25 Comments

To borrow from a recent post by ACT UP NY, “A notable aspect of private health insurance is the absence of any reason for it to exist. It does not contain costs, expand coverage, or expedite care - it makes those all worse. Its sole function is to profit as a rent-seeking middleman between patients and providers.” It’s working exactly as it’s supposed to work, the *it* is the problem. Thanks, Ken, as always for punching up and exposing ghoulishness.

Expand full comment

And Witty's entire message is intended to obfuscate this.

Expand full comment

As we eat cake, we feel the lack of bread you experience, and we will work with anyone to find a better solution.

Expand full comment

Do Not Stop Talking About the Healthcare fuckery in this country. Don’t let them change the subject.

Expand full comment

A form of thoughts and prayers, from the powers that be. Touching.

Expand full comment

Also to note, via Matt Stoller’s latest piece, is that UHC also has its stake in physicians, pharmaceutical, and the pharmacy business. Time to really break this corporation up. And while I do not, and know none of us here condone a politically motivated act of murder, this violent political of activism I hope leads towards something positive for the thousands of Americans who lose their lives and or become bankrupt due to the state of the American health care system.

Expand full comment

"Look at us! We're returning an infinitesimally small portion of the profits we made killing people by denying them the care they paid for and we're going to help a couple of people with it!

"We understand your frustration with American healthcare - after all, we spend hundreds of millions of dollars to make sure it never gets better, because then I wouldn't be able to afford a support yacht for my main yacht, which is too big to fit in a marina.

"But, we are definitely going to come up with ways to help you, as long as it doesn't interfere with our obscene profits. So get ready for another OpEd of empty pablum!"

Expand full comment

It strikes me that health insurance companies should not "deliver" care at all. That would be like my homeowners insurance saying they deliver home repairs. It's messed up to take delivery away from qualified professional providers.

Expand full comment

This is sticking in my head and I just had to come back to talk about it more. I was ticketed by a red light camera once, and the feeling of violation from getting a picture of my car in the mail was deep and strange. Later that camera and others in the area were deemed unconstitutional, I think at least in part because of the right to face your accuser. It's a shame that something as literally vital as health care isn't protected by a right to be delivered at the point of care (in person). It is not health care if delivered (or denied) by someone who hasn't even examined you, let alone met you. I hope everyone else is as annoyed by CEOs talking out of both sides of their mouths as I am.

Expand full comment

Ironic how it takes one person to do something outrageous to force a conversation over an industry that has been robbing the public blind for 30 plus years.

Expand full comment

Just another example of history repeating.

Expand full comment

Feel our pain, sure whatever helps you sleep at night. Along with most of the health care system in the US, the for profit part of the model needs to be abolished soonest. As one of the cited NYT commenters stated and I paraphrase; medical science and practicing doctor's should determine treatments not the accountants. Until the practice of making shareholders whole and maximizing profits, the real customer, the subscriber cum patient, will take a back seat.

Expand full comment

Keep it Coming. "Don't stop it now, Don't Stop it Now"

Outrage is to mild of a word.

Expand full comment

As a recovering alcoholic,( years sober🙂) this is exactly the statement i would make after being a shithead. And then not actually do anything about it😂point being a couple of old but true sayings. I’ll believe it when i see it, and actions speak louder then words.

Expand full comment

So wait! Are you telling me a British man is the CEO? Doesn’t he get universal healthcare if I remember correctly? So he literally doesn’t understand what it is like to be in the American healthcare system especially with a company that has the most denials. I’d be curious to know if he uses his own health insurance? He should be pressured to publicly divulge what healthcare system he personally uses! I bet it isn’t his own company!

Expand full comment

as with any vassal or client state of the USA, the UK has been seeing increased austerity and privatization of their public commons and services. NHS is no different. Wall Street and the investor class will not be happy until it's garbage.

Expand full comment

He’s making so much money he doesn’t need government funded healthcare. I don’t anything about him apart from this article but he may have been born well off.

Expand full comment

The idea of profit making insurance is bad. Insurance is nothing more than pooling the small contributions of the many so that a few large claims can be paid. That's it. There is no need for a middle man to take a profit by investing the huge pool, far less for CEO's to be hauling in millions. There is no particular skill involved, only the need to maintain records of payments received and payments to those making a legitimate claim, that is, claims backed by solid evidence from inspectors (either of paperwork or on site) who could be paid in unlimited numbers by the wage of a single CEO in the profit making system we have now.

This applies to all insurance for homes, cars, travel, you name it. But our profit before people way of dealing with everything has managed to insert private companies into the picture and the lobbying power of same on our corrupt Congress makes their hold impossible to break. The CEO's of the companies are essentially legalized thieves.

Expand full comment

Pooling the small contributions to pay the claims plus huge overhead to run the company including multimillion dollar salaries for upper management.

Expand full comment

Anyone who isn't a plutocrat and still subscribes to the NYT should cancel their subscription immediately.

Expand full comment

Slow down Chef. Shareholder supremacy is not a matter of law but rather (dying?) Culture. From Wikipedia:

The doctrine waned in later years. In March 2009, Jack Welch, known for promoting shareholder primacy during his tenure as CEO of GE,[12] stated in an interview with the Financial Times, "On the face of it, shareholder value is the dumbest idea in the world."[13] In August 2019, the Business Roundtable published its alternative view, focused on long-term benefits for a broad range of "stakeholders."[14][15]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shareholder_primacy

Expand full comment

We are again covering healthcare on The Common Bridge. Nate Kaufman and I talk about United Healthcare in next week's post. I have been writing about the need to eliminate employer sponsored healthcare for many years.

Expand full comment