What's in the News 3.0

[Regina Minx]

Apparently they were on the very top of the denial pyramid. I read they were 6x (!) more likely to deny care than the other health insurance companies even.

Perhaps these people's greed just pushed folks too far now.
Frankly, I am surprised this hasn't happened sooner.

[Nimmy]

Are we supposed to express grief or compassion for this shit stain?

The for-profit private health insurance industry in the United States frequently denies care to ordinary people in order to maximize their profit margins. They also lobby — pay — politicians to protect their industry. The reason we don’t have a single-payer universal healthcare system along with virtually every other modernized nation on the planet is because healthcare companies pay our politicians not to implement it. The result is that sociopaths like Thompson profit from the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people.
That’s why ordinary working people are happy to see a member of the wealthy ruling class — who profit from our misery, poverty and sickness — eat it in the street.

https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/1h6vz85/what_is_the_deal_with_brian_thompson_why_is_he_so/

Having dealt with Anthem, I don't condone it, but I get it.

I was hoping that maybe another person would also distill this down to the fact that a guy, with a wife and kids, got shot in cold blood on his way to work. I'm all for healthcare overhaul to get rid of the for-profit model, believe me, but how do you explain that to a kid who just lost their dad?

But apparently nobody else in the country has even that much empathy.

[Samael]

Okay, not six times, but dang... this together with their AI denying like 90% of claims, and wow.

[Samael]

Since I cannot edit my post

I leave this here:

One criticism of UnitedHealthcare that has garnered attention following the shooting involves a lawsuit alleging the company uses artificial intelligence (AI) to deny coverage to some elderly patients who are on a Medicare Advantage plan, despite allegedly being aware that the algorithm has a 90 percent error rate.

https://www.newsweek.com/united-healthcare-ceo-shooting-ai-lawsuit-1996266

[Chulanowa]

I was hoping that maybe another person would also distill this down to the fact that a guy, with a wife and kids, got shot in cold blood on his way to work. I'm all for healthcare overhaul to get rid of the for-profit model, believe me, but how do you explain that to a kid who just lost their dad?

But apparently nobody else in the country has even that much empathy.

Dunno, did Brian Thompson ever show up to console the spouses and children of the people he killed to raise quarterly profits? 

[Regina Minx]

I was hoping that maybe another person would also distill this down to the fact that a guy, with a wife and kids, got shot in cold blood on his way to work. I'm all for healthcare overhaul to get rid of the for-profit model, believe me, but how do you explain that to a kid who just lost their dad?

But apparently nobody else in the country has even that much empathy.

[Aiden]

I was hoping that maybe another person would also distill this down to the fact that a guy, with a wife and kids, got shot in cold blood on his way to work. I'm all for healthcare overhaul to get rid of the for-profit model, believe me, but how do you explain that to a kid who just lost their dad?
But apparently nobody else in the country has even that much empathy.

We just have to accept that CEO shootings are a fact of life and move on, just like we did school and church shootings. 

[Twisted Crow]

We need more good CEOs with guns. So that they can stop bad CEOs with guns.

[Blythe]

I was hoping that maybe another person would also distill this down to the fact that a guy, with a wife and kids, got shot in cold blood on his way to work. I'm all for healthcare overhaul to get rid of the for-profit model, believe me, but how do you explain that to a kid who just lost their dad?

But apparently nobody else in the country has even that much empathy.

My response is not just to you, Nimmy, but it's a general something that I've been thinking on as I've been running into people across other sites upset that people are okay with what happened to UHC's CEO.

I understand your perspective. You're thinking about people that aren't Brian Thompson. I get that, and it's not wrong of you to do so. I think it's fine to have empathy for Paulette Thompson and her children.

I don't think I can, but I respect that you do. I sincerely respect those that can value all lives, because...well, cynicism has a lot of us to a point where we can't, where we don't, and I admire that you still can, Nimmy.

And I respect that you want healthcare reform and an overhaul and still are not okay with what happened to Thompson and the aftereffects for his family.

