UnitedHealthcare CEO Assassinated In NYC

[Isabeau]

Yeah, but again, people are having fun talking about his looks, debating about if he had reason to be angry (needing coverage), or making memes with him in a hero’s outfit, but I really do feel that most don't really care about who or why. It’s the idea of taking back control, and of him doing something many may have fantasized about. I think it’s less about having empathy for him, and more about the collective lack of empathy for the other (much worse) murderer.

I don’t think wondering if he had a real motive or not, or thinking he was poor, means people idealized him necessarily. They just sympathized with him more. Now, it’s more the idea that people may be idealizing.

“Behind this mask there is more than just flesh. Beneath this mask there is an idea... and ideas are bulletproof.” etc etc

But, who knows, maybe there are those who think he’s a hero and was justified even with his (privileged) circumstances. I mean, half the population think Trump is president material. WTF do I know? I have had to question everything I ever thought I knew about humankind the last 10 years.

 

[Dakota Tebaldi]

As an aside though, this stuff is infuriating

The person in the bottom photo massacred four people during a home invasion.

 

[Khamon]

That's true, but this is kind of a rock-and-hard-place situation for political power; to suddenly focus right now on insurance companies when they clearly never cared that much before would concede that randomly murdering someone who is representative of insurance companies in some way works as a method to effect change, or even to just like, get the attention of power. Obviously they wouldn't want to send a message like that.

That’s too bad.

 

[Noodles]

It definitely hits different if the guy was actually well-off upper-class and neither he nor anyone in his family really had any trouble getting insured or having anything they needed covered. I have trouble sympathizing with someone just because they picked an acceptable target and ignoring their actual motives. I mean, the rich eating the rich doesn't exactly bother me either; but it's not the same situation as someone punching up, not the same at all. I think it does matter.

You can read his "manifesto" online. Its taken down a lot but archive sites have it. Both he and his mother had trouble getting coverage.

Which almost makes him MORE sympathetic because even being "well off" he and his got fucked over by these companies.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Faith-based cost-sharing seemed like an alternative to health insurance, until the childbirth bills arrived

Health care sharing ministries advertise reimbursements for members’ medical bills. But they are largely unregulated, and most have restrictions on maternity coverage.

www.nbcnews.com

 

[Beebo Brink]

Faith-based cost-sharing seemed like an alternative to health insurance, until the childbirth bills arrived

Health care sharing ministries advertise reimbursements for members’ medical bills. But they are largely unregulated, and most have restrictions on maternity coverage.

www.nbcnews.com

The basic principle behind insurance -- pooling assets to cover costs -- should make it pretty damn clear that small insurance pools can't cover extraordinary costs. They only make sense when you're relatively healthy, if then.

For the first 20 years of my partnership with Mrs. Beebo, we could not cover her with my employment health benefits because we were not legally married. Due to several pre-existing conditions, the cost of her individual medical insurance premiums soared, as did the size of her deductible. We had no choice but to drop her insurance. That saved us almost $20,000 a year, and throughout that time -- even with a surgery or two -- we spent less than that amount on her medical bills. At worst, we broke even, but I suspect we came out ahead.

Eventually, when I was employed by a much larger, multi-national company, I was able to add her to my benefits plan. Ironically, I was the one who ended up needing that coverage, even though we'd always considered her the most medically fragile of the two of us. Insurance covered all but a few thousand dollars of my open heart surgery and coronary rehab. But to get that coverage, I had paid for the very best plan offered by my company, and it was pricey.

In America, you can only win the insurance lottery by falling REALLY ill. And I won. Yay?

 

[Khamon]

The other Khamon lost the second half of their thyroid and parathyroid a week ago. All is well in recovery. Billing presented a statement that claimed 17k+ in expenses, “discounted” over 13k, for a total actual bill of around 4k with our initial copay being $150.

This is the racket. Hospital charges 17k and claims a 13k loss. That adds up to paying no taxes and qualifying for all sorts of aid packages. Insurance claims that they’re providing a valuable service by bargaining down these charges, that never existed, but insist that premiums must be based on the original charges because the evol hospital may win the argument snd actually be owed that much.

We are lucky to both have sufficient affordable coverage for working in the state educational system. I suppose that makes us complicit in the racket. The best we can do is vote consistently, at every level, for people who claim they’ll try to make a difference.

 

[GoblinCampFollower]

Faith-based cost-sharing seemed like an alternative to health insurance, until the childbirth bills arrived

Health care sharing ministries advertise reimbursements for members’ medical bills. But they are largely unregulated, and most have restrictions on maternity coverage.

www.nbcnews.com

The thing is... a lot of big evil national health insurance plans began like this. They often start out as a noble effort to circumvent insurance and do the same thing, spreading risk to help poor or unlucky people. ...but then they often sink because of reasons like in the article. If they beat the odds and get lucky and grow, they will eventually get taken over by Wall Street. Then they just become yet another one of those big evil insurance companies. My own company and some of the companies we acquired went through this process.

The basic idea of insurance, where you spread risk across many people is good. The problem comes when investors and leadership start squeezing all of the profit out of it they can. This is where regulators need to step in with a heavy hand.

 

[Rose Karuna]

The thing is... a lot of big evil national health insurance plans began like this. They often start out as a noble effort to circumvent insurance and do the same thing, spreading risk to help poor or unlucky people. ...but then they often sink because of reasons like in the article. If they beat the odds and get lucky and grow, they will eventually get taken over by Wall Street. Then they just become yet another one of those big evil insurance companies. My own company and some of the companies we acquired went through this process.

The basic idea of insurance, where you spread risk across many people is good. The problem comes when investors and leadership start squeezing all of the profit out of it they can. This is where regulators need to step in with a heavy hand.

