Summary
Reddit’s r/medicine moderators deleted a thread where doctors and users harshly criticized murdered UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
Comments, including satirical rejections of insurance claims for gunshot wounds, targeted UHC’s reputation for denying care to boost profits.
Despite the removal, similar discussions continue, with medical professionals condemning UHC’s business practices under Thompson’s leadership, which a Senate report recently criticized for denying post-acute care.
Thompson, shot in what appears to be a targeted attack, led a company notorious for its high claim denial rates, fueling ongoing debates about corporate ethics in healthcare.
It’s kinda hilarious watching billionaire owned media try to suppress the fact that absolutely no one feels bad for the CEO. The same thing happened when some billionaires decided to visit the Titanic, and after the Trump assassination attempt. The memes afterwards were top notch
Everyone is so fed up with this country and the shit is this close 🤏🏼 to the fan
Nah dude, this shit finally hit the fan. Just wait. Terrorism works. Look at what bin Laden did to this country - is it not obvious to everyone alive before and after that he won? He wanted to destroy America and he did. What this was is an act of terrorism, and it’s going to work. Corrupt leaders all over the spectrum are getting nervous. Americans are armed to the teeth and pissed. It only takes a couple of lone wolves with intelligence and gun skills to do some major damage. And who doesn’t wanna be famous these days? I mean who doesn’t like this guy? I’d put him on the cover of time as person of the year. This is just the beginning of some very interesting times. I can’t believe it took this long.
And even more uplifting, this isn’t politically divisive. There isn’t going to be right vs left retribution over this. The entire political spectrum save for a few uppity pearl clutchers (mostly lib elites) are celebrating this.
School shootings are just a matter of course now, they’re not even newsworthy anymore unless there’s an Uvalde-level of utter incompetence involved. And even then, what happened? Nothing, nothing happened to the cowards who were complicit and accomplices to the murder of children by actively preventing people from around the killer. We’re told to get over it.
So, you know, if I had to choose between school children being murdered as a matter of course and evil profiteers who revel and flourish on the pain and suffering of everyday people being murdered as a matter of course, I’d definitely chose the latter. I wouldn’t then tell people to get over it, I’d tell people the system obviously need to be dismantled and rebuilt entirely.
My real preference would be that there are no evil profiteers who revel and flourish on the pain and suffering and that systems be functioning for the people in the first place, but unfortunately that’s not an option.
I’m still absolutely flabbergasted at how quickly we all moved on from Trump literally getting clipped in an attempt on his life.
They tried to muster some outrage and solidarity, but most of us just shrugged and went, “Damn. Oh well, maybe next time.”
The sympathy lasted two days. I was expecting maybe a week.
You guys had sympathy?
No but I saw sympathy
Found it hiding under the couch, but squashed it with my shoe real quick.
He didnt get clipped. He cut his hand on glass, on the ground, and didnt realize it, then transfered the blood to his head. Thats why his ear was miraculously fully recovered like a week later when he was caught on camera without bandages.
No, it was just his superior genetics that allowed him to heal quicker than a normal person would.
Then the next time came, and it was even more disappointing. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
What was it the IRA told Thatcher? “You have to be lucky every single time. We only have to be lucky once.”
Fuck censorship.
asdfasdfasdfasfadsf
I just got banned on r/technology because someone was ranting about Trump in a tech sub, completely unrelated to the topic, and I said “Rent. Free.” and the mods immediately permbanned me. It’s amazing how little it takes.
I have been following the news about Brian Thompson’s assassination in New York, and I am astounded by the flood of sympathy the media has poured out for him. Why? This man spent his entire career working tirelessly to deny healthcare to millions of Americans, all in the name of lining his own pockets and enriching shareholders. Yet the media praises him for his “kindness” and “generosity.” Let me be clear: pushing your company’s claim denial rate to nearly double that of your most cold-hearted competitors, bankrupting families through deceptive fine print and delay tactics, is not kindness, and it is not generosity. No, setting up boiler-room style offices with denial scoreboards is one of the most inhuman things I can imagine.