At the same time, I don't think it's unfair for people to decide to turn their empathy off for this one. The snark you see on the subject everywhere is the anger of the masses bubbling up and finally showing its face. There are very real people reacting to this who lost their own fathers because of Thompson's AI policy auto-denial nonsense, because of the actions of his company. It is very hard to ask people to summon empathy for this one. Thompson existed in a role and a tier of wealth and power the rest of us will never be able to experience, whose very existence is complicit in a system that kills us.

There are children and elderly cancer patients who got denied anti-nausea medication from UHC, and I sit here typing this while my own father is sick with stage IV cancer, vomiting after his most recent chemo appointment. And I am grateful he wasn't insured with UHC because I wonder how much worse off he'd have been with them.  It's hard to summon up anything kind within the human soul in response to it. At best, you could argue Brian Thompson sitting at the top is the figurehead of a corrupt system that MANY are complicit in, and it still doesn't do much to make me want to empathize with him.

It's...not that people lack empathy, Nimmy.

It's that their empathy is already tied up in the sick and tired and poor masses, many of whom have been victimized by Thompson's company's policies and practices. They have no more empathy left to give for Thompson's surviving kin, who will remain well off and rich and have good lives because of the many people he chose to let die in the name of corporate greed. Empathy is finite; there's only so much a person can give.

But if we want to talk about healthcare reform?

Blue Cross Blue Shield had announced, prior to the death of Brian Thompson, that they were going to stop covering anesthesia for patients whose procedures 'ran over time.' Who determined that? The insurance company. (The fact the insurance seems determined to not let medical professionals set the standard is a major thing that needs addressed in healthcare reform, let's be real)

And Brian Thompson is killed.

Suddenly BCBC halts their destructive policy.

I'm not condoning the shooting of Brian Thompson.

But I think it's very worthwhile to ask ourselves why a shooting just did more comprehensive healthcare reform than most politicians do in their whole careers.

It's not just healthcare that's broken, it's our political system. This shooting is very much indicitive of a nexus of problems in the USA.

If you want Brian Thompson's death to mean something & to prevent the deaths of others, write your House reps or Senators about healthcare reform. Write to them to protect the ACA before it gets gutted under Trump. Protest. Donate to non-profits that help patients in need if you can.

Paulette and her children will get by. They will hurt and grieve like many families who lost  relatives due to Thompson's actions. But those families are still here. Paulette and her children will be, too. I wish they didn't have to go through what they're going through, but...they will ultimately be just fine.

The rest of us very well might not be or already are not, and that is why you see no empathy for Brian Thompson. Our empathy is tied up in worrying about our own. We have none left for those had none for us, who profited directly from human suffering.

**Disclaimer: No, I am not advocating for the deaths of people like Thompson. I'm saying that if we want to prevent more people like Thompson dying, the wealthy elite & our politicians are going to have to actually take a look in the mirror and choose human life over profit. Somehow I'm not sold on the idea they will.

[Aiden]

We have entered the era of Fuck Around and Find Out, and honestly I don’t care if CEOs are nervous all of a sudden. 

[Oniya]

I don't even want to contemplate what 'not covering anesthesia' could lead to.  I can't even wrap my head around someone suggesting that, much less a group of people agreeing to it, to the point that it was going to become policy.

This is the sort of thing that horror movies are made from.

[Blythe]

I don't even want to contemplate what 'not covering anesthesia' could lead to.  I can't even wrap my head around someone suggesting that, much less a group of people agreeing to it, to the point that it was going to become policy.

This is the sort of thing that horror movies are made from.

I also really want to state that BCBS will probably try to re-instate that bullshit policy in a few months when the UHC fervor dies down.

I hope people keep up the outrage and don't let it happen. It's the anger of the general public, brought on and shown by the UHC CEO's death, that forced BCBS to backtrack that vile idea.

People don't deserve to be permanently mired in medical debt because their surgery went over the expected amount of time, that 'time' dictated by some desk jockeys with no medical training. 

[Oniya]

People don't deserve to be permanently mired in medical debt because their surgery went over the expected amount of time, that 'time' dictated by some desk jockeys with no medical training. 