X 1,000,000,000

It happens to hospitals, urgent care and primary care centers as well as insurance plans. Private equity firms are buying these up like crazy and then closing the "non-profitable" ones in areas that need them the most.

Do you know who owns your hospital?

Private equity firms are buying up hospitals, nursing homes and ER operations. The drive for profits can run counter to helping patients, critics say.

www.nbcnews.com

Blackstone, which bought TeamHealth in 2016 for $6.1 billion, is what's known as a private equity firm, a type of financial entity that buys companies and hopes to sell them later at a profit.

Blackstone are the modern day robber barons. Modern-Day Robber Baron: The Sins of Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman

I'm holding me breath as my husband and I are in the Advent Health system. We still have traditional medicare (for how long with that asshole Oz is questionable), but all our doctors are through Advent Health and they are terrific. I'm not sure if they are making a profit or not but all the care that we've had there has been stellar in comparison to other facilities in the area. It is a Seventh Day Adventist hospital. They are not without controversy but to my knowledge are still a Seventh Day Adventist hospital and have not been taken over by any private equity firms although they have had partnerships with them.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

The thing is... a lot of big evil national health insurance plans began like this. They often start out as a noble effort to circumvent insurance and do the same thing, spreading risk to help poor or unlucky people. ...but then they often sink because of reasons like in the article. If they beat the odds and get lucky and grow, they will eventually get taken over by Wall Street. Then they just become yet another one of those big evil insurance companies. My own company and some of the companies we acquired went through this process.

The basic idea of insurance, where you spread risk across many people is good. The problem comes when investors and leadership start squeezing all of the profit out of it they can. This is where regulators need to step in with a heavy hand.

Health insurance, though, is unlike most other forms of insurance in that you're generally insuring against mishaps that, in general, befall particular individuals very rarely. Most people aren't burgled very often, and their houses don't burn down, and they don't crash their cars very frequently. Yes, such things do happen, but not as a matter of course, so most people pay their premiums for years on end without ever, if at all having to make a claim.

However, medical care is a different matter. We're all certain to need it repeatedly throughout our lives, and more frequently as we get older. Rather than insuring against expensive but rare events, people are having to insure against expensive events that are part of everyday life.

 

[Free]

RECUSE!

Who is Katharine Parker? Luigi Mangione judge's health-care ties explained

Parker has been overseeing pretrial hearings for Mangione, who is accused of fatally shooting UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

www.newsweek.com

The judge overseeing pretrial hearings for Luigi Mangione is married to a former Pfizer executive, according to a report.

Magistrate Judge Katharine H. Parker's husband, Bret Parker, left Pfizer, where he was vice president and assistant general counsel, in 2010, journalist Ken Klippenstein reported on his Substack page.

The judge also holds hundreds of thousands of dollars in stock, including in Pfizer and other health-care and pharmaceutical companies, according to her 2023 financial disclosures.

The news on this has been hitting since yesterday morning (since Ken Klippenstein reported it). Guess where I can't seem to find reporting about it online?

• New York Times
• Washington Post
• CNN
• MSNBC
• NBC News
• CBS News
• ABC News
• The Guardian
• Fox News

Instead of listing these up - or showing them at all (going and searching their websites on "Mangione Parker" provides nothing), Google serves up Newsweek, The Daily Beast, Times of India, and...a site called Sportskeeda. Yup.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

RECUSE!

Who is Katharine Parker? Luigi Mangione judge's health-care ties explained

Parker has been overseeing pretrial hearings for Mangione, who is accused of fatally shooting UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

www.newsweek.com

The news on this has been hitting since yesterday morning (since Ken Klippenstein reported it). Guess where I can't seem to find reporting about it online?

• New York Times
• Washington Post
• CNN
• MSNBC
• NBC News
• CBS News
• ABC News
• The Guardian
• Fox News

Instead of listing these up - or showing them at all (going and searching their websites on "Mangione Parker" provides nothing), Google serves up Newsweek, The Daily Beast, Times of India, and...a site called Sportskeeda. Yup.

As I understand it, the magistrate judge is responsible for various pre-trial administrative decisions, not for the trial itself. The only significant decision the judge has had to make so far would seem to be to deny bail and to remand the defendant in custody, which cannot have come as a surprise to anyone.

Not being particularly familiar with the US legal system, I don't understand why it's considered remarkable that the husband of the magistrate judge in this case was, 14 years ago, employed not by a health insurance company but by a drugs manufacturer. The rule is

Any justice, judge, or magistrate, of the United States shall disqualify himself/herself in any proceeding in which his/her impartiality might reasonably be questioned

Is it suggested that's the case here? Would it also apply if, for example, the judge's husband had worked for Microsoft and it transpired that UnitedHealth Group use Windows?

I'd have thought the fact the judge and his family probably have health insurance of one sort or another, as will most other people involved in the trial, would be a bigger issue.

 

[Free]

As I understand it, the magistrate judge is responsible for various pre-trial administrative decisions, not for the trial itself.

I'm not sure why you think that helps. Pre-trial courts are still part of the criminal justice process, and the purpose of any judge is to make rulings and judgements as impartially as possible.

Would it also apply if, for example, the judge's husband had worked for Microsoft and it transpired that UnitedHealth Group use Windows?

That's a fucking ridiculous analogy and you know it. "What if Mangione used Axe body spray but her husband preferred Tom Ford" is probably a more potential conflict and still just as laughable.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

I'm not sure why you think that helps. Pre-trial courts are still part of the criminal justice process, and the purpose of any judge is to make rulings and judgements as impartially as possible.



That's a fucking ridiculous analogy and you know it. "What if Mangione used Axe body spray but her husband preferred Tom Ford" is probably a more potential conflict and still just as laughable.

Yes, and I'm asking why the fact the Magistrate Judge's "impartiality might reasonably be questioned " