Brian Thompson’s killing sparks outrage over state of US healthcare

[John Drake]

Seems most people don't care. This guy headed up a company that employed an AI that at one point was denying 90 percent of claims.

 

Quote

In the aftermath of the killing of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, while Thompson’s colleagues grieve and politicians decry his murder, some online discussion has shown little sympathy for Thompson or the industry he represented.

Instead, social media has been in engulfed in expressions of anger at many Americans’ dire experiences at the hands of health insurance companies and outrage at the large profits that they generate.  https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/05/unitedhealthcare-brian-thompson-killing-online-reaction

 

[NickyLouie]

Quote

Seems most people don't care. This guy headed up a company that employed an AI that at one point was denying 90 percent of claims.

 

 

Very little remorse for this guy, his salary was 10 million US per year and he indirectly caused more suffering than in Gaza.

   

[Yagoda]

The Guardian is a mouthpiece for Socialism. I dont understand why its accepted as a source of anyhting.

 

The only outrage I know of is when are they going to catch the dude, so all the speculation can stop.

 

On the other hand, seems like the assassin is part of the same cultural and intellectual milieu as The Guardian. Another demonstration that violence is endemic to the Left.

[John Drake]

46 minutes ago, Yagoda said:

The Guardian is a mouthpiece for Socialism. I dont understand why its accepted as a source of anyhting.

 

I used the Guardian because the other acceptable to AN sources were behind a paywall. 

[Yagoda]

15 minutes ago, John Drake said:

 

I used the Guardian because the other acceptable to AN sources were behind a paywall. 

Fox News is free.

[John Drake]

Just now, Yagoda said:

Fox News is free.

 

I don't mind using Fox News, but it didn't come up in my google search (I was looking for articles that specifically focused on the online response to the killing), which is another issue in and of itself I guess.

[Celsius]

Will never be getting insurance because now besides their outrageous compensation, more money will be spent on CEO protection = even more claims denied.

[John Drake]

1 minute ago, Celsius said:

Will never be getting insurance because now besides their outrageous compensation, more money will be spent on CEO protection = even more claims denied.

 

I think the US healthcare system has become such an abomination that there are likely thousands, if not tens of thousands, of time bombs out there who feel they haven't got anything to lose.

[Jingthing]

Nobody including me should be endorsing assassinating people but hostility towards the US health insurance Industry is well understandable and very widespread.

Personally issues with that Industry drove me towards expatriation so I'm not sure if I should blame them or thank them.

[John Drake]

2 minutes ago, Jingthing said:

Nobody including me should be endorsing assassinating people but hostility towards the US health insurance Industry is well understandable and very widespread.

Personally issues with that Industry drove me towards expatriation so I'm not sure if I should blame them or thank them.

 

This guy, Thompson, apparently had a pretty bad history of insider trading and pushing the envelope as far as creating a system that denied claims. Add in the really bizarre assassination, a better word than "killing," I think, and you have a situation that is going to send shivers down a lot of C-suite types in the healthcare business. The specialized subsonic pistol with a silencer and the three ejected bullets with words on them in permanent ink, "delay," "deny," "depose," I'm sure has them looking over their shoulders.

[impulse]

Beginning in the 1990s, many major insurance companies reconsidered this understanding of the claims process. The insight was simple. An insurance company's greatest expense is what it pays out in claims. If it pays out less in claims, it keeps more in profits. Therefore, the claims department became a profit center rather than the place that kept the company's promise.

 

A major step in this shift occurred when Allstate and other companies hired the megaconsulting firm McKinsey & Company to develop new strategies for handling claims. McKinsey saw claims as a "zero-sum game," with the policyholder and the company competing for the same dollars. No longer would each claim be treated on its merits. Instead, computer systems would be put in place to set the amounts policyholders would be offered, claimants would be deterred from hiring lawyers to help with their claims, and settlements would be offered on a take-it-or- litigate basis. If Allstate moved from "Good Hands" to "Boxing Gloves," as McKinsey described it, policyholders would either take a lowball offer from the good hands people or face the boxing gloves of extended litigation.

 

They took out the wrong guy.  McKinsey is also the consultant behind the Boeing tragedies and fiasco.