I spent nearly a decade writing software to help hospital systems fight insurance claim denials, and I can tell you, these insurers are getting better at it every year. They deny even the most justified claims, banking on the fact that most people won’t have the energy, resources, or will to fight back. And for the majority, they’re right. We had a team of a dozen nurses and PAs working alongside twice as many analysts. These were people who knew the system inside and out. We knew the deadlines, the bureaucratic jargon, the documentation required, and we tracked every claim meticulously. But even armed with all that knowledge and experience, we couldn’t win them all. On a good month, we might win two-thirds of the denials. That was considered a success.
What’s even worse is that for every claim we fought, there were countless others that never even made it that far, we only got denials on services that actually happened. A patient’s doctor tells them they need surgery, but an insurer like UnitedHealth says no and that’s it. The patient gives up and it is difficult to imagine they get better.
If you’ve ever had a serious medical condition—and I pray you haven’t—you know how much it drains you, how it strips you of your will to do anything. When every moment is agony, you don’t have the strength to sit on hold for hours, fill out endless forms, or chase down a bureaucratic system designed to wear you down. All you want is to sleep, because that’s the only place that pain can’t find you. How many people have simply lacked the strength to fight back, and ultimately succumbed to their conditions? How many families have been driven into poverty, their lives torn apart by a single emergency, all because of these executives’ policies?
We all know someone who has been through a health insurance nightmare and we also know that while political changes could probably help this problem the reality now is that these people are making a choice to run their companies this way, knowing full well the impact of their greed and indifference.
Where are your tears, your headlines, for the thousands of people and families whose lives have been destroyed and whose loved ones have died because of these same executives?
I spent 37.5 hours (I document EVERYTHING) on hold with Wellcare trying to get them to pay for Narcolepsy medication I’ve been on since 2021… “Has the patient tried this ADHD medication, as an alternate?” “No. I prescribed my patient the only FDA approved medication, in the United States that treats Narcolepsy and Cataplexy, and she needs to stay on it”. Luckily my doctor is wonderful.
It’s draining, but I’ve learned that the trick is to tell each of the outsourced customer service reps that you have no problem staying on hold for however long it takes. I’m disabled and have that ability. My partner works from home, so I do the same for their Blue Cross. When the insurance companies realize you’re willing to fill out ALL their paperwork, appeal higher and higher up, so that well-paid people get involved, clog their phone lines, and keep documenting every step of the way, they’ll give you what you want… but it is a full time job. 😮💨
Why?
Of course that’s a rhetorical question, but media has all been bought and paid for by corpos. The same corpos that now realize their lives can be easily deleted for all the evil shitty things they do, so of course all the corpo media is going to be unnecessarily biased to the positive for one of their own.
It’s accurate proof that the corpo media needs to be ignored in general if it hasn’t been obvious so far.
America needs real journalism, now more than ever. Sadly, it will probably be underground.
This reminds me of Grisham’s The Rainmaker
I have been following the news about Brian Thompson’s assassination in New York, and I am astounded by the flood of sympathy the media has poured out for him. Why?
Who do you think owns the media? Who’s interests do they try to serve? It is not surprising at all that they would sympathize with him. We’re not talking some punk zine put out by some gritty journalist. These are highly consolidated corporate news outlets, many of whom have boards of directors that share some strong similarity to UHC. It’s profoundly unsurprising to me that they would sympathize with him, as they are a lot closer to a multi-million dollar CEO than your average Joe that gets their claims denied.
Insurance is irrelevant to the people that own and control much of our mass media, because they can easily pay out of pocket for any problems they have. All they see during this shooting is one of their own gunned down for “no reason”.
I’m with you.
Never have I needed to work so hard to advocate for myself to get the care I needed as when I was with UHC.