Or worse.  Back when we had cable, I used to watch the legal/medical channels.  There's a phenomenon where the paralytic part of the anesthesia works, but the 'unconscious' bit doesn't.  The technical term is 'anesthesia awareness', and it's as horrible as you think it is.  There's a medical thriller by Michael Palmer called 'Flashback' that features it.

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

Yes, a private insurance company is at fault.

[TheGlyphstone]

My new employers health policy is under UHC. 

[Norwegian One]

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/iran-update-december-7-2024

The Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad is on the verge of collapse. Both Assad and several army units have allegedly fled the country. 

This would be a serious blow to Putin, as Syria has been one of their prime allies in the Middle East, with Russian units training there and the Tartus navy base being the only Russian base in the Mediterranean. 

[Al Terego]

The Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad is on the verge of collapse. Both Assad and several army units have allegedly fled the country.

Russia confirmed giving Asad political assylum.

[Oniya]

While TASS has made the claim that Assad is in Moscow, there have been no recent photographs confirming that.  At present, all imagery associated with Assad's post-coup fate has been from older sources ranging from March of 2023 (images of Assad visiting Moscow) to an image of a plane that crashed in Death Valley back in 1952.

(Longer read, with links to reverse image searches:  https://www.dw.com/en/fact-check-fakes-surrounding-assads-escape-to-moscow/a-71016174)

He could be alive and be receiving asylum in Moscow, but right now, all we have is a verbal declaration from sources with their own bias.  He could be dead - but again, the sources for that are using verifiably false footage and have a reason for wanting to spread that impression.

[Sofia Grace]

We love a corporate leak: 

https://www.propublica.org/article/unitedhealthcare-insurance-autism-denials-applied-behavior-analysis-medicaid

Seems documents have been leaked from UHC's 'strategic limitation' of access to applied behavior analysis services to kids with Autism. ABA is pretty much the gold standard of treatment offered to kids with Autism, so this seems on brand.

[Beorning]

... you know, the more I look at the social problems in the States, the more hopeless it seems. So many things are broken...

Can't you guys really do anything to save yourselves? If anything, it seems that most people in the US agree that the healthcare system is broken. Can't you guys organize yourselves or something? If millions of people go on strike or start protesting, even the corporate-bought politicians would need to do something?

[Oniya]

Ohio Supreme Court rules that 'boneless' does not mean 'without bones'

Short version:  A man in Ohio ordered a dish of boneless chicken wings.  One particular bite felt like it 'went down the wrong way', and he later came down with a fever.  Examination revealed he had a 5 cm (2 in) bone lodged in his throat.  Several surgeries later, and with lasting injuries, he tried to sue the restaurant.

The Ohio Supreme Court ruled twice that since bones are a natural part of chickens, people who eat chicken dishes should anticipate bones/bone fragments.

[Regina Minx]

Ohio Supreme Court rules that 'boneless' does not mean 'without bones'

Short version:  A man in Ohio ordered a dish of boneless chicken wings.  One particular bite felt like it 'went down the wrong way', and he later came down with a fever.  Examination revealed he had a 5 cm (2 in) bone lodged in his throat.  Several surgeries later, and with lasting injuries, he tried to sue the restaurant.

The Ohio Supreme Court ruled twice that since bones are a natural part of chickens, people who eat chicken dishes should anticipate bones/bone fragments.

You may not like it but Justices Sanders, Hormel, Tyson, and Smithfield have ruled.

[Oniya]

You may not like it but Justices Sanders, Hormel, Tyson, and Smithfield have ruled.

That actually took me half a second.  Well done.   

[Oniya]

Jimmy Carter has passed, at the age of 100.

[SINless]

You may not like it but Justices Sanders, Hormel, Tyson, and Smithfield have ruled.

To be fair, boneless wings weren't wings, so it was already false advertising, guess now it's both words that are incorrect....

[Oniya]

To be fair, boneless wings weren't wings, so it was already false advertising, guess now it's both words that are incorrect....

But 'grown-up chickie nuggies' wouldn't have sold well.