 

https://delaydenydefend.com/excerpt/

[John Drake]

2 minutes ago, impulse said:

Beginning in the 1990s, many major insurance companies reconsidered this understanding of the claims process. The insight was simple. An insurance company's greatest expense is what it pays out in claims. If it pays out less in claims, it keeps more in profits. Therefore, the claims department became a profit center rather than the place that kept the company's promise.

 

A major step in this shift occurred when Allstate and other companies hired the megaconsulting firm McKinsey & Company to develop new strategies for handling claims. McKinsey saw claims as a "zero-sum game," with the policyholder and the company competing for the same dollars. No longer would each claim be treated on its merits. Instead, computer systems would be put in place to set the amounts policyholders would be offered, claimants would be deterred from hiring lawyers to help with their claims, and settlements would be offered on a take-it-or- litigate basis. If Allstate moved from "Good Hands" to "Boxing Gloves," as McKinsey described it, policyholders would either take a lowball offer from the good hands people or face the boxing gloves of extended litigation.

 

They took out the wrong guy.  McKinsey is also the consultant behind the Boeing tragedies and fiasco.

 

https://delaydenydefend.com/excerpt/

 

It may have been the newly employed AI that caused the problem. Or people just feel that they no longer have control over their lives because of expenses.

 

Quote

Just over a year before United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson was murdered this week in Midtown Manhattan, a lawsuit filed against the insurance giant he helmed revealed just how draconian its claims-denying process had become. Last November, the estates of two former UHC patients filed suit in Minnesota alleging that the insurer used an AI algorithm to deny and override claims to elderly patients that had been approved by their doctors. The algorithm in question, known as nH Predict, allegedly had a 90 percent error rate — and according to the families of the two deceased men who filed the suit, UHC knew it.

 https://www.yahoo.com/news/murdered-insurance-ceo-had-deployed-175638581.html

 

[Jingthing]

Well it's another sign that the US political process isn't working. 

[impulse]

1 hour ago, John Drake said:

 

It may have been the newly employed AI that caused the problem. Or people just feel that they no longer have control over their lives because of expenses.

 

The AI could have been programmed to pay out any percentage of claims they decided.  Someone decided on 90% rejection.

 

Personally, I have health insurance horror stories going back to the '80s.  To the point I was never confident that I wouldn't be bankrupted at the whim of the insurance companies.  My claims were always in the "few thousands of dollars" range.  But I can see where someone who lost their home, their marriage or, God forbid, a loved one would feel justified in taking it out on the CEO. 

 

Boeing's recent cases prove that individuals won't be held responsible for deliberate decisions that killed hundreds.  The innocent shareholders took it in the shorts.  That's millions of retirees and others, who had nothing to do with the decisions.  Along with Betty, who serves coffee and slings hash in the Boeing employee dining hall.

 

And if the law fails like that, what other option do people have?

 

[jerrymahoney]

12 minutes ago, impulse said:

The AI could have been programmed to pay out any percentage of claims they decided.  Someone decided on 90% rejection.

In the denial of coverage class-action lawsuit against United it says that 90% of denied claims that were appealed internally or through Federal proceedings were reversed

[impulse]

5 minutes ago, jerrymahoney said:

In the denial of coverage class-action lawsuit against United it says that 90% of denied claims that were appealed internally or through Federal proceedings were reversed

 

Maybe.  Years later, after they already had to sell their homes and lost their marriages.  Or even committed suicide.  

 

Read the link I posted above to find out how it works.  Not specific to that insurance company, but to that market.  There's a reason the assassin wrote on his bullets, increasing his odds of being caught.

 

[jerrymahoney]

That is the 90% figure as in the lawsuit. That 90% of denials are reversed is the basis for the plaintiffs claiming the model is flawed.

[John Drake]

16 minutes ago, jerrymahoney said:

In the denial of coverage class-action lawsuit against United it says that 90% of denied claims that were appealed internally or through Federal proceedings were reversed

 

Hence the three words on the bullets: delay, deny, depose.

[John Drake]

11 minutes ago, impulse said:

 

Maybe.  Years later, after they already had to sell their homes and lost their marriages.  Or even committed suicide.  

 

Read the link I posted above to find out how it works.  Not specific to that insurance company, but to that market.  There's a reason the assassin wrote on his bullets, increasing his odds of being caught.

 

 

When you're denied coverage in the emergency room and die of a heart attack, it's always good to know your heirs will eventually be allowed payment (minus deductible), I suppose.

