This Company Makes Billions By Rationing Your Health Care

Why are so many doctors being forced to take out payday loans to make ends meet? Trying to answer this question led us to a giant monopoly that's been slowly plundering every part of our health care system.
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[@Boycott-if4eg]

I was a pharmacist. I tried to find an ethical place to practice throughout the industry with no luck. I quit in 2020 in disgust. We don’t have healthcare in the USA, we have a Profitcare system for billionaires.

[@marissashantez6051]

We have Obamacare. I used to have great insurance until that came along. My best friend is a Dentist, and I remember him telling me how little the government pays. But we sure pay them enough in taxes. It could be worse. We could be like Canda where they are talking the elderly into assisted self deletion so they dont cost more money.

[@Boycott-if4eg]

@@marissashantez6051 No, no where is worse than the USA. If Covid proved nothing else, it proved that. We have about 4% of the global population yet had over 20% of the deaths. And that’s not counting the vaccine injuries.

[@ritatice6044]

@@marissashantez6051 Oh, FCS! Self deletion? What drugs are you on?

[@Lucretia916]

@@marissashantez6051genuinely couldn’t be worse. The fact that the USA has the resources it has while providing the healthcare it does is criminal, people willingly allow themselves to die rather than put their families into debt and we just treat it as business like normal

[@popps33]

Mmhm! This is why im migrating out of US.

[@zeitgeistx5239]

As an ER nurse I remembered a few years ago watching our homeless mentally ill patients slowly die with each successive ER visit from a lack of insulin and yet my fellow nurses mentally could not process that it didn't need to be this way. They got mad when I explained to them how insanely and uniquely dystopian America is because they've been spoon fed since infancy that America is the best country on earth and can't fathom another system or way of life. Showing them how the rest of the developed world lives and they instantly become defensive and mad. When you wait 6 hours in the ER, it's because the rich neighborhood NIMBYs keep calling 911 on the homeless mentally ill patient that we just discharged because of a lack of a social welfare net. Rich NIMBYs just keep calling 911 and cops just keep dumping them on us via ambulance and they get to be seen before you if you are not critically ill. When it gets freezing overnight, all the homeless come to the ER declaring that they want to harm themselves so they can be held for a psych eval so they have a warm bed to sleep in and food to eat. They know this and we know this. That's how sickening the system is.

[@brendakrieger7000]

That's awful and terrifying😱 Thank you for sharing your experience. I wish you well💜

[@erock.steady]

thank you. can you please clarify your point for the people who will read this and see the take-away being homeless people cheating the healthcare system? it's not what i hear you saying, but i know how people co-opt and repurpose damning information.

[@andywomack3414]

I seem to be having the unfortunate experience of interacting with clinic and hospital staff often over the past few years. These are among the finest human beings on the planet. I can't help but comment when first interacting on the sorry state of our medical care system. Maybe these great people are simply being nice, but whenever I point out the obvious flaws in the system to them, agreement has been nearly universal.

[@justcommenting4981]

So execute the homeless?

[@Praisethesunson]

​@@justcommenting4981landlords actually. Without landlord homeless people stop existing.

[@JLocke0113]

May these executives suffer every disease that they deny coverage for.

[@arabcadabra8863]

If only the cosmos worked that way. I think "western" religion was invented to protect the wealthy & powerful because, instead of holding them accountable now, they will be punished for their sins in the afterlife. How convenient for the wealthy & powerful.

[@modenam9046]

The Bible actually says worse will happen to them.

[@arabcadabra8863]

@@modenam9046 Which means absolutely nothing.

[@whazzat8015]

May the executives and shareholders simply stay on the HOLD they created for days beyond number.

[@thundergato84]

​@@modenam9046No. They must suffer in real life.

[@piku5637]

Things to decommodify; healthcare, housing, food, water, animals.

[@TheTroutyness]

Education too

[@dukeofrodtown1705]

And education! (Don't forget public transit, social services, the prison system etc.)

[@gallectee6032]

How about regular banking...

[@duke0fmarlborough]

And prison.

[@Oh_ELCapitan]

You're missing education, prison/detention system, public transportation systems, and social services

[@LiveInLove33]

How sick it is that a handful of people are making millions and billions from other people's pain and suffering, from homelessness, from hunger and thirst.

[@saturationstation1446]

thats just eurocentric culture aka monarchy. if we actually pay people a substantial amount of the profit they are generating then how are monarchs supposed to spend a billion dollars a year on parties and cocaine and human trafficking victims for them to torture and r4p3?

[@andywomack3414]

That's capitalism, baby! Be patient, eventually the Market Fairy will bless us all.

[@6thface]

It is easy to price gouge essentials when you gave them monopolized. Biden wants tto be FDR, but he still sucks the cock of the trusts. Trust busting must make a come back.

[@donedeal8385]

Ya, it's just capitalism. And they own the politicians too, so we can't vote our way out of it. And they own the supreme court, so we can't sue anyone. REVOLUTION.

[@zoer7338]

Pretty f**king sick. This 👆 idiotic mentality is part of the problem.

[@oafkad]

All sorts of people feared the government becoming the complete controller of their lives. While they threw tantrums for decades they let businesses become the government. Turns out that this is a much worse outcome.

[@dorinpopa6962]

A government at least on paper has to be accountable to the people it is elected by, assuming we are talking about a republic (even better would be an openly socialist republic). A company is accountable only to its shareholders and making them big profits. People that stand for no intervention in the markets and fear monger about government intervention are not for freedom the way most people understand freedom. They are for their own freedom to leech off of working people. They are for their freedom to enslave you. Their freedom and working people's freedom are mutually exclusive.

[@stevemora7845]

Exactly correct 👌

[@harmoniousrex]

Thank you!

[@dorinpopa6962]

@@russellpeacock what do you mean government control? If I am not mistaken in the past decades no North American or European country implemented any important nationalisation efforts. The opposite was true actually. Struggling countries were pushed to privatize even more under threats from the IMF.

[@harmoniousrex]

@@russellpeacock Where do you live, Vietnam? Here in the west, the opposite is objectively the case.

[@daniel25083]

I paid for Aetna health insurance and went to get a physical at CVS. I got charged full price because the CVS was “out of network.” CVS owns Aetna 🙃

[@AmandaTroutman]

wtaf

[@roscojenkins7451]

Oh it makes sense if you don't think about it

[@ilfaitfroid9739]

OMG - we used to have Aetna. They are so awful. They would automatically deny every claim we made (and we didn't make many, we've been fortunate to be relatively healthy) and I had to appeal every single time. It was so damned frustrating.

[@crysstoll1191]

CVS - bottom feeders...

[@p.f.h.2146]

​​​​@@crysstoll1191 Can confirm. I used to work for them through CVS Caremark. They are the lowest of the low! UHC is right behind them.

[@unconventionalideas5683]

United Healthcare needs to be hit with antitrust lawsuits.

[@farrahupson]

I wish more people understood how many of our problems are a result of monopolization.

[@ComradeRagdoll]

@@farrahupson And Capitalism in general!

[@rod4309]

@@ComradeRagdoll Corporatocracy

[@ComradeRagdoll]

@@rod4309 Corporatocracy is part of Capitalism due to Corporate Influence and the Ruling Class Owning and Controlling the Government

[@RocRizzo]

Forget anti-trust, get them under the RICO Act.

[@thoughtprism2963]

My father works for United Healthcare, and no matter how much evidence like this I present to him, he remains convinced that private insurance is somehow more efficient and effective than universal healthcare. It's unfortunate.

[@logans3365]

America is full of sheep :/

[@drmajalis1583]

He'll maybe realize it when he needs hospital care

[@FlakAttack0]

Your average right winger in the anglosphere: "social health care means death panels" Meanwhile insurance companies automatically drop a significant number of claims and operate their own panels deciding who lives and who dies.

[@YourCapybaraAmigo_17yrsago]

Talk to some vets. Nothing is perfect, but all the vets I've ever talked to rave about their VA healthcare. They know it can be improved in some ways, mainly in wait times for appointments, but by the same token, in most places it's pretty great care. The older vets I've talked to are happy that they have this as an option over standard Medicare.

[@whazzat8015]

@@YourCapybaraAmigo_17yrsago Keep the Goverment hands off the VA! By the way UHC is 5X the size of the next biggest "health care corporation

[@KingJester19]

As a medical billing specialist, I see firsthand the bullshit the insurance companies put on doctors and patients. Such a broken system that needs to change.

