism or lobbied-interest, have focused their efforts on the deregulation of all businesses, and thus cut the manpower and/or budget of consumer protection agencies like the FTC whenever possible, either by purse (Congressional control) or Administration (Republican Presidents). The result is that the FTC is unable to properly review these mergers and stop their far-reaching effects.

[@knockeledup]

The healthcare industry looooves vertical integration. I work in a specialty pharmacy so once I see what insurance you have I can already tell which specialty pharmacy your insurance is going to make you use.

[@LSgaming201]

So technically, lots of things are monopolies. Doordash, Uber, Alphabet, Amazon, Nestlé, UHG, Comcast, Cisco, etc. The reality is that Americans interact almost exclusively with monopolies. It's actually harder to *not* interact with a monopoly in America. Americans just don't see it because you have the "illusion of choice". The truth is that the government doesn't run America and arguably hasn't in a very long time. Most of the work *in* the government isn't even done by the government, it's done by contractors. Many of whom are near monopolies themselves. And it's going to get worse. Since every time there's an economic shock, the market consolidates even further. The last big one reduced major banks from 6 to 4. A large portion of the companies that now exist as pseudo monopolies, or in some cases true monopolies are now actually too large to be broken up without essentially de railing the entire economy. Companies like Alphabet are in so many different sectors and are so deeply entrenched that there is no real way to create competition or break them up. I don't know how this ends or where I was going with this, but that's how it is.

[@josephpa05]

The more i look into united healthcare it leaves me baffled i do not understand how these people are not in jail

[@pygmybugs]

Ooh, this one hits home. I'm an incomplete C5 quad, and my insurance company (HealthPartners) also owns my doctors and clinics (ParkNicollet). When I've had major changes in function out of the blue, I have to get a referral to an outside doc, because in my own system, I have to beg and plead for even imaging, and the answer is always "I dunno, you're probably fine. Lose some weight?" And as soon as I see anyone else, they go into a panic like "How did anyone let you go around in this condition?! We're getting you in ASAP. Don't fall, or ...take your chair on bumpy sidewalks. Or sneeze too hard."

[@thegreatwal1224]

I’m a pharmacy student and did a rotation at an Optum mail order pharmacy. One of about 10 or so in the nation. They filled 36,000-70,000 prescriptions a DAY. They also used an AI spot checked by a small group of 4 pharmacists to verify prescription accuracy. They will literally dissolve all the jobs possible.

[@Psychx_]

Ofc. they will. You don't need to pay wages to robots afterall.

[@BDHo98]

That sounds cool, actually. Did it work well?

[@teshn1229]

😳 the more you know

[@thegreatwal1224]

@@BDHo98 sure did. The place looked like Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory but instead of candy it was drugs. Everything was mega-efficient and 98% of the work was done by robots and conveyor belts. Chain pharmacies will cease to exist in the next decade or so - there will be one or two in a town to fill meds for acute conditions like antibiotics for infections. The rest will be mail order. It is cool in concept, just not cool because the company sucks. They make it very hard for patients to get their meds, destroy small businesses, and will also dissolve tens of thousands of jobs for pharmacists and technicians across the nation.

[@Tom-yb1wy]

​@@thegreatwal1224don't worry drug addicts will fuck those up in no time

[@robertbohannon4144]

Always remember, it’s not a bug, it’s a FEATURE! Working as designed!

[@jeanlanz2344]

Thank you for regularly exposing the grotesque aspects of American healthcare. You make it likely to bring about change. God bless you!

[@mikerouch416]

Hopefully it causes enough attention to force change.

[@NiteSaiya]

Everyone needs to grab the head of the nearest Republican to them and run their nose in these videos until the animals learn from their mistakes and feel enough shame to stop screwing us all over and make healthcare a priority in their dying party's platform. Lord knows they've got room for it! They don't have any other policies! They have no solutions! All they do is obstruct and grift and try to distract their idiot voters with non-issues like teaching history in schools or not interfering with the personal choices their students make by outing them to their parents. They have all the time and energy in the world to focus on literally anything ruining the damn country and their base just keeps letting them play-fight against made up bullshit.

[@dianeridley9804]

Poor Timothy/Jimothy/Bimothy... United Healthcare does make it hard to sleep at night. But I know you can do it: keep hope alive!

[@privacyvalued4134]

Bob Hope died in 2003.

[@elkepelka]

This is the first one that literally turned my stomach. My husband's neurologist recently sold her practice to Optum which I was not thrilled about especially when I saw it was owned by UHC...still trying to figure out how it is they are taking our insurance unless someday soon they won't.

[@jonbolton491]

When your interlocutor takes your worst case scenario as a proposal, you know you're properly screwed.

[@kimboosan]

Lost my GP of 15 years b/c she went to work for the insurance company as one of their staff physicians and since I don't have their insurance I can't get an appointment with her. (I don't blame her; running her own clinic was driving her to an early grave, mostly because of all the insurance red tape and fighting the ins. companies for money. She had to make the best choice for her and her family. It just was the worst choice for me.)

[@nyarparablepsis872]

I'm running a lovecraftian horror TTRPG campaign in which the final big bad is a malicious company that is controlled by an elder evil entity. There is much inspiration in these videos.

[@spideyphd]

🤣😅😄😀🙂🤔😟☹😵💀

[@Nighthunter006]

Honestly, that's a great opportunity to just nationalise United Healthcare and get a complete public healthcare system in one go.

[@SerenityForschen]

I actually think this is part of their long term plan. Take over so much that the US government has to use their infrastructure to create universal Healthcare.

[@jonc4403]

Yep, it's exactly what needs to happen. But not even our "socialists" are trying to go that far.

[@lillycarmichael8194]

Especially since "there's still competition." Imo same with anything the gov decides to bail out. It's that vital, is it now? Then publicly fund it instead of making taxpayers fuel CEO vacations

[@DungeonerHarold]

Things that keep me up at night - this just got added to the list

[@i-love-comountains3850]

If it's not the mystery symptoms keeping me up at night it's the fact that I can never afford to get any of them checked out and just have to wait till something becomes terminal then exit stage left

[@LeadTrumpet1]

The only subsidized Medicare plan my dad’s old job (retired) offered this year was a UHC Medicare Advantage Plan. He used to be able to have a credit that would subsidize a Part G Supplemental plan. He’s already at the point where he refuses to use Optum as his mail order pharmacy anymore. He’d rather pay more at a retail pharmacy than deal with Optum.

[@knockeledup]

I work for a specialty pharmacy at a university and regularly hear from patients that are required to fill through Optum Specialty how much they hate it.

[@GunniTheGunman]

I'm so grateful to have free healthcare in my country.

[@AlwaysLearning123]

I love every single episode..yet HATE it too. This one in particular sends chills to my bones.

[@shawnycoffman]

As someone who has several severe chronic conditions up to and including blood cancer, this terrifies and dismays me. I'm already irreversibly broken financially and have little to no energy to fight the daily financial and health battles that have become my normal. I'm only 56 and I feel like I'm already done for.

[@morganellius6191]

This is the work of a patriot. Thank you for shining a focused light on this kafakaesque hell, that we call US healthcare.

[@arshgoyal9110]

Two suggestions for ur upcoming videos: 1. Medical tourism 2. Urology, just wanna see his equation with nephrology Anyway, u r simply awesomeeee

[@Sibyle79]

This is terrifyingly true. As a medicaid patient, I can assure you that you will be making lots of money for someone while receiving health care that I would consider poor for my dog. It is abhorrent if you are human.

[@OgdenM]

What state do you live in? I'm also on medicaid and the care I get is extremely good. (Same with everyone else I know on it.) It's pretty much 2nd tier health insurance.. with 1st tier being the really good policies in the the market place. But, really in a way it's better because no co pays.

[@Sibyle79]

@@OgdenM I'm in southern Colorado

[@jonc4403]

All of the veterinarians are getting bought up too.

[@thewisepowerchair2369]

Yes, the insurance companies certainly need to be sorted out and reformed. Insurance companies should not be allowed to overturn the decision of a doctor who has prescribed a medication or treatment for a patient; should under no circumstances deny a prescription given by said doctor. I follow two people who are chronically ill and am impressed by how they can always get appointments with their doctors. In this regard your health system is good. As a commentator, I have been speaking about my efforts to get an appointment with my GP (doctor), here in the UK. It is nearly next to impossible. My American cousins, your insurance sucks, but the positive is you are able to see your doctor (I hope my understanding is correct). As someone who is chronically ill, I wish I could see mine on occasion.

[@rachelrainbowphoenix]

Unfortunately even a simple visit to the GP is so costly that most Americans would go bankrupt if they need to see their Doc more than the once a year " annual wellness check up" that insurance covers. Yeah we can get an appointment with the doc but mostly because everyone else is to scared to make an appointment with the doc.

[@saturnstorm85]

Lol yeah you can see the doctor but being able to afford to do so is a whole different matter. Oh and ok, you made it to the doctor appointment, paid all the costs associated with that? Better hope you can afford any testing or imaging! Prescription meds are their own special hell. If you have a severe chronic disease here, you need to accept you're going to eventually live in poverty.

[@brettonalwood4173]

At some point I'm going to need a video explaining why Americans should get health insurance at all.

[@jrmckim]

Sadly, many people without insurance suffer because they can't afford a doctor's visit but still make too much money for government insurance. Lower middle class people are affected the worst by this.

[@teshn1229]

​​@@jrmckimbut are you implying that the people who can afford and have insurance actually get some benefit from the insurance?

[@TheVillainOfTheYear]

Hospital utilization reviewer here. I did some napkin math. We did peer-to-peers with United Healthcare on 3.5% of my hospital's entire census, TODAY.

[@jo4n11]

Report it to the FTC.

[@gentlemandemon]

you see, it's a problem when the government covers healthcare costs through taxes, but it's perfectly fine for a single company to own every part of the supply chain for healthcare. amazing 🤦

[@goliathcleric]

The problem with these videos is they make me physically sick at the state of our healthcare industry... but I can't do anything about being sick because of it.... it's a cruel cycle.

[@homerman76]

Honestly, it's just an issue with US antitrust regulations in general. The government has become very bad about being convinced that Companies like Disney, Microsoft, United healthcare, etc. are perfectly fine to go around buying up their competition or other large parts of the market they're involved in, so much so that judges usually rule in favor of the mega corporations because of a "lack of evidence the action would harm the market." Meanwhile, when smaller businesses try to merge to stand a better chance against mega corporations the government raises a huge fuss, like when Staples tried to merge with Office Depot to try and better handle Walmart, Amazon and Best buy since they all were major competitors that sell office supplies, among other things. The reason the government made a big stink? because they were the only two big franchises left to be specifically labeled as "office supply stores," completely ignoring that that wouldn't have been their only source of competition for the items they sell. I can't remember the ultimate results, but they had to fight for it, unlike, say, Microsoft who only had to make up a few excuses for why the Activision Blizzard deal wouldn't impact the gaming market, despite how much of it Activision Blizzard owns. Though I can't just blame the US for this latter case, the EU and China didn't even really put up a fight, they basically just approved it without much thought, at least the UK is trying to get the deal modified before approving it so we don't just assume Microsoft won't screw over the market (not saying they will, just saying that assumptions like this is how companies like United healthcare came to dominate the medical industry, so you know.)

[@richardalbury]

Own the legislators and you own everything. Thanks, Citizens United, Federalist Society, whoever paid off Kavanaugh’s debt, etc. 🤦‍♂️

[@tira2145]

Do you think that the government should run the entire healthcare system?

[@Brineytoes]

@@tira2145 I think we ought to see what other countries do that is making their people love their health care system and feel sorry for us……

[@NiteSaiya]

​@@tira2145Governments run healthcare or pay insurance companies on behalf of citizens in 95% of the top 30 nations on healthcare. The only reason you think it doesn't work is because the GOP deliberately sabotages the government wherever it can and then tell you it's proof that government doesn't work and you're dumb enough to fall for it.

[@goodfortunetoyou]

@OcalaBrew Well, a couple observations from this month: In other counties, the users of healthcare aren't squished between providers and insurers. Copays, deductibles, coinsurance and hospital bills mostly don't exist. Basic and emergency services are handled seemlessly in the background. Additionally, whether they can get help isn't contingent on the status of their employment and wealth. In spite of all the above, they also spend less on services.

[@ChrisCaramia]

@@tira2145 Yes. Yes I do. Medicare and Medicaid aren't perfect, but they're a damned sight better than the current scheme.

[@wintergypsy]

People don't understand that whether you're getting screwed over by private insurance or screwed over by government insurance, YOU'RE STILL GETTING SCREWED OVER.

[@i-love-comountains3850]

Almost like we need to vote for people who will actually create good legislation about this stuff. What a concept

[@sharktrap267]

@@i-love-comountains3850vote? Politics? In a bi-party system?

[@raisins7777]

Of course, you have to pay the piper. But Americans are getting screwed both ways. Per capita in USD, for every $1 Canadians pay for healthcare, Americans pay $1.37 of taxpayer money and another $0.76 of private money. That's right, American privatized health care is overall 67% tax money and they pay 37% higher healthcare taxes than Canada. Or any other developed nation. American healthcare taxes are the *highest* in the world, all for no better health outcomes and a dystopian insurance nightmare.

[@emmahardy7611]

Thanks for speaking about this!

[@tazochaiguy]

At the very end when you said "United Healthcare for all", i literally shivered... 😨

[@eldestmillennial3136]

Man, breakfast suddenly isn't sitting well with me. I want to live in a civilized country.

[@i-love-comountains3850]

I genuinely got a headache and an eye twitch from this series😒 Someone has to do something about these execs.

[@sarahmason8154]

In hospital care management we have been seeing this for years. I don't understand why United keeps getting stronger.

[@chaous2000]

because there's nothing stopping them. And if there is they bribe their way around it.

[@jo4n11]

Wall Street thugs.

[@NancyDunbar-lr9mi]

I've finally sent requests to my senators and congressional representative to watch your 30 days of US Healthcare. Maybe other viewers will as well?

[@tinaperez7393]

That doesn't mean anything. They need enough of their voter base to threaten not to re elect them unless they vote this stuff out. And it needs to be to a majority of policymakers. As it is now, enough if not almost all of the policy maker's have been bought by the healthcare lobbies that only gain from there a arrangement.

[@justaguy5770]

I don't know if I should keep watching these, all the rage they inspire can't be good for me

[@LeXyStAr77]

This is probably the funniest and also scariest of all your UHC bits. As someone that spends my day, all day, doing prior authorization for nuclear stress test, echos, carotids, arterial, venous, abdominal ultrasounds, and sometimes cardiac caths and peripheral angios for an eight doctor private cardiology practice, I can truly say that united healthcare is the Worst to deal with,,,

[@YourForeverBox]

I used to think the IRS was evil and needed to be destroyed. Now I realize it’s really the insurance industry’s we should be eliminating.

[@i-love-comountains3850]

"You're goddamn right."

[@janharg1]

Actually, if the IRS was managed properly, had regulations that let them work effectively and laws allowing reasonable taxation of the wealthy, the IRS could completely transform this country by collecting appropriate taxes from every citizen.

[@josephengel2091]

@@janharg1, indeed, the FTC, IRS, and SEC, given the power and funding to do so, could (and, really, should) be powerful weapons to put the insurance industry and the finance industry, in general, in its proper (i.e. subordinate) place.

[@jamesfaucher4588]

Thanks for this series and your other videos Doc.

[@kerasrc6230]

And we've had that for years. Insurance company opens a chain of urgent care centres and gives copay discounts and waivers to - wait for it - patients who had health insurance with them. Bonus to the docs who wrote for meds available in their pharmacy and ordered tests available at their lab/imaging area. Then the docs also got health insurance with them. So now they had to pay more out of pocket to avoid using their insurance because their employer would likely know their diagnosis before they do. Fun times!

[@jeanlanz2344]

Evil. Time for the politicians to protect the common good from avaricious, greedy men and women.

[@declanmcardle]

This is the most frightening one so far...

[@jaylakeane1720]

Thank you for making this public knowledge. I just left a job where hospice was in hospital and the hospital admin was pressuring case management, patients and doctors to put patients in hospice - patients who did not want hospice. I started realizing that the US already has socialized health care.. it’s just privatized corporate socialized medicine. Choice is becoming an illusion unless people wake up and start having lawmakers seperate big equity groups from hospitals and doctors

[@Valkyrie9000]

The worst part of this series is I'm also rewatching ER from the beginning. All the same problems back then... An entire generation ago...

[@kevinbissinger]

The fun part is things are getting worse, not better!

[@simonesimona8317]

As a nurse who worked for United, I was just like Jimothy at my orientation, just realizing what I had gotten myself into. At that time, pre-pandemic, they bragged that they employed over 20K nurses. I'm sure that has quadrupled by now. Leading up to March 2020, we had so many changes and "updates" you can't tell me they didn't know something huge was coming. The whole thing is run like the military, very compartmentalized, chains of command, so no one knows what anyone else is doing. And it's GLOBAL, not just American healthcare. They are in your country too, under another name. Imagine my surprise when I found out Optum was United (before it was well known). In my orientation, there was a nurse who was going to be working in Brazil. There is a whole giant team of people working in India and other countries. United will likely be the way healthcare is delivered globally once they get that 1 World Order up and running 🏃‍♂️ 😅

[@nvincenth]

I'm loving all of these. Keep em coming

[@Andrew-pm5bg]

This is profoundly true. A recent study looked at doctor's billings in owned vs unowned scenarios. Despite supposed economy of scale, the owned practices billed more.

[@moodyjazz4049]

Poor Jimothy

[@Bbarbiexox]

He is speaking the Healthcare care gospel!

[@liav4102]

This gets to the bigger issue, companies and individuals with too much profit have to do something with it, so they buy more assets, so they make more profits. Because growth is king. I’m not certain but I think having a minimum percentage dividend payment mandated (kinda like we mandate for retirement accounts) might help prevent some of the endless consolidation.

[@darkjill2007]

United healthcare for all shook me to my core....

[@DeathMetalFatCat]

Jimothy will inadvertently be the reason that UH owns everything.

[@cherylcarlson3315]

After 39yrsnursing thought had nerves of steel... watching this as lay down to sleep and am shaking

[@vickiepatterson1748]

Jimothy, Timothy, Bimothy, Limothy, Crimothy, Nimothy...... RUN, Run for your life!!!😱

[@agent0422]

I, for one, support our Optum government. Not out of fear of their Optum titanium batons, but out of pure Optum gratitude

[@amylynn3821]

United was the one insurance I refused to take when I started my practice. Patients still don’t understand why I won’t take it.

[@faeriegal713]

My hospital no longer accepts UHC. You know an insurance company has to be The Worst when a safety net hospital that needs all the private insurance reimbursement possible cuts ties with one of the largest in the nation.

[@attilarischt2851]

I am starting to get afraid of what day 30 will be. What can be the penultimate horror of this series?

[@XRaeVision]

Just FYI, the penultimate episode would be on Day 29. penultimate = second to last

[@attilarischt2851]

@@XRaeVision *Checks google* Huh. Guess you learn something new every day

[@seasq]

These should've been released during October as a 31 days of horror series because I'm nauseated and horrified every day from these and want to move so badly.

[@TrevorAllenMD]

These are the first steps Umbrella Corporation took in Resident Evil before causing a zombie apocalypse. Hopefully Amazon can stop them by hiring even more doctors, they’ve already begun!

[@sallyintucson]

It was worse before “ObamaCare”. Insurance would only cover nine months of daily medication. You had to skip enough doses to survive the three months that weren’t covered. That was like that for ALL medical conditions.

[@i-love-comountains3850]

​@@sallyintucsonif we're not just going to call it the Affordable Care Act we might as well call it Romneycare because it literally was his idea.

[@sallyintucson]

@@i-love-comountains3850 He wasn’t President.

[@Fermentum]

Douglas Adams had an amazing solution for this in the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy series- Trillian: The insurance business is completely screwy now. You know they've reintroduced the death penalty for insurance company directors? Arthur: Really? No I didn't. For what offense? Trillian: What do you mean, offence? Arthur: I see.

[@dracorexion]

Can only imagine what would happen if United actually bought all the hospitals, thus creating a monopoly and putting forth the question of: Should the government file an anti-trust lawsuit against United, or should they just absorb United directly into medicare since it'd be much easier to enforce changes on one company than a thousand

[@silverstrings5569]

Get this man in congress.

[@paulh.9526]

In the mean time, in French veterinary medicine, the highest court (for that type of issue) just banned some large corporations from practicing until the majority of the controlling votes were held by the practitioners.

[@Zelmel]

Not gonna lie, these videos make me so happy I use a big HMO instead of traditional insurance. Still lots of issues but often less red tape and the quality of care is good. The cost is... less good.

[@I.m-Me]

We could really stand a bit of trustbusting these days...

[@leel9709]

I'm enjoying the name and shame do much. My daughter needed helmet therapy - we got the prior authorization and approval from United. Then we got the bill for the full amount (1500$). It's not huge, but I'm annoyed on principle. Our other employer sponsored option is BCBS (of another state), who one of the major hospital networks in our area stopped taking due to low reimbursements. We can't win.

[@bcd4562]

😢 I can only pray 🙏 that some lawmakers are watching these.

[@kzado1]

You think the lawmakers don’t know? They have been bought! Supreme Court justices too.

[@thundergato84]

They don't care. Most of them are bought off.

[@lynnestokes5931]

Lawmakers are counting on the income from United Health Care as consultants on regulatory and legislative matters. After all, Legislation that is voted into law ( as if Congress could ever stop acting like petulant three year olds not allowing anyone in their sandbox to play with their cool toys unless that person promises, swears an oath of total loyalty to that person - See Frank Underwood, "House of Cards") needs Regulations to spell out who what where when and how that legislation is implemented by the Agency responsible for administration and enforcement. THIS is where elected representatives make bank, by advising Health Care corporations. $$$$$

[@maggie6152]

Write to your government representatives about it.

[@Peppysgirl]

Canada's far from perfect, but everything I learn about US healthcare makes me wonder how any of you are still alive down there. Godspeed, friends

[@joshuawagner1149]

Horror has gripped my very soul and my wallet as I have just now learned that my Rx and Behavioral Health benefits are through Optum, which is a subsidiary of one of the worst insurance companies on the planet.

[@TheMadrac]

This is the scariest of the shorts so far and I'm not even living in the US.

[@Pearl-bx9wr]

I honestly can’t believe how much I under estimated the stress this topic would cause me😢. I was able to deal with the other topics okay but this one had my blood pressure rise up.

[@kahlandar21]

Poor jimothy

[@cindylewis3325]

So completely devious 😱

[@arandomguy3266]

Ok, one, obviously this is a nightmare. But, I now see Jimothy as a real name, and that sir, is just wrong.

[@JennyG.COW5]

"Half the Salt, and Double the Red tape!" Yep, that pretty much sums it up! 👍 Sadly, I learned that most physicians will only learn a few hours worth on Nutrition than they do for everything else. Not that learning drug interactions and their specific practice isn't important, just that studying Nutrition is Also important! Oh, and make sure that the Salt you intake has additional nutrients, like the Himalayan or Sea Salt. Also I've heard about edible Rock Salt. Regular table salt has been stripped of nutrients, so this is probably why so many studies were against salt. Natural salt is helpful, while table salt can create problems.

[@jamesfaucher4588]

Have you noticed that just about every American hates the health insurance industry, but no politician, who is supposed to be looking out for out best interest, has said practically nothing about healthcare in their campaigning or debates. Along with term limits, gerrymandering, inflation causing record corporate profits, and corruption, healthcare will just be a side issue to wokeness, trans people, and Ukraine.

[@Merumya]

wasnt bernie sanders in on it at his campaign that let to the biden election? not from the US, so my memory might be vague/wrong.

[@grmpEqweer]

As a trans (nonbinary) person, I am nowhere near the same level of threat to your health and sanity as privatized healthcare. Really, I'm just weird, is all.

[@julie982]

Congress does not say anything about healthcare because they have some of the best insurance money can buy and the government pays the lion share. And if is NOT UHC!

[@RaginKavu]

That's because you're on the land of the free! You're free to get manipulated by health insurance providers, free to not have enough money to treat a broken arm, if you don't want to! Who do politicians think they are, in order to dictate how you should or should not be treated by companies when you're most vulnerable? That would be a violation of your freedoms!

[@mmullins9]

MA senators markey and Warren talk about all the time

[@cyberius7042]

The ending might be the most chilling thing I've watched on youtube. . .

[@peacemaker63604]

The more I hear the more I want to introduce that whole rotten structure to Mr chippy and see how they like getting a several million dollar medical bill that their insurance won't cover

[@scottfitzgerald5423]

The truth is scarier than nightmares themselves.

[@Alex-xk9yd]

This feels me with such disgust for American health system. How is it even possible that developed country like US can be so twisted in regards to basic human rights like health? This is so sad

[@dantereinhardt6911]

That's the thing, they aren't a developed country. They just have enough money, weapons and influence that no one says otherwise.

[@kzado1]

Capitalism. It sucks. They buy senators. And Supreme Court justices.

[@liberalsockpuppet4772]

Health is a luxury in the US.

[@emperor8716]

its often the “developed” countries that abuse human rights. how do you think they got there in the first place?

[@johnchestnut5340]

Health-care is not a human right. Freedom is a human right. Being able to choose is a human right. Working to support yourself and your family is a human right. But health-care is not a right. Driving also is not a right. Rights come from God; rights are enforced and preserved by man through government and war.

[@eisenklad]

United Healthcare, maintaining the United aspect of USA

[@namenoname3284]

These skits have confirmed for me that america isnt a civilized country

[@wolfoftheages]

Considering how much I already hate UHC, I'd probably just "go study" in one of the countries that speak one of other languages that I know. Let the country implode on itself and then come back to help rebuild. Fun fact: you often get extra points towards your immigration/education applications if the country that you're going to doesn't have to teach you their language. Only thing that I would need to learn if I wanted to stay would be a trade so get employment employment secured as well.

[@MaddieHatter8181]

That flat “Okay” from Jimothy was too real 😅

[@danevon91]

Oh my GOD that last line was a THREAT 😂😭

[@lizard3755]

This was truly chilling

[@imperiwinkle1453]

I hope Jimothy/Timothy/Bimothy, one day gets to meet Feelings bro. He is definitely going to need it.

[@MyCleverHandle]

And I'm crying!