• @TheDemonBuer
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    2 months ago

    Without realizing it, Mike Beasley makes a great argument for why private, for-profit health insurance shouldn’t exist.

    • @[email protected]
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      332 months ago

      It’s like all the media that think they are defending Brian Thompson by saying he was less horrible than the average healthcare CEO. Sometimes I wonder if they are making an argument for resurrecting the guillotine industry.

    • @[email protected]
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      2 months ago

      As some who has no clue who Mike Beasley is, that seems like a perfectly legitimate Interpretation. A lot of people, like the one he is replying too, knowingly or not are defending the existing system and the existence of health insurances companies.

      I mean, forget about health for a second: we all know insurance companies fucking suck, and they are essentially just a symptom of a shitty system. So why are we fighting/wishing/hoping for them to be run better/more empathetically instead of wanting a different system?

      I think the his comment can be seen as a call-out of how some people are missing the root of the issue.

  • themeatbridge
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    1202 months ago

    “It’s a business” is not a justification for evil, and yet that’s always how the phrase is used.

  • @[email protected]
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    862 months ago

    it’s a business that helps you pay your bills

    Quite the opposite, it’s a business that makes your bills expensive.

  • @[email protected]
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    2 months ago

    The very concept of paying for health care through insurance is evil.

    Why do we even allow a profit motive to deny health care? Should be straight up illegal.

  • Flying Squid
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    492 months ago

    Mike is not wrong. In fact, he’s very clearly laying out why insurance companies should not exist.

    I’m not sure that was the argument he was trying to make though.

    • @UnderpantsWeevil
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      2 months ago

      he’s very clearly laying out why insurance companies should not exist.

      He’s laying the case for why insurance must either operate as a public loss-leader or a privatized scam. But I don’t think he really understands the bottom layer of the argument.

      All I’m seeing is “Insurance is business. Business need to make money. Therefore denying claims is good aktuly.” There’s no “ah ha” bit at the end where he recognizes their predatory nature.

    • @[email protected]
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      42 months ago

      Do you guys think politicians have a duty to adhere to their campaign promises? They’re not under oath. They have no responsibility to improve anyone’s life. They’re a business to win votes to alter policy in their favour.

  • dohpaz42
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    492 months ago

    It’s my understanding that health insurance companies hire doctors, who have taken the hypocritical oath, to review claims and deny them.

      • dohpaz42
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        242 months ago

        They are making medical decisions.

        • @Poach
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          82 months ago

          They are making financial decisions.

            • sunzu2
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              02 months ago

              Report your denied claim to the medical board and please report back your results!

        • sunzu2
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          -172 months ago

          When the insurance company describes their functional area is the term “medical decision” listed anywhere?

          Asking for a friend

          • @T156
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            92 months ago

            If the insurance company declines a patient’s treatment, citing that they believe it to be unnecessary, against the recommendations of their healthcare provider, is that a non-medical decision, then?

            • sunzu2
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              -12 months ago

              Where is the medical board that licenses these physicians then?

          • @[email protected]
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            62 months ago

            Nice sea lioning just asking questions.

            Health insurance companies specifically hire doctors often in unrelated specialties solely to deny claims as being not medically necessary.

            Quit your gaslighting bullshit. I hope you’re being paid well for your simping.

            • sunzu2
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              -72 months ago

              Poor reading comprehension.

              But yes:

              companies specifically hire doctors often in unrelated specialties solely to deny claims as being not medically necessary

              Has a doctor ever gotten in trouble with the board for this conduct?

              Do you ever wonder why not?

              Asking for a friend 🐸

              • @[email protected]
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                2 months ago

                I think a lot of doctors are gonna start getting their credentials threatened as more people learn how to use the system to their benefit. I for one had no idea one could get the info of whos denying care and then complain to the licensing board, until Luigi brought to light our shit ass medical system. People are waking up from the gaslighting.

                Will there be any major changes? Probably not until more CEOs get killed.

                • sunzu2
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                  -12 months ago

                  My point being medical board will do nothing because from legal perspective it is not their jurisdiction.

                  I am not disputing that these whores are making medical decisions but that’s not how system views it.

                  They are essentially pleading to authority

                  we hired medical professionals to deny your claim, they know what they are doing

                  These people are not practicing medicine and they are not subject to any oversight beyond their corpo komissar

                  Probably not until more CEOs get killed.

