A few days ago, fifty-year-old Brian Thompson was gunned down on a street in midtown Manhattan. Thompson was not an unimportant man. He was a senior executive of United Health Group, a company valued by the stock market at about three-quarters of a trillion Canadian dollars. The company expects profits of almost C$40 billion in 2024.
United Healthcare, the business that Thompson headed, has the highest claim-denial rate of any private insurance company: at thirty-two per cent, it is double the industry average.
Reporting in the Wall Street Journal has found that private insurance companies, which cover more than a third of American seniors on Medicare, collect hundreds of billions of dollars from the government annually and overbill Medicare to the tune of around ten billion dollars per year; UnitedHealthcare has used litigation to fight its obligation to repay fees that were overpaid.
Two-thirds of personal bankruptcies in the USA result from debts incurred for healthcare. That probably explains the hurtful responses on social media after the health insurance guy was murdered. A few examples:
- I’m sorry, prior authorization is required for thoughts and prayers.
- Does he have a history of shootings? Denied coverage!
People’s Action is a group that has organized protests against American companies that provide — or in some cases, refuse to provide — coverage of medical expenses. It published a statement after the murder that included this:
We know there is a crisis of gun violence in America. There is also a crisis of denials of care by private health insurance corporations including UnitedHealth.
The denial of valid insurance claims is not occasional or accidental or the fault of a few bad employees. It’s the result of an increasing and systematic focus on maximizing profits by major companies.
December 9 Update
26-year-old Luigi Mangione has been charged with killing medical insurance CEO Brian Thompson, Police found three 9mm rounds at the murder scene and bullet casings had the words “deny,” “defend” and “depose” on them, which echo a phrase commonly used to criticize tactics insurance companies use to reject claims.
Last week, United Healthcare CEO Brain Thompson was murdered in New York City on his way to a conference of investors in his American health insurance company. To say that the public has been unsympathetic would be grossly understating the sentiment. It has sparked widespread discussion in the United States over the troublesome private health care system in the country — the same one that conservative governments have been quietly working hard to bring back to Canada...
Categories: Health
in-sights.ca 
The sad fact is, uncontrolled capitalism, combined with uncontrolled corporate greed has spawned the “American solution” or assassination.Comparison: I had a hear attack in June and after calling 911 around 11 am, by 5:30 I had three stents put in, a severe lecture from my cardiologist, and was having dinner at 5:30 pm the same day. I was home in 3 days; oh yes, zero heart damage! My cost $80 for the ambulance.
A correspondent from Texas, who is a little older had a heart attack in July and he called 911, and rushed to the hospital. Due to his insurance coverage the hospital did not do any corrective procedures until the next day and by then there was considerable heart damage, requiring a stay of 2 weeks and a second operation. Even though he had health insurance, he still had to ante up over $10K USD for various charges not covered by his health insurance. In fact there are more bills coming in.
The problem south of the 49th is that if one is poor, one dies so the American solution, so abhorrent to Canadian eyes, is not in the USA because “taking someone with you” has become the American way.
Being a corporate CEO in the USA will soon be more dangerous than a firefighter.
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