[pedro01]

6 hours ago, John Drake said:

Seems most people don't care. This guy headed up a company that employed an AI that at one point was denying 90 percent of claims.

 

 

 

There's people online saying it's low class to celebrate his death. 

 

There's people online saying they are glad he's dead.

 

I can understand both opinions.

 

My own - if this man really did cause deaths by implementing policies to deny care that shouldn't have been denied - then I am all for it. 

 

If corporations can cause the death of civilians, then civilians are of course, going to cause the death of those in corporations. 

[impulse]

1 hour ago, pedro01 said:

My own - if this man really did cause deaths by implementing policies to deny care that shouldn't have been denied - then I am all for it. 

 

If corporations can cause the death of civilians, then civilians are of course, going to cause the death of those in corporations. 

 

My gripe is that even if there are prosecutions, the people who made the illegal and deadly decisions will be protected and the corporation will be prosecuted.  As if they can send a corporation to prison for killing people.  That was demonstrated clearly in the Boeing prosecution, where the people who decided to hide MCAS from the regulators and the customers are still walking free, in spite of hundreds of deaths directly attributable.

 

Boeing shareholders are the ones who lost.  And they weren't at all to blame.  Just people who had Boeing shares, with no knowledge and precious little input.  And the Boeing CEO was allowed to retire and none of his bonus or any pay was apparently clawed back.

 

Like you, I certainly wouldn't kill someone.  But I can't blame the people who do, when all legal remedies prove fruitless.

 

 

[Presnock]

20 hours ago, NickyLouie said:

 

 

Very little remorse for this guy, his salary was 10 million US per year and he indirectly caused more suffering than in Gaza.

   

yeah and I agree totally - my family health insurance is going up at a record rate for next year.  I get a COLA too and that is lower this year, plus the health insurance increase will take up 1/3 of the COLA amount.  I have had no claims at all for more than 10 years and no where near the costs of the increases over the years.  I do believe that it is a ripoff business but just afraid to forego it!

[impulse]

18 hours ago, jerrymahoney said:

That is the 90% figure as in the lawsuit. That 90% of denials are reversed is the basis for the plaintiffs claiming the model is flawed.

 

Good catch.  There's an "unapproved source" that indicates their initial denial rate was 32%. 

 

Which isn't as many pissed off customers as 90%, but more than the 17% for Blue Cross.  And if 90% of those are overturned eventually, that's a lot of suspects with an axe to grind.

 

The guy left so many breadcrumbs (again, from an "unapproved source") that they'll probably catch him soon.    Looks like the power of the poon may be his ultimate undoing, but I'll leave it to you to chase that tidbit down with Google.  Assuming, of course, that they're after the right guy.  

[Dave0206]

It's the crazy lefts fault people like bernie saunders telling people insurance and pharmaceutical companies are ripping them off.

Travel insurance for anyone of course is essential for anyone travelling to anywhere in the world and you are asked many times countries you will visit if usa premiums higher I wonder why 

[john donson]

maybe the dead dude denied an insurance claim for his dying wife/kid ...  

[impulse]

4 minutes ago, Dave0206 said:

It's the crazy lefts fault people like bernie saunders telling people insurance and pharmaceutical companies are ripping them off.

 

Not true.  I hated health insurance companies long before I ever heard of Bernie.

 

[Dave0206]

2 minutes ago, john donson said:

maybe the dead dude denied an insurance claim for his dying wife/kid ...  

One thing for sure at $10 million a year he didn't need to deny himself much

[Dave0206]

1 minute ago, impulse said:

 

Not true.  I hated health insurance companies long before I ever heard of Bernie.

 

I should have included sarcasm ⚠️ alert ?

[Presnock]

1 minute ago, Dave0206 said:

It's the crazy lefts fault people like bernie saunders telling people insurance and pharmaceutical companies are ripping them off.

Travel insurance for anyone of course is essential for anyone travelling to anywhere in the world and you are asked many times countries you will visit if usa premiums higher I wonder why 

well, Bernie obviously must be correct, as nearly 500 NEW BILLIONAIRES were created during the COVID pandemic year many in the pharma industry of the US and China and other western countries.

.http://www.forbes.com/sites/chasewithorn/2021/04/06/nearly-500-people-have-become-billionaires-during-the-pandemic-year/

[Dave0206]

Apparently medical costs in the USA is the number 1 reason many American families go bankrupt everyone knows along with health issues add money problems great for relationships