                  The reverse of beatings will continue u til morale improves… Fuck them, nobody care if they die lol

                  PS. People should try to report their denoed claim to medical board within theIr state. Ot is a valid vector to attack these parasites. But both know medical board won’t do shit. But it would make a great propublica story

  • Rentlar
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    472 months ago

    UnitedHealth Group is so vertically integrated that, in fact they do own doctors, hospitals and pharmacies under the Optum brand. So yes, they do have a duty to take care of people even if they act like they don’t.

  • @[email protected]
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    432 months ago

    Yeah, similarly, Burger King doesn’t have to give you the whopper you’ve paid for. BK employees didn’t take an oath to feed you whoppers. They only have taken an oath to the managers, who have taken an oath to the CEO, who has taken an oath to Friedrich Hayek and the shareholders to make shitloads in dividends, as is their social responsibility. Everything is working just fine in our society thanks to these nice concepts.

    • @UnderpantsWeevil
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      2 months ago

      Burger King doesn’t have to give you the whopper you’ve paid for.

      The analogy breaks down because BK has an immediate cash-for-commodity relationship with the clients. If you had BK a $5 and they don’t give you a sandwich, you stop going.

      But insurance takes your $5 up front in exchange for assuming the risk that you might need care in the future. You keep giving UHC $5 day after day and week after week, receiving nothing tangible in exchange. It is only when the risk materializes, at the moment you need care, that you ask UHC for money back and they say “No”.

      This leads some people to advocate for health savings accounts as a replacement for private insurance. But then you have to deal with the possibility of a medical claim that exceeds your balance. So you get conversations about risk-pooling. But that just takes you back around to insurance companies again.

      All of this is in an effort to discourage people from implementing public free-at-point-of-use health care (a la the NHS). The idea that we would simply have hospitals you can go to when you’re sick, in the same way we have elementary schools to go to when you’re young or fire departments to go to when you are on fire, is so totally alien to the hyper-individualist profit-fixated neoliberal capitalist that it never seems to come up in conversation.

  • @[email protected]
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    312 months ago

    Not giving you the coverage you pay for is theft. When are we going to normalize that and start putting CEOs in jail?

    • @[email protected]
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      102 months ago

      Only after revolution, share holders run the country, they wont allow us to cut into their grossly unnecessary wealth, they would rather we die.

  • femtech
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    212 months ago

    That why insurance should not be for profit.

  • @[email protected]
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    2 months ago

    insurance is a fucking scam that preys on the most vulnerable segment of the population in order to enrich themselves and their shareholders. and the vast majority of people think that’s just the way things are in america, therefore it’s the best possible way for things to be. what’s not to understand?

    • @[email protected]
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      72 months ago

      The free market is excellent at producing, at a reasonable cost, myriad voluntary luxuries like large televisions and speedy cars. These prices are naturally constrained by the consumers’ willingness to do-without. When the consumer cannot rationally choose to do-without, the elegant self-regulation intrinsic to the free market evaporates.

      • bitwolf
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        12 months ago

        So well worded. I struggle to get this concept out when discussing the concern about grocery prices and why homesteading / community gardens are the only protection we can reasonably have right now

  • Endymion_Mallorn
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    192 months ago

    We should stop calling it “insurance”, it doesn’t ensure anything. We should call it what it is - a protection racket. Either that, or we could refer to it as “medical loans” - of course, it’s all paid in advance, in many installments. Oh wait. That’s just defining a protection racket again, isn’t it?

      • Endymion_Mallorn
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        12 months ago

        Oh no, each claim is a new loan application. You pay in your premium to have the right to apply.

    • @[email protected]
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      32 months ago

      It’s a protection racket similar to the mob, except the mob has scruples and will actually protect you if you pay up. If you don’t pay up, broken kneecaps.

      Health insurance is just paying for broken kneecaps. If the mob ran healthcare we’d have better outcomes than we currently do, let’s be real.

  • @shalafi
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    182 months ago

    Funny how life insurance always pays, no problem. Because if they get a bad rep, people will go elsewhere. We can’t do that with employer-covered healthcare!

    • sunzu2
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      22 months ago

      These tricks are many, this is just the tip.

  • @[email protected]
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    172 months ago

    It doesn’t have to be a solemn vow. The definition of insurance is that it’s a guarantee. If it’s denying claims it’s technically not even providing insurance.