[@IhaytFukkingsocialmedia]

abuse and greed, same old ancient story ever since capitalism

[@TeaParty1776]

Govt-controlled med insurance and med. You "forgot" that.

[@charlescameron2732]

​@@IhaytFukkingsocialmediathanks to capitalism you could leave this comment...😂

[@amandastearns4204]

Former biller - found another job because of the toxic environment… First: the worse I saw by greedy insurance companies; denying subsequent EKG procedure and reads during the same visit. The read itself (at the time) was $23.00 reimbursement and the procedure was $52.00. The insurance company over night denied all secondary EKGs. Causing over 4,000 reads to deny in one week, for standard care. Someone comes in to the hospital with chest pains, run tests including a EKG, find irregular heart rhythm, provide medications, runs another EKG to evaluate - rinse and repeat until symptoms resolve. The insurance company wanted us to print each EKG read with date and time stamp to prove the hospital preformed the each EKG. The man power alone on both sides of the business would cost more to appeal the denials then to just pay in the first place. Second aspect: the CEO would receive up to a $45K quarterly bonus if the receivables improved one quarter over the other… none of the billers earned over $40k. Constantly “yelled” at from top down because the CEO want his bonus, none of us doing the work had the privilege of receiving. And to add salt to the wound, CEO got a fully covered health insurance plan, no premium, no co-pay, no deductibles, no co-insurance. While the bottom rung, making on average $35K a year, had to pay 100% of the premium (employer contributed nothing); the most ‘affordable’ was a high deductible plan (individual $2,800.00) cost $330 a month, and my in network was the hospital network I worked for. Just before I started, your onboarding paperwork included a Medicaid application… we worked for a 5 hospital network and they wanted to charge us for everything. Couldn’t even offer a free annual check up.

[@avasdv]

​@@IhaytFukkingsocialmediano, thanks to greed. Communist dictators can be just as exploitative. Innovators can be incentivized by for profit rewards under capitalism. It's greed you're challenging

[@texasgirlmomx2342]

I was a teacher for 20 yrs. When I started we had 5 different insurers to choose from, now we only have a single company, BCBS. Sooo how responsive do you think that insurance company is to it's customers when the company knows we are stuck. The state of TX decides the companies available FOR ALL TEACHERS IN EVERY SCHOOL DISTRICT. ITS INSANE. Our premiums go up yearly, yet we are told this is the only way to keep costs low. It's a SCAM!!

[@zeitgeistx5239]

Anarcho capitalism, anything else is just communism. Welcome to America, the only developed country not to have government runned healthcare.

[@reverendblind]

I work at a subsidiary leg of BCBS, but even as an underpaid low level employee I'm responsible for reviewing massive numbers of correspondences for the company at large (even high level legal and executive correspondences). However bad your experiences were with BCBS, or your perceptions of them are, it's much, MUCH worse than just a scam. It's a legalized, legitimized protection racket fully aware that what's in the best interests of claimants is diametrically opposed to what's in the best interests of their own profits.

[@kevlar7669]

BCBS has provided excellent quality and accessibility over the past 35 or so years. Biggest threat to me is Government trying to Socialize my Healthcare Dollars.

[@texasgirlmomx2342]

@@kevlar7669 Ooookay 🤦💅 I'm going to "say" this sloooowly. Monopolies... ARE... BAD‼️ SMMFH Competition counteracts monopolies. #HelloShermanAct 👋 It lowers costs and improves a product/service via innovation and customer demand. Got it?!?🤦#Econ101 👍 Teachers don't get a "vote" on which companies are available. Teachers can't leave their plans and have ZERO input on the plan features and benefits. Teachers, despite having ZERO control, still foot a LARGE part of the premium costs. Teachers are denied raises to our SALARY BECAUSE... INSURANCE PREMIUMS. 😡🤬 A half dozen humans in Austin,TX decide for HUNDREDS of thousands of humans their entire access to healthcare, and YOU , little trollie, jumped into my post to tell me some FK SH!T about "socialized healthcare" F.O.H!! Sheeesshh... Education has failed SO MANY. And I swear the rich love that fact. 🤦🤢

[@6thface]

Vote blue or die too.

[@TheEnemiesEnemy]

I work for an insurance company and a pharmacy so I see the full spectrum. #1 everything in this video is accurate and I agree with. The only thing to add is the rising medication costs. Insurance companies won’t cover all medications because the drug industry is just as evil and greedy. So it’s the whole damn system that’s screwed. From insurers to drug makers to hospitals. Everyone is robbing everyone at the expense of healthcare professionals, small businesses, and the public

[@reverendblind]

Also in the insurance industry here, and I second this comment. I wouldn't even say the insurance companies and pharmaceuticals are gouging each other, more that they have a symbiotic relationship where drugs being more expensive is an excuse to raise premiums, and higher premiums make a bigger pool of money to get away with charging more for drugs. It's in both industry's best financial interests to continually raise all prices indefinitely.

[@TheEnemiesEnemy]

@@reverendblind oh yea for sure they have deals behind closed doors. But when they’re in front of congress they like to blame each other on rising costs. They know the public wont know better. They make the health system complicated so that educating the public becomes impossible. No public outcry no regulation.

[@SkySong6161]

As someone in pharma (biopharma specifically) it's so, so much worse. I don't work in R&D, so by the time I hear about a potential product launch, it's basically a done deal and just needs additional testing. I don't hear about the numerous tried-it-and-it-didn't-work projects, I hear about the ones where the company has gotten to picking-baby-names-and-decorating-the-nursery stage. And so many of those get patented/copyrights, and then never released to markets for really asinine reasons: they might have a single competitor that got to market first - sometimes by months - and the entire launch is scrapped because they don't want to compete, a new law went into place that won't let the company charge a 1000% markup, it affects a part of the world or population that was determined to not have enough money to bother serving. Mind, the heavy lifting for these are done. They've been researched. They're damn near ready to go and just need to get through approval processes in the markets they're intended for. These were *massive* investments, and rather than make slightly less money than they wanted, these medicines are withheld entirely. There were six of them back in 2022 that I knew of from my company alone. The company is shifting from R&D to just buying up smaller companies that have portfolios they like. First time in a really long time any major company got hit with an anti-monopoly sting, and you would not *believe* the whinging about it.

[@elaine8477]

PHysician here--the middle people selling to pharmacies have had profits increase thousands of percentage points. Insurers and physicians are in an adverse relationship with some insurers hiring multi billion dollar vaccuum cleaner auditors who harass the heck out of physicians offices escalating costs. Many residents owe 1/2 million dollars in student loans and have trouble with the $8000/month payment for student loans.

[@whazzat8015]

@@elaine8477 Careful there, they may stop buying you lunch.

[@UnKnown-xs7jt]

The biggest problem: an insurance company that makes money for stock holders by not providing patients health care & not paying physicians.😢

[@whazzat8015]

money that Insurance companies don't pay out they get to keep.

[@dominicfucinari1942]

Which is why the rest of the 1st world strictly classifies health care as public commons. Corporatizing it is a conflict of interest in itself.

[@whazzat8015]

@@dominicfucinari1942 Hey, according to the SCOTUS , corporations are people ,too.

[@carolecoffman4276]

In VA BCBS was private and nonprofit until 1996 I think, if my memory serves me right.. So many things changed after that in the way things were perceived..

[@TeaParty1776]

Then why do they have customers?

[@stephenmyers6291]

I worked in a call center for United Healthcare. It was the hardest job I had ever done. Hearing the pain and desperation in people, and knowing the system would do nothing for them.

[@idnyftw]

I'm one of the guys who train new agents on the bpo side of things. It's one of the reasons why I get a little sad whenever I'm assigned a healthcare class...

[@angelachouinard4581]

I am glad to see you used the past tense. I hope what you do now is not so soul destroying.

[@lindanorris2455]

AND THEN YOU HAVE THE HOSPITALS BILLING CENTERS - EMBEZZELING!

[@pgcfriend]

One of my friends worked for them for many years. She retired years ago, but told me to never get their insurance. I'm sure it's worse now.

[@gloriagehring8676]

I’m right there with you, but Workers Comp is worse!

[@maxfieldstanton4541]

Now that I'm done screaming... I work in a pharmacy. I'm a technician, I see this every day. Here's a fun example of how f🤬🤬🤬ed up this s🤬🤬t is; methadone is used to treat opioid withdrawal and to help people with opioid dependency (I won't even go into that one, you all know about it)...but if you write a scrip to treat the addiction insurance will deny it 90% of the time...so...you have to write it to treat pain. Sildenifil is used to treat pulmonary hypertension, but if the scrip is written to treat PHT the insurance will mandate Revatio which, if they pay (because they can mandate a brand name and still deny paying it) it will cost a patient at least $300, but if you write it for ED they will pay for it with maybe a $5 oop cost. I used to handle synagis for premature infants, you know so they can breathe (silly thing for babies to want, right?) and I would have to tell parents of twins that one twin would be covered and the other would be denied and and need a PA (prior authorization...)...all the time. So, let me translate that last one for you; one baby gets to live now the other...has to wait for an adjudicator to decide if it's profitable for it to live. Even though NOTHING BUT THE NAMES WERE DIFFERENT! FUCK OUR FOR PROFIT ADDICTION SYSTEM!!

[@emmahilburn1732]

That's insane that they'll be like "Oh PHT is life-threatening, but nah we'll deny it." Then when someone can't get it up they're like "Time to do my job." And then with the sick baby thing, that's just horrid that these companies are doing that.

[@MichaelBehrnsMiller]

I am a 17 year cancer survivor. UHC denied my doctor's request for iron infusion when I was anemic. I am sure I am not the only one. I can't stand it that these greedy corporate bastards dictate our healthcare more than our doctors.

[@lewisjulian0830]

I understand all to well. I work as a nurse and now believe that I have cancer. Working full time and pay over $700.00 month. Doctor ordered a xray for my chest. Insurance company denied it. Finally I got a lawyer for help. Been a nurse for almost 2 decades. No almost 58 years and this system is terrible. Had blue cross for years paying out of pocket over $1500 a month. January of this year, wanted to raise it another $275.00 a month which cost me about 35% of monthly salary.

[@cherylcampbell7495]

I just started peptide collagen with bovine from my health food store. Instant energy. I don’t eat meat,or chicken or pork. Keto diet for now. I was endemic as a child. Raisins have too many carbs for me. Hate liver 😂😂

[@do9138]

Capitalism sucks, and it certainly has no place in healthcare or education.

[@TeaParty1776]

Move to a primitive tribal culture. They dont have med insurance. Britains NHS has finally admitted it has serious problems. French socialized med does not pay for med for very old people because they are retired, unproductive and dont pay taxes. You are alive because of the corporate "greed" that makes virtually all that you use every day. For virtually all of mans 300K year existence, before corporations, average mortality was late teens to 30 years. Govt controls virtually the entire economy. You evade long-range, indirect, unintended effects of govt controls.

[@MichaelBehrnsMiller]

@@TeaParty1776 we can all just become libertarians and learn to trade in gold and shave off a bit to game the system eh my friend lolzzz

[@AbrasiveTea]

lol I work for Optum in the Prior Authorization Department. Someone was told in my specific department that they were told that we don’t make money for the company and I told them no our job is to deny medications. We save the company money by creating obstacles and making it hard to get medication that are more expensive. Fun fact our insurance is terrible and we don’t have to outsource the healthcare. This video is so spot on and the most radicalizing force for me is working for Optum

[@jamesf.189]

So you get paid to try and help kill people by denying them medication? Wow lmao

[@stevemora7845]

I would start looking for another job. 😉

[@theprecipiceofreason]

As someone who reviews denials myself (as a third party) there seems to be a ridiculous amount of plan terminations that coincide with the first diagnosis for serious illness. Someone has their insuance for years, gets a complex (and expensive) diagnosis and suddenly they are retroterminated to the day or month before that diagnosis appeared. You seein this pattern too?

[@AbrasiveTea]

@@stevemora7845 well considering the average wage where I live is less than what I get paid it can’t be helped. Housing has killed most of my job search plans as the median wage is 37k and my rent is $1600 a month. I could look for different housing but my rent is below the average for the number of bedrooms I have.

[@AbrasiveTea]

@@theprecipiceofreason I am not seeing that but I am not in the healthcare PAs only the medication PAs. I have heard of this happening though even with people that work at Optum. Then again that would be anecdotal and would not be willing to say firmly it is a trend.

[@dharmverma7595]

As a solo practicing physician, I am so glad you are pointing out the disgusting monopoly of medical insurance companies in healthcare. I am so tired of their dictatorship that I am quitting it now . If I was not getting social security, I wouldn’t have enough money from my practice to pay for living expenses.

[@docinparadise]

As an MD I can attest to this. I no longer accept HMOs because it costs more to attempt to collect anything from them than I can collect. I now charge $35 cash instead and am far better off. Medicare may not pay well, but it pays. I am trying to change to an all cash $35 office visit system, but Medicare patients are reluctant because they pay their premiums and expect their insurance to pay their bills. HMO or PPO patients usually have a copay higher than the $35 I charge them, so they are happy. Our system is a mess when a doctor earns less than a manicurist.

[@do9138]

Denying people care because you don't like their insurance doesn't fit in with "first do no harm," does it?

[@docinparadise]

@@do9138 you have a twisted understanding of the Hippocratic Oath. When we say that the aim of our practice should be to do no harm, what we actually mean is that the benefits of the intervention should significantly outweigh the burdens, and that our interventions should aim at a patient's wholeness or health. I believe healthcare is a human right. I don’t believe I am a slave who should not be compensated. If a patient has insurance that I feel is more trouble than it’s worth, there are other doctors who will accept that insurance. Unless you have personally dealt with the provider side of the millions of different policies out there, you can’t reasonably offer an informed opinion, now can you? You can, however, half read a comment and have a knee jerk reaction that is neither accurate, nor helpful.

[@do9138]

@@docinparadise Reply to the right person, Dr. Numbnuts. I didn't say anything about the Hypocrytic oath. But you're right. That's why we need nationalized medicine so YOUR profits don't prevent people from staying alive. An oath shouldn't be necessary to demonstrate EMPATHY. Doctors with no empathy shouldn't be practicing medicine. Go sell stocks.

[@do9138]

@@docinparadise In other words, "First do no harm unless you can't profit enough from helping." Medicine is ALL about money. And before you ask if I would work for free, I almost do. I teach.

[@76rjackson]

$35 is a bargain! You have sacrificed considerably to create an efficient system. And because you aren't an ER doc, you aren't legally obligated to see patients but tbh I didn't see anything that indicated you were reluctant to do so. In fact, only charging $35 is quite the opposite. And couldn't your medicare patients apply the office visit to their out of pocket maximum?

[@mgreg8134]

Just another reason to support universal healthcare.

[@privacyvalued4134]

UnitedHealthcare _is_ universal. It's got both the vertical and horizontal monopoly. And they universally care about your money's health.

[@TeaParty1776]

Tell us about the success of socialism.

[@mgreg8134]

@@TeaParty1776 You don't even know what socialism is. There is a direct correlation between universal health care and overall wellness in a society. Look at Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Greenland, Iceland and many other countries that have universal healthcare. They live longer and don't go bankrupt due to illness and a health care system that robs them.

[@DuckTheFinn]

​@@TeaParty1776 Feudalism to space in about 50 years, with housing for all and better nutrition than americans (declassified study done by CIA during cold war). Wiped out germany in WW2. Developed like crazy despite pressure from war, famine, and tsarist terror. And now its your turn to say how there was famine for a couple of years and how socialism wasn't 100% perfect from day 1, while you say how capitalism isn't perfect. Then I ask you to compare the two systems objectively, and take into account all the deaths, poverty and wars caused by capitalism. Then you say "whataboutism".

[@arguseyed6852]

Why isn't the news media treating this as the number one scandal in America?

[@logans3365]

Because the news is also owned by corporations, along with our government and in turn us

[@dedetudor.]

I don't hardly watch them anymore at all so I would have missed it if they did. The CBS Nora O'Donnell had a piece on the FDA approved LAB GROWN CELL BASED chicken. 🤷 healthy .. Omg.

[@logans3365]

@@dedetudor. you mean soy covered in artificial blood? 🤣 Super healthy lol

[@cryptbeast3222]

@@dedetudor. It's just a muscle cell culture grown in harvested plasma. Not nearly as unnatural as you make it out to be. It's the same way cell cultures have been grown and maintained for medical research for over 50 years.

[@dedetudor.]