By comparison, this year has held two major surgeries for me, neither expected, and my current insurer just shrugged, asked ONCE for proof of medical necessity, and paid the bill.
Also, let’s not forget the breach at a UHC subsidiary in recent months that brought down pharma payment systems for weeks…
Not a great decision from the moderators.
“We are paid by CEOs. Better side with them.”
“You’re just a moderator; you don’t get paid at all!”
Fuck Reddit and the life is cheap US healthcare system.
I find some comments here disturbing. The man may have been not the best example of ethical behavior, but he is still a murder victim with a family who will no doubt miss him. No one deserves to be shot in the back on a city street. If that was true, it’s not long until your number comes up.
The internet is full of false bravado, and few morals.
I have no sympathy for people who are responsible for and profit from killing people. All the people who died preventable deaths because insurance wouldn’t pay to save their lives had family too. I’m not about to go out and shoot people but I’ll damn well cheer for someone killing an evil bastard.
It’s fine if you want to play judge and jury, just try not to do it with someone’s life. Thanks.
The man was a mass murderer. But because he wore a suit and did it from an office it was OK. If a gunman put down any other mass murderer noone would complain.
People right here on Lemmy often complain when murderers are executed. For good reason.
I was reading an article that quoted his wife about what a great guy he was. It reminded me of Ken Lay’s wife talking about her families liquidity problems after the Enron collapse. Hundreds of employees lost everything and she’s griping about liquidity.
I saw one that had a different relative say he was an honest person and hard worker.
This honest person’s company had $290 billion in insurance premium revenue in 2023 and they had $22 billion in profit. I always knew insurance was a grift but holy fuck.
And the company rewarded him with a $10 million compensation package in 2023. No living person works hard enough in a single year to earn multiple lifetime’s of average worker wages.
cEoS wOrK tHe HaRdEsT!
Someone else in another thread said their friend inherited a billion dollars and is the hardest working person they’ve ever met and I honestly couldn’t help but laugh out loud.
One medical doctor, whose identity the Daily Beast confirmed, commented with sympathy for Thompson’s family and said the killer should be charged with murder, but then wondered about the damage the CEO had done.
“I cannot even guess how many person-years UHC has taken from patients and their families through denials,” they wrote. “It has to be on the order of millions. His death won’t make that better, but it’s hard for me to sympathize when so many people have suffered because of his company.”
“What has bothered me the most is people that put «fiduciary responsibility» (eg profits) above human lives, none more so than this company as run by him," wrote another medical doctor, who also spoke to the Daily Beast to confirm their identity. “When other’s human lives are deemed worthless, it is not surprising to have others view your life of no value as well.”
These doctors know what’s up.
The level of greed is so much worse than any normal person understands. They do NOTHING. They aren’t medical field professionals, they don’t need to ever step foot in a hospital or clinic, they only inflate the cost, catastrophelicly with no insurance, only horribly when you’re with them, create endless loopholes to deny coverage with, and use non medical, non trained or consulted opinions and reasoning to justify it, and they are all too educated to not know full well they are lying to get out of paying any bill ever.
Denying someone with crippling medical issues access to treatment with lies and misinformation to shave one more sliver of profit for a parasitic middle man is so many orders of magnitude above evil it’s breath taking.
From a mod of /r/medicine:
People - Please don’t make the life of your mods a living hell.
Anything that is celebrating violence is going to get taken down - if not from us, then from reddit. I think all the mods understand that there is a high level of frustration and antipathy towards insurance and insurance execs, but we also understand that murdering people in the streets is not good.
We are a public group of medical professionals, we still need to act like that.
And on a practical note, this man did not create or control the fucked up insurance industry by himself. Other people will take his place and continue to do what he was doing. It’s a systemic issue.
I’m pretty sure they’re just purging the Ai training data to keep Gemini from suggesting capping a corpo when they won’t pay for grandma’s nausea medication during her chemo.