@@cryptbeast3222 oh go on. Not natural at ALL I don't care how long the nut cases have been monkeying around with it. Vomit. We know the information. I've FOIA'd it.

[@stephm.3407]

It should be illegal for ANY insurance companies to be publicly held/traded. I saw McKinsey mentioned in the article you showed briefly, have you done a deep dive into them? I would really like to understand more about how McKinsey drives so much that is wrong with our country.

[@arabcadabra8863]

They are the lobbying arm of the ruling elite. A rich man's union if you will. That's pretty much it.

[@sergegainsbourgii1852]

They're shady AF. Their reports have such good insights because they also provide legal & business strategy services to these kinds of parasitic corporations.

[@fmbbeachbum8163]

Insurance should only be a non-profit, that's all insurance. Healthcare should be non-profit.

[@michaeld4861]

I work for one of these monster health insurance companies and I see cancer patients denied claims all the time citing "not medically necessary" for radiation treatment. $100,000 bills for 8 months of treatments denied so the doctor/facility is just screwed. It's sickening. These companies are purposefully as inefficient as possible too cause it helps their bottom line if nobody can figure out how to appeal and if all the rules for every plan are as different and indecipherable as possible. And the appeal timeframe for the plans I see is only 6 months from the date of service and our timeframe for responding is literally 2 months and we go over that all the time, sometimes just never responding.

[@_Chessa_]

What a disgusting practice. And it’s now illegal to not have health insurance.. at this point why should anyone continue living when they suffer this much? I’d rather end it myself in a painless quick way… I’m sad to learn that there are many near me that have already done this but this world is disgusting. It makes sense why people are doing it.

[@sergegainsbourgii1852]

How can someone learn the best way(s) to appeal? What are good resources that help people navigate this mess? Thanks for your perspective.

[@do9138]

The doctor? I live in Vegas. There are no private practices. It's all healthcare corporations, and they hike prices to increase their profits. I don't cry when they aren't paid.

[@do9138]

@@sergegainsbourgii1852 Don't bother. The consumer never wins those appeals.

[@amandastearns4204]

@@sergegainsbourgii1852 As a former biller; appealing = being annoying to the insurance company… polite, but annoying. Each carrier usually starts with 3 basic plans: commercial (through your job) Medicare advantage plan (Medicare ran by a private company ‘promising’ more coverage at ‘a little’ extra premium) and Medicaid Managed plan. Commercial is then broken up by HMO, High Deductible, and a PPO (to the subscriber: PPO is a combo of HMO and HD.) Medicaid Plan are broken down too based on income and family size: Medicaid Managed Care, Child Health Plus and Family Health Plus. Medicare can go wild depending on what add ons one picks. Medicare does not offer dental and vision. A private Medicare Advantage plan does, for a price. All in all, each plan has its own contract, with no consistencies, and the private company can change the rules month over month. So, knowing exactly what to do to appeal is impossible to know. Be annoying, but polite, and hope you speak to someone with empathy to tell you exactly what to do - personal experience, the workers for the insurance company are sickened by the system too.

[@axShinsei]

As an RN I consider an oath to the patient the very backbone of care. I do not work as a nurse currently because I can't and won't ethically, morally or professionally be part of a system that does not allow for patient centered care. Thank you to all who puts this video together and out into the world!

[@mushymass9716]

This is such an important comment, because it points towards the reality that turning the healthcare system into a for-profit system means that healthcare professionals who take their responsibility towards their patients seriously will inevitably leave the profession in large numbers as behaving ethically is made impossible. This ends up leading to the healthcare system in the USA being filled with individuals that don't really care about morals or providing good care, as the individuals who ARE decent at what they do and who DO feel called to do that work are either burned out or pushed out. (No judgement, necessarily, on individual people who go into Healthcare because they need money btw. It is what it is, I'm just pointing out the larger pattern.)

[@MiaTheodoratus]

Thanks for adding your real life experience

[@tarik158]

I will vote for anyone that is for socialized healthcare and isn’t afraid to say it. Every time someone brings up how much it would cost for a government run program they somehow never compare that cost to how much Americans are paying companies like UnitedHealthcare. I am certain number is far higher than what we’d pay if it was a right.

[@nighteule]

Too bad both US parties will never do that

[@candycane3739]

Exactly!!! You get it. Who in their right mind would *prefer* to pay hundreds of dollars a month just to have to deal with co-pays, deductibles and at the end of the day may not even be covered for it, vs just having to pay more taxes? I think the lobbying is one of the biggest problems too. Literal political bribery, extremely undemocratic. I feel like if that was cut down on there would be so much less corruption, and I feel like we'd already have better and more accessible healthcare.

[@arabcadabra8863]

@@candycane3739 Agreed. Lobbying is just a euphemism for bribery.

[@milycome]

Socialized healthcare is NOT government run health care. It's government PAID FOR health care.

[@djack915]

Yea , the military gets un questioned $$$ and we're NOT @ WAR !

[@jerryjones7293]

Medical providers frac the assets of all working-class Americans. Health care is an oxymoron. The care for money is the motivation.

[@Hx3ney]

We are the power cells 🔋

[@ilfaitfroid9739]

Eliminate the third party parasite insurers and you'll be spending a lot less on healthcare

[@jonathangray1623]

healthcare exists so that money can be made.

[@FaithfulofUltramar]

In America, its Wealthcare and its not meant to make anyone other than the rich healthy.....healthily rich.

[@UXtatic]

Money Care program.

[@QueenKitty08]

My father didn't have insurance and was dealing with bad back problems. I got him signed up for Medicaid through the government and he finally went to get a checkup. Stage 4 lung cancer, and it was only a couple months until he died. My dad didn't really understand Medicaid and I couldn't really talk to him about it because the cancer had spread to his brain. He was in the hospital and he had called my mom and asked her how much some of the things we're going to cost and she tried to explain it's free it'll be fine, but he was worried about it. And it's horrifying to think that at the end of his life, when he was trapped in the hospital during covid protocol, he was worried about putting us in debt. Nobody should have to feel that way during a medical emergency they can't control. I never in my life wished more that we lived somewhere that had a better health care system. I got to see him three times before he passed away, he spent most of that time in the hospital, and he didn't have the peace of mind that he was entitled to in almost every other country.

[@beverlyho9559]

I'm so sorry to hear about what your dear father went through with cancer and his back. Our messed up health care system. I am also sorry for your loss. I can so relate. I have stage 3 endometrial cancer and what my doctor has been through to get me treatment. At this moment, I have no treatment as UHC is denying me what I need. When I heard about their "ethos" and how at the heart they put the patient first, it makes me nauseous. These companies could care less.

[@QueenKitty08]

@@beverlyho9559 thank you for the condolences and I'm so sorry to hear about your plight. I wish we could change the healthcare system faster so we could save more people. UHC seems horrible. I don't have much useful advice but if you are able, try to apply for the Medicaid in your state, you can have both insurances in some cases. They may cover something UHC will not. While I hate our system, Medicaid did at least step up and pay for my dad. I truly hope you are able to get the care you need and deserve. I'll be thinking of you. :)

[@joshcruzat3112]

At this point we just need to [redacted] these people.

[@arenomusic]

Mhm I could go for some good ol American [redacted] right about now

[@Novastar.SaberCombat]

Like you have any *authority*. 💪😎✌️

[@definitelyhuman3512]

​@@Novastar.SaberCombatI mean, we get the second amendment too...

[@jaredhebert942]

I get a lot of these mooks needs to be removed from their positions and/or reminded of how "the customer is always right (or the customer needs to have their needs properly met)", but that sounds like a step far just from implications of [un-alive-ing] - can't afford to antagonize a good or well-meaning cause

[@hegyak]

Maby they "Accidently" fall onto some bullets. Or just happen to fall backwards onto an Axe.

[@Seamussor]

I was studying pharmacy in school a few years ago. In the second year, when beginning a lot of the legal stuff surrounding the field, almost all of the content of this video was made known to me. Ironically, all this came after courses on the ethics of healthcare, which this runs absolutely counter to. It seems this info is a litmus test to see who would be complicit in continuing this mess. I failed.

[@whazzat8015]

Who still uses litmus?

[@Johan_S4]

​@@whazzat8015it's just an example

[@J-manli]

Reminds me of how psychology majors studying to help people with addiction are instead hired by companies with the express intent of making their products more addicting.

[@DBRising]

@@whazzat8015Chemically, basically every pool service company.

[@do9138]

It's like having an ethics course in the business department. What a joke.

[@jaesdarkness]

I once was having a cardio episode and went to the front desk at one of the branches of my local monopoly "health" "care" "provider" to see if I could get some help. I wasn't sure if I was gonna die or not, and told the receptionist that I needed to get looked at ASAP. So, there I am with my chest on fire and my left arm all cold, numb, and tingly and this person is shoving a ream of forms on a clipboard at me. I kept telling her, "look, I need help right now, I'll fill out your forms soon as I ain't trying to die." Went back and forth three or four times, and then three rent-a-cops and two actual cops showed up because "there was a disturbance." Told the cops the same thing, and they told me I needed to sit down and fill out the forms. At gunpoint, I might add. I turned around and staggered out, fortunately I was able to get to a nearby close friend's house who gave me a tranq, and it turned out to not be a heart attack just some severe heat and stress induced arrhythmia. The cops then harassed me at my actual home, said it was their third attempt to do a Wellbeing checkup when I finally was able to be home and answer the door for them. I could have died on the floor and they'd only be inconvenienced by the fact there was a dead body in the lobby, likely wondering who was gonna pay to get the corpse disposed of. We got no health care in the states. We got a bunch of parasites gonna help themselves to your last dollar because it's your munny or your life. Nowadays, I stay the hell away from anything that might somehow force me into their clutches. Cheaper to pay for body disposal than it is to keep "living," like as if this could be called a "life," anyways.

[@kjammy808]

We need to put our differences aside and come together and stage a nation wide walkout and demand the government take over the nation’s healthcare system

[@j.l.stanford1754]

I don't think the government would be any better. They're working hand in hand with lobbyists rn. Not very inspiring

[@arabcadabra8863]

​@@j.l.stanford1754 True, you don't think. You seem to be nay saying for the purpose of nay saying since you didn't even attempt to offer an alternative. The lobbyists are the ones preventing the government run system and it would be those very lobbyist who would need to be removed for the system to change. The VA is a government run system that vets generally like. Other governments around the world also have public healthcare systems that have been proven to be better. Japan, for instance or Great Britain before the Tory neoliberals.

[@j.l.stanford1754]

@@arabcadabra8863 I'd rather a collectivized but decentralized approach. I've worked at the VA. Trust me. It's not good

[@arabcadabra8863]

@@j.l.stanford1754 Cool. Can you explain what you mean by collectivized, but decentralized? Is their any kind of existing model you are referencing? Can you maybe explain what is not good about the VA & how it can be better? It's nothing personal, but why would I trust ANY random commenter on the internet? "Trust me" is not an argument, but a command. Those two words throw up a huge red flag - and not the good kind ;)

[@j.l.stanford1754]

@@arabcadabra8863 what I mean by decentralized and collectivized is the type of socialism practiced by the makhnovists of Ukraine or the Catalonians during the Spanish Civil War. I see that a big problem in most industries is how they are set up to benefit those at the very highest levels of of that industry. Collectivization can correct that problem and provide a more equitable service for all those involved. However, I think having all of these collectivized industries being run from the top down (like the bureaucracies of the ussr) invites the very same issues of privately run businesses. Tldr: state capitalism is as bad as normal capitalism, grassroots collective ownership may a better solution.

[@digiryde]

At this point in the US, one must simply accept that the Health care system is a con game.

[@marstoes]

My family is living this right now. With united. Thank you for your deep dive and reporting on this.

[@fetlock]

I used to be the person you called when your insurance didn't cover your prescription. I can tell you they will pay hundreds of "designated get-yelled-at" customer service positions to avoid answering for it.

[@richchappell]

I've been fairly fortunate, but I do have a story from last month. My doctor wanted me to get an MRI on my cervical spine to see if we can figure out what's causing my shoulder pain. At the same time, he also sent me for physical therapy. This was late June, and I had to reschedule my MRI due to not having authorization yet. On July 17, I received a letter from United that was dated July 10. It told me that I had until July 15 (2 days ago) to provide a bunch of information to justify the MRI. Now, I think all of that information should have been part of the original order from my doctor's office anyway, but that's a different story. A week or so later, I received another letter from United, dated July 18, denying coverage for an MRI because they deemed it "not medically necessary". Since then, my doctor's office resubmitted, and the MRI is now covered. My personal take on the issue is that my DOCTOR is the one who should determine whether something is medically necessary for me, not the insurance company. The insurance company's only job should be paying for it.

[@AlexandraNevermind]

I had an orthopedic specialist visit for a similar issue with shoulder pain and needed an MRI. The scheduling associate said that it was good that I had real medicare instead of a medicare advantage HMO. I had not really thought about why she mentioned that until I read your comment comment.

[@VigilantnotMilitant]

Similar but different healthcare under the dictatorship-of-the-rich story. I got denied in April of this year. I told the hospital that I had Obamacare Medicaid expansion insurance -- Molina. The hospital said no you dont and we called Molina to prove it. So I called Molina and Molina workers said yep you're good you have insurance. I called the hospital conglomerate's financial billing department worker and she still didn't believe. This went on for 6 weeks before I got the bright idea to conference call the hospital conglomerate Guthrie and Molina. Guthrie finance worker and Molina worker talked for 45 minutes. They both apologized to me for the "error." Happy ending? Got my emergency room visit paid for? Nope. Conclusion: Despite reassurances from Guthrie and Molina, I still receive weekly texts from Guthrie threatening me to pay up. Smh. I wonder when my credit will take a hit. This is healthcare in America under capitalism. An unrelenting gauntlet of needless pain and suffering to keep the billionaires starting wars and destroying our planet in power. Enough is enough

[@Craxin01]

Greed destroys everything.

[@liberty-matrix]

"If 40 Years of consolidation has taught us anything about health insurance, it's that big is usually bad." ~More Perfect Union

[@Madronaxyz]

Nixon got the HMO legislation passed to help his friend Henry Kaiser make a lot of money. During my fellowship, I moonlighted at a medical practice in town. The group practice decided to sign up with group health, not the group health of the West Coast but the group health that was founded in Minneapolis. The group I was moonlighting for showed me the contract that group health wanted them to sign. The contract clearly stated that group health would pay them, say $50 per hour, but would hold the back $30 of that 50 until the end of the fiscal year. The doctors would only get the other other 30 if group health made high enough profit. There was no provision in the contract for the doctors group to audit group health's profits to see if group health was being honest about their profits being too low. I refused to sign. At the end of the year group health claimed their profits were too low to pay the promised amount. So the doctors I worked for got screwed. Especially since they were paying contract doctors like me more than the $20 per hour that they received from group health.

[@BillHallProductions]

I got state employee health insurance this year and it's like having health care for the first time Everything is 25 bucks at most

[@DisposableSupervillainHenchman]

Where do you work?

[@BillHallProductions]

@@DisposableSupervillainHenchman for a state government agency. The pay is garbage but great benifts Problem is rent is eating an entire paycheck So I probably can't stay

[@Arnuld15Governator]

@@BillHallProductions I'm in the same boat. I'm a government worker but the benefits are not that great either. I still need to pay out of pocket for certain services like going to the chiropractor and it's $20 for me for a doctor's visit which is expensive on a limited income. I do like my free gym membership since I am a remote worker. Hopefully by going to the gym I will avoid future potential health problems.

[@BillHallProductions]

@@Arnuld15Governator i mean 25 bucks for me to see a doctor which is so cheap but the pay cut is killing me. I got shit canned form a job I loved when the fed wouldn't stop raising rates It's only a small pay cut but I just can't make the numbers work so I'm back applying

[@BillHallProductions]

@@Arnuld15Governator and going to the gym is good on it's own. I've been lifting and dieting Being broke has made sticking to the diet easier

[@wabash1581]

If only lawmakers were not allowed to accept bribes. We might actually be able to fix this. LMMFAO!

[@FireChronos]

The trick is to find one that won't. Fat chance, I know. We gotta bring back The Bull Moose Party.

[@arabcadabra8863]

@@FireChronos Teddy wasn't perfect, but he had enough humanity and intelligence to see the forest for the trees(quite literally).

[@JD-dm4lo]

@@FireChronos YES ! Don't forget - The corporations pay for lawmaker's campaign. Then the lobbyist gives the lawmaker the new law to get passed.

[@sergegainsbourgii1852]

Citizens United = legalized bribery/corruption

[@nalou6933]

Wealthy folk like this system just the way it is. Congress also gets the Ferrari of health care coverage, so they don't care about us. Which political party supports Universal Health Care? The American people need to let Congress know that they will ONLY vote for candidates who support decent health care for all.

[@ceecollette6708]

The local hospital system where I live just stopped working with UHC Medicare. And one of the major hospital systems where I used to live stopped working with them altogether. I currently have UHC, and they're continuously making it harder to get care and/or not covering things. And the premiums are already high. On top of that, I know folks who work for them who are being laid off. I'm seriously looking for a job that doesn't use UHC for their provider.

[@dedetudor.]

Me too. What are we going to do. They keep calling me with an automated voice asking is this ,,,and asks for me to reply yes or no. I don't answer. I don't speak to machines and it's wanting me to fill out their prevention health care measures and see the doctor they have on my card. But I don't want to. I'm not seeing drug prescribes and they are demanding I get their shots. And that's a hard no. But I still need health insurance.

[@janetclark5668]

Yes, the automated voice -- that's why I changed to a different company as I wrote in one of these comments.@@dedetudor. I couldn't get an answer to why they switched me to a different doctor in a different location. And I love you --- It's a no! A hard NO!

[@avocadogaming3942]

This is why we need medicare for all

[@aspcia]

I use medi-cal (it's California's medicaid like one). Doctor's are always relieved when they hear that because they know whatever referral they give is likely to be accepted. They're pretty consistent. The doctor's know what to expect when dealing with them, but even within this system there are different providors you have to choose from and each have different benefits/standards/etc that the doctors have to be aware of... I would just hope that an actual universal healthcare system would not have that issue.

[@theinternaut1991]

These strategies seem illegal, amazing that they aren't

[@reverendblind]

When you consider the lobbying budgets of big pharma and insurance combined, it's not amazing at all. They own more politicians than we do.

[@lambda2857]

I'm pretty sure that in most industrial countries, especially those in the West, they *are* illegal. The only exception? The United States. Going back to the beginning of the video, Nixon was allegedly the progenitor of "managed health", or the HMOs. Nixon: The gift that keeps on giving, sort of like VD.

[@M4TCH3SM4L0N3]

Technically, they may well be illegal, but they have good enough lawyers and we have "conservative" enough judges that, unless the law explicitly refers to the industry and the outlines step by step details of how that crime is conducted which perfectly matches the actions taken, it's very hard to get a conviction. Plus there's just so many corporations doing stuff like this all of the time that we would have to have WAY more funding for District Attorney offices than we currently do, and that would have to be true in every location where any of the corporations can do business, or else they will just move to another area where the DA's office is less aggressive or the judges are friendlier (or both).

[@gardenboots7464]

Lobbyists are basically making the laws.

[@annspires8380]

Last year I finally was fed up! I kept getting claims denied and would have to pay for procedures out of my pocket direct to the healthcare provider. I did the math and figured out that if I was having to pay for denied claims out of my pocket then why was I buying expensive health care insurance (through an employer!). I cut my policy dramatically to a high deductible; radically changed my diet (resolved several health problems), and I am now paying directly to my healthcare providers and low and behold I actually have dramatically cut the amount I spend every month on healthcare. Oh and now I get the "coupon" from the drug manufacturers and actually pay less than I was paying through a higher-premium insurance program! You regain your power when you do the math!! Now, UHC calls me (telemarketing) to use their facilities for problems I don't have; what?? No.

[@DiN0x33]

As someone who worked for CVS specialty pharmacy and also interacted with those at optum Rx.. it’s such a mess. I would see more denials than I would approvals on half these medications even if these pts had the best insurance.

[@reverendblind]

From behind the scenes - I see the conversations everyday behind those denials, and they are GROSS. I work at an insurance company that does a lot of work with both Optum and CVS, and half the times we're denying things it's just based off a hunch or prejudice from untrained, unlicensed Claims Reps with zero medical background. The correspondences I've seen are chilling, and the callous disregard for human dignity is shocking even to a cynic like me.

[@oldtimer7779]

True. Most of those denials are bullshit

[@annezone6b494]

If they approve your expensive medication your copay maybe $1,000 a week that's the way it was for us

[@bizzmoneyb]

and what kind of system should be allowed to deny a procedure that YOUR DOCTOR SAYS that YOU NEED?! Congress should pass a Bill, that ANY surgery, procedure, medication, etc is COVERED if your doctor says you NEED IT!!

[@IBeforeAExceptAfterK]

The whole idea of for-profit insurance is insane and nonsensical on its face. You don't design social safety nets so that someone can skim money off the top. That's just asking for a system that's only barely functional in the best case scenario. This balancing on the razor's edge isn't tolerated when people's physical safety is on the line, so why is it tolerated when it comes to social safety?

[@lazypops3117]

EXACTLY. the logic of profit simply defies public services and amenities. here the doctors, the actual service providers, are themselves reduced to workers taking minimum pay. it's an outrage in the name of free market economics.

[@Miglow]

This also applies to many things that have been privatized. For profit prison, private owned for profit tollways, and so on.

[@brianedwards30]

I'm fortunate enough to be in a position where I have started telling hiring managers and recruiters that contact me that I have different salary expectations based on who the insurance provider is. I'm hoping other people will start to do the same.

[@rdshep4873]

My Dad passedbecause of a doctors malpractice.... He got a pacemaker and it got infected with sepsis and mrsa. They took out most of the pacemaker but left part of infected metal in . Within a little over a year he passed. You get a pacemaker to live years longer. So when I sued had to sue the doctor seperatlly. Then suid hospital. Three years of hearings. Went through hell and lost most of my IRA and in debt. Had to act as attorney cause no law firm toolk the case in calif. Had all the evidence. If losing your Dad and best friend wasnt enoigh I found out the hospital owned the transportation and nursing homes under different names and theylied to us so many times . They also ownmany funeral homes under a differnt business name. Its corrupt to the core and no lawmakers do a damn thing about it..

[@-cheshire-cat]

I've never had health insurance and never will. Why pay money to be denied treatments, when I can just not pay money and still be denied treatments?

[@Dragoon91786]

Regarding that merger, though You can't know anything without actual concrete evidence, the ability to get that judge to believe them at their word does make me begin to wonder whether that judge was getting paid under the table, or the very least, definitely indicate the failures and our legal system.

[@JD-dm4lo]

Even if you have an employee provided plan or Medicare Advantage(Retired), you still have to pay a premium, a deductible, a copay, and a percentage of the service cost . And that is only for health issues they Want to cover. With control of these factors, plus those that affect doctors' and hospitals' payments, insurance companies have way too much power to squeeze everyone involved in health care.

[@do9138]

The Medicare Part B copay is currently over $160 a month. We do NOT want "Medicare for all." It's too expensive. We want national healthcare for ALL.

[@ntchriest]

They are in the public schools as well. They push / bride the school to make having healthcare as a student mandatory. While those on their parents insurance, the ones who do not, need to either get their own insurance, or they'll be forced onto the school's insurance. Fleecing the healthiest demographic for full coverage insurance keeps the health insurance happy, and the schools medical facilities with captive patient capacity. That is right, your options for whom you see are incredibly limited, corralling the students into a virtual monopoly of a healthcare system.

[@johnthicks8568]

I got really psycho over a $75.00 reimbursement with my insurer. I went really deep and I was going to take to court (I'm one of those business dads that get mad about stuff). The amount of lies and inconsistencies I encountered trying to get my money back was astonishing. It's going to get worse as interest rates go up because they are going to want to float the money longer.

[@andrewfarrell6120]

How is this f**king legal?

[@lazypops3117]

Reaganomics. Profit IS legal, that's the first principle of the capitalist world order.

[@Pseudo-Fraxineus]

a whole generation was taught greed is good. this is clearly greed; therefore it is very good.

[@bdhanes]

It's SO MANY LEVELS of corrupt I can't even... 🤬

[@cindyfavorite195]

Retired nurse here. We aren’t rich, and only the gamers are making money. Assigned to NP that never got out of a chair and ordered tons of tests, with huge copays. Got lectured on everything from weight to “preventative” care, which involved many tests with huge copays. I got a living will with my end of life wishes, and gave up on the business I worked in over forty years. She sent everyone to multiple specialists and ordered every sort of test and referral, with copays and expensive preparation and meds. There is no care because the money all goes to the insurer. Why do a good job for free? Ordering unnecessary meds and treatments in centers run by third party payers is not healthcare. The small hospital I worked in is now a long term care facility, and the people in that facility use transport supplied by them at a ridiculous cost to transport them to the “mother ship” thirty miles away. Old people and their money are disposable to them.

[@amber9040]

A UHC plan I was on suddenly decided that they don't cover trans healthcare, and failed to communicate this at any point since they were approving some trans healthcare for a while. I believe this was an exception in the company plan I was on, but essentially once they found out trans healthcare wasn't covered on my plan, I had to practically commit insurance fraud by getting my doctor to prescribe me hormones with the generic justification of "endocrine issues". I had changed my legal sex by then, so I only got access to hormones because they thought I was a cisgender woman going through menopause. Was kinda funny to get a pap smear test reminder from them in the mail, but I switched plans as quickly as I was able to. Health insurance is a racket. It provides zero value to anyone but the ones running it at this point.

[@momoneyinvesting]

A company I worked at unfortunately did consulting for them. You'd be surprised how incompetent and inefficient these big companies are at managing themselves. Hopefully, that will lead to their downfall

[@iLikeCoffee777]

Things won't change until the stock system is changed. Specifically, shareholder primacy must be done away with. As long as these companies have a duty first and foremost to their shareholders, greed will always win and the situation will just keep getting worse.

[@caradelatorre7710]

That would be the end of retirement plans whether they are 401k or defined pensions. If Americans only had savings accounts their money would not grow fast enough to have money for retirement. Is that what you are any one else wants.

[@iLikeCoffee777]

@@caradelatorre7710 yours is the kind of thought pattern that keeps perpetuating this lunacy. 401k and similar plans would have to adapt but it would in no way affect their viability. The only thing that would have to actually be changed is the investment strategy.

[@ri3sch]

UHG itself has terrible health insurance for its employees too. So many employees get their health insurance outside of their employer benefit option

[@prun8893]

I'm a Canadian. I'm also an American. I have my OHIP card and I have American style health insurance. You have a choice: Canada: Pay nothing except higher taxes for healthcare. Wait a LONG time for non-life threatening surgeries. Have a hard time finding a primary doctor. Have a limited choice of medications that are covered. Healthcare is rationed. Healthcare must fit within the federal and provincial budgets. Rarely speak with an actual doctor during treatment (they pay social workers for that). Never get a bill, though. Do not have the ability to sue doctors or hospitals (the gov owns the hospitals, the gov pays the doctors malpractice insurance). Wait forever in an emergency room. USA: Get hosed by insurance companies. Get hosed by hospitals. Get billed for absurd amounts and absurd charges. Doctors themselves are pretty OK, though. Get a new ACL within 8 months, though. The Canadian (in my case Ontario) system works to the lowest common denominator....but everyone gets access. Care is better in the USA if you have decent insurance. Canada (the entire country) has the same number of MRI machines as...................Pittsburgh. What to do. I've lived, and continue to live, both systems. Don't try to argue with me.

[@zachariahsmith9130]

This is fact. Healthcare everywhere sucks

[@Lara-jp4xk]

From what I've read/ seen on YT, Canada's health system is not that great compared with the socialized healthcare in European states.

[@prun8893]

@@Lara-jp4xk My son tore his ACL. He went to see his Canadian doctor. The doctor ordered an MRI. The soonest availability in Toronto was 5 weeks away, just for the MRI. We went to our other home in Colorado. Saw the orthopedic surgeon in 3 days, same day MRI in the same building, surgery was done 2 weeks later as soon as the pre-determination was received by the orthopedic center. Out of pocket was $1,800 with deductible (Aetna). Colorado has a law against surprise billing. Canada would have been free......and 6 to 8 months later. This was 4 years ago. Those are the choices. I find it humorous when Americans use Canada as a "better system".

[@Beth-sn9ip]

For you to have health insurance in america, and to be able to afford eighteen hundred dollars, you are very privileged. As soon as your job is gone, you can kiss that goodbye, unless you can afford upwards of six hundred dollars a month in cobra premium insurance. We need canada's system or some other better public health system If canadas isn't that great, so that people can at least have a minimum amount of care, even if it's delayed. I'm pretty sure that in the UK, for example, there is a national health service but there is also a private medical industry where if you have money, you can get faster care.

[@muzzy9267]

That is right if you have decent health insurance. We don't. And we wait and we find it hard to find doctors, and we wait for surgeries, and we die. The largest debts held by Americans are medical. Drs are leaving in droves. Birthing floors are shutting down. And the ones open are often overwhelmed and too far away. Obs aren't delivering babies anymore and the insurance Drs must carry is outrageous. Unless you are a specialist, forget it. And specialists are becoming rarity. So be grateful you are Canadian.

[@rept7]

I think United Health is what my job has, which now makes me even more hesitant to even attempt to use it. Sure love living in a country where the only thing scarier than finding out you have a medical condition is finding out you're in debt too.

[@DJFelixChester]

a week ago, I had to be dragged to the hospital in debilitating pain by family members because I was worried about my health insurance premiums going up by $200 for going to the er. Now, they have raised my rates and denied paying for that visit anyway.

[@Mk-il3zq]

Im a medical transport driver for our elderly population, in a rural(poor) county in upstate NY. One of our powerhouse companies owns the vast majority of facilities spreading numerous counties. The elderly program is open to any and all medicaid patients. You sign everything over to them and they take care of EVERYTHING you could possibly need. For some its nice. But for others who have established doctors, they are forced to leave because their doctors arent apart of said company. Ive been working with this company for over 2 years. Ive noticed that they use the transportation company as their own cash cow. We have many local hospitals(3 to be exact) all within a few miles of our clients....but they send them to the city(solid hr away). They keep our schedules so tight that if we are late for the appointment, they cancel it, bill the client and set them up for another. Most people in this area are so desperate for the assistance, they just have to suck it up.

[@judesmith4941]

Have avoided HMO's since first heard the narrow window of network providers for any coverage to apply. Didn't want to change my healthcare professionals for the sake of sketchy insurance. Sounded like a slippery slope to me. Watched friends take the route only to receive billings for declined claims. Vicious circle

[@d.w.stratton4078]

I'm a radiation physicist and dosimetrist. I make plans that treat cancer in patients. We just make them plans, we don't ever get told what they cost. I found out the other day that the MINIMUM cost for the simplest plans we make is $35,000 and the max is over $850,000 in the USA. That's insanity. And of course, United Healthcare is the "insurer" that denies coverage the most often of all. We have almost no problems with other insurance companies, but UHC requires us to jump through hoops. Single payer healthcare would make this way cheaper and no one would get denied coverage.

[@momain5483]

Work at UHC and this video is a good start to understanding just how disgusting the system is. Worse still, there are people who think UHC is doing the right thing and it boggles my mind. I see people get denied for things like life saving drugs more often than should ever happen. For all the records profit they bring in they still can't even give their own employees good health coverage, its the biggest complaint from employees. So many things I could go into more detail on, the depravity just doesn't stop.

[@jasonwiley798]

Not the system so much, just UHG. Don't buy insurance from united health.

[@katy4080]

You all need to be whistleblowers make a team meticulously record phone calls copy notes spend your time building a case… you all have to go under the radar. We need UHC employees to turn on them.

[@Snemini]

I worked as a prior authorization intake person and it was so horrible when I would have to explain something was denied. I mostly agreed with the patients and when I would bring it up to my supervisors they would just refer back to the pharmacist decision… yet none of those pharmacists would ever talk to the patients themselves. I felt like I was just their shield and I would take the dump of it all. Needless to say, I did not last there very long…

[@oneshot_onekill4618]

Provider and member services was terrible also!

[@ComradeRachel]

I had drug coverage from Optimum from my job. You could only use CVS or order though the mail from them. I hated that CVS was my only option. I didn’t know how it was even legal.

[@CakeDispenser]

My only problem with mail delivery is wait time from I'm told and it can be unpredictable though Idk if it's true. My coworker orders TRT through the mail and it took 2 week wait while he ran out of trt fir almost a week. I get why people order medicine through mail plus I hate driving to go get medicine.

[@stevemora7845]

This is more like a nightmare! How do we stop this though????

[@carmenortiz5294]

I'm not going to mentioned what company I used to work for, due to non-disclosure papers I signed. Lets just say that I know for a fact that what you are saying is 100% true.

[@HonJennCoffey]

People Over Profit! Excellent video!

[@LifeBindeR222]

My employer switched from Kaiser Permanente to United healthcare and I with the hellcare name, it has been an absolute nightmare to deal with their denied claims and ridiculous prior authorization nonsense.

[@eve36368]

4:28-5:28 as a survivor of my IEP team supporting conversion torture against me in preK-12, this hits hard.

[@ldegraaf]

As a chronic pain patient I've had to fight insurance companies nearly every time my doctors want to do anything. I've had to take a med that my doctors told me would make my conditions worse so that they could tell the insurance that it didn't work, in order to get to the right medication. Thankfully now that I have done PT and tried a ton of different medications I'm able to get the meds and treatments that I need, but it shouldn't be this hard. As a country we need to realize that we are paying more for our broken system, then we would if we had single payer. I get so frustrated when people tell me that insurance companies are on their side and want them to be as healthy as possible.

[@cetriyasArtnComicsChannel]

Not only do we saddle our doctors with ridiculous students loans. We underpaid them. Charge the patient With a lot of money and the doctors take a high interest payday loan?

[@anthonymorris8891]

I'm diabetic. I've had UMR insurance for a little more than a year now and they haven't covered a penny, not a single cent. When I call to ask why, I get told I can pay out of pocket or they'll get back to me (they never do). I'm $47,000 in debt already and there's seemingly nothing I can do about it. I don't even make that much a year!

[@chloesibilla8199]

My grandmother used to be a nurse. She said hospitals are being treated like a factory now and it's incredibly painful to see . My mom gave her whole life to her job until her rhumitoid arthritis made it too painful to. She's still yet to get any aid for the pain she's in. She's walked around on broken knees before because she couldn't tell how serious it was and the hospital kept sending her back cause they thought she was after drugs and her health insurance didn't cover anything. I'm her only caretaker.

[@fr2ncm9]

I had the misfortune of having United Wealthcare when I worked at a previous job. I spent Three extra days in an inpatient psych ward because they couldn't find a provider willing to take my insurance. I wound up getting a quack doctor who asked me very inappropriate questions. I never went back to him and wound up having to pay out of pocket to get a qualified therapist.

[@gigaus0]

4:45 wrong. 50 million claims weren't denied. 50 million cases were denied. Those are cases where someone fought back and took them to court. Put another way, that's the number of cases that we kept track of. Same way we know how many SA cases there are *and* that there's more; This is just the ones someone was willing to speak up about. 50 million claims would be a single doctor's office. Because these insurances will pick and choose what to deny, out of a 10 claim list from one doctor's visit. Things like blood work, basic checkup, scans done. Every item on the bill. And usually when they're being denied it's either there was a typo or it literally was the wrong time of the month. The stories around it are horrendous.

[@calebbliss8626]

my wife works at a radiology center in Fort Collins Colorado and she recently told me that the new hire doctors make significantly less then the older doctors there. They start them at $90k a year, which, for a lot of people would be a pretty great salary, but when you factor in the amount of student debt young doctors have to pay, and living in Fort Collins Colorado (an average sized 3 bedroom home can sell for like a million dollars here), said salary is pretty bad. And those new doctors do the exact same job as the old doctors who make significantly more money.

[@alb12345672]

Software devs get 90K :( You don't need 300K of debt.

[@jdrissel]

When my granddaughter was diagnosed with Type I diabetes her both of her insulins (basal and bolus) and her test strips were denied. It took a trip back to the endocrinologist to get samples and 4 days of fighting with the UHC and their pharmacy benefits people to get the meds she needs to stay alive approved. My wife was reduced to years more than once in this process. What did get approved was no cheaper. Then they denied payment on the blood tests that found out she was diabetic. These companies are an obscene blight on our nation. Everything they do is immortal and ought to be illegal (but isn't). I have an aunt who says the scandal isn't what they're doing that is illegal.The scandal is what they're doing that is that's perfectly legal.

[@collinsfriend1]

UHC has approved then retroactively denied a patient with a stroke. Then refused rehab for him even though he cooperated with therapy here at the hospital. Sadly he would only get 15 days if theyd approved. So he lived alone in a very remote area... and many patients lost their dr over UHC. Many home health agencies and SNF refuse to take them, or limit how many they can take due to horrendous paperwork and denials.

[@rosevisionmacs]

If he gets sued he will still be a multi billionaire and never spend a second in prison. He knows that.

[@Pigeon_Flipper]

Don't forget American Medical Association monopoly.

[@jamestaylor3805]

Verticle unification was sold to congress as being non-monopolistic because it would lower costs because corporations would cut expenses at each level. What has really happened is that corporations have maintained seperate entities at each level and each entity gets it's cut, adding to overall "on the books" value of the corporation. This is a bubble that will pop. Sadly it is one of only a few potential bubbles that will claim lives before it pops.

[@tyrecies]

My partner was transferred to a hospital to receive Dialysis, but that hospital would not perform Dialysis until she was dying as her kidney failed when they took away her fluids intake.

[@cmlatronica]

Would love to see a follow on report on why certain state health insurance marketplaces only offer HMOs. In NY since 2019 the market place only offers HMO (as opposed to PPO) options. The experience using even the most expensive HMO plan is horrible. Health care providers respond saying “you basically have Medicare” and refuse services. In contrast, just over the boarder in PA, the state market place has PPO options. As a self employed small business owner in NY this seems intentionally designed to disincentivize self employment and penalize those choosing to not work for large corporations.l

[@blackinlove6063]

I am from Minneapolis and i remember when healthcare went from doctor managed to corporate management. It has been down hill from there. Drs have no say in what they do or what they get for compensation. But from what I learned working with a doctor his last 7 years of practice you have to be financially savvy. Amd develop a mix finacial portfolio. He retired very well off. It's sad they treat these doctors like crap, as well as the rest of the staff. So I decided to move to Arizona he said if i leave he is retiring a year early. It all worked out. But here in Arizona where United HC is huge. The care sucks way more than Minnesota and they are so short staffed just to see your primary its 4 to 6 months 😮 I miss the better care.

[@Basement_crusader]

Burkes primary residence is in the suburbs of Nashville, in case anyone wants to go picketing outside of his plantation

[@heatherdunham4562]

Charging for a service, and not providing that service, or providing a service not matching the original intent, is called fraud. I tried shopping around for better insurance but they are all crazy expensive. If I go without, I risk getting charged $20k for a bandaid.

[@Hx3ney]

Ingenix sounds a lot like eugenics

[@Praisethesunson]

It's where they got the inspiration.

[@TheZombieButler]

Snort. . . 😅good one.

[@schalicto]

You should do a video about pharmacy benefits managers use something called direct and indirect renumeration (DIR) fees to claw back money they paid a pharmacy for medication they filled for a customer. Often the clawback is more than the pharmacy stood to profit from the prescription in the first place. If it doesnt stop, it is going to put every independent local pharmacy out of business.

[@zoer7338]

In my area the independent local pharmacies disappeared a long time ago.

[@kansasterri5977]

When my young daughter was released from the hospital UHC tried to wiggle out of the required follow up care. We had to go up the food chain to make them pay. I will NEVER use UHC again

[@sorrowendevored]

This!!!! I work as a billing specialist for a mental health clinic where our CEO is on the local Optum Board and is constantly using our clinic and clients to test out new measurement based care methods. It is the most FRUSTRATING thing to experience and each year it appears that less and less of our services are covered by client’s plans for the most ridiculous of reasons.

[@haruhisuzumiya6650]

United healthcare?

[@maskinbeauty3734]

my buddy Worked at a blue cross and saw how the insurance company took advantage of the Obamacare subsidies bby over charging their plans for Mediocre coverage. Their under writing got more expensive with higher cost to the customer...example, customer pays higher deductibles, copays, premiums. Then trick customers to get screening for preventive cares, but if diagnosed with any condition, then it's no longer preventive, so customer gets billed charged that so called free preventive screening service for having medical conditions. That's there gotcha mechanic. Insurance companies are all scumbags. My friend quit from this immoral and unethical industry. They even hired poorly trained customer service reps, from out of state, independent contractors to service customer service calls, which exacerbated the problems that customer needed resolution. As they preached and claimed to have first first call resolution as their goal, 😅😅😅 that was a joke.

[@shinola228]

Right - it's important to make it clear you are ONLY there for preventative care and that's how it needs to be billed. Maybe even video yourself stating that to the staff and/or doctor.