“Hey Gemini, my health insurance company has denied my claim, what are my next steps?”
I am sorry to hear you are struggling with your health insurance claim. According to Reddit[1], the best way to appeal your claim is to access the Wayback Machine or Archive Today to find out who the executives are for your insurance company and communicate with them directly about the seriousness and validity of your claim.
Here are some effective communication tips to ensure the success of your appeal:
- Volume matters - use subsonic ammunition and a suppressor. You don’t want to disturb your neighbors when pleading your claim.
- Practice makes perfect - you may need to hand cycle the spent rounds. Unless tuned, the gas blow back won’t be enough to eject and then chamber another round.
- Go eco - e-bikes help the planet. In a traffic packed city, e-bikes provide a great opportunity to reduce pollution.
And shit on the mods, cancer to all of them
This is a really uncomfortable situation for me as a user and made me want to use Lemmy even more
Yep. Fuck censorship.
Too many people think it’s acceptable until something they support is being censored.
It’s not censorship, censorship is when the state censors certain topics etc.
This is rich owners of large, easy to use and free social media websites trying to shape the conversation.
This is what happens when you think the state and the wealthy are distinct. But it’s one big capitalist system. The wealthy run the state, and they own the media, and they fund the “non-profit” think tanks & media.
Life is short and filled with potential that sometimes met and other times robbed.
Having lost many members of my family, I don’t wish it on others.
Edit--------
So I would suggest that anyone actually learn to read what is written. It’s like taking to 5 year old that jump to conclusions… Seriously people, I don’t care about this Billionaire, I won’t be someone who will sya that murder is good and let’s purge all rich people. That is not constructive and I value life, not death. So many of you suffered from health insurance but when you come to vote you vote like most Americans do, not in my backyard. I don’t want socialism, governments not coming to take my money or guns…
No offence but private health care didn’t happen over night. You live in one of the greatest democratic institutions but simy chose not to use your tools. That is why corruption runs amok, none of you want to stand up and unite yourself with other Americans because you are all so bloody individualist. All other countries with universal healthcare didn’t just get it by miracle, it was work and commitment to the greater good which means not getting into hissy fights for every little thing.
How about listening to George Carlin to. Illuminate your minds… Seriously America, everyone in the world has been telling you that you have a problem, stop gaslighting us.
And yet he not only wished it, but CAUSED it, for thousands upon thousands in the name of shareholder profits.
Agreed and his company and all like him should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
Imagine if millions of people walked the streets to stop the healthcare scam of America? Blue and red United…
Whenever we have big protests, we get tear gassed, shot with rubber bullets, beaten with nightsticks, and arrested. Why do you think this time would be different?
Vietnam ended because of protest.
The police cannot stop millions of people that match because most of them would agree with you.
The US needs to stop giving the microphone to extreme left and right speakers and go back to being a centrist country…
Protest isn’t easy but it gains traction when everyone is united which at the moment the United States is not… The longer it’s citizens are not united, the longer corporations will fill its coffers and pig out on your hard earned cash…
The media keeps you distracted so that none of you see how similar you are with the other side. They have even convinced people to no longer speak to Trump people… Who does that benefit? Motherfucking Corporations. They want you to be divided in every cause possible as it remove the eye on them…
They brutally attacked protesters during the Vietnam war protests, what are you talking about?
They did in fact stop millions of people in more recent protests, once again by using violence against the protesters.
As I said, it is not easy. When the elites believes they have no resistance, they pig out…
There is only so much that cops can prevent in a protest, especially in a day and age of technology where everything is recorded
I agree with the other things you said about solidarity.
But your implied view of protests, where the protesters have to suffer violence at the hands of the oppressors, is just insane to me.
And cops have been recorded commiting war crimes against the American people, and guess what the recordings did? Fucking. Nothing.
Yeah man, your heart bleeds for the millions of people who die every month. But your actions and words speak for the one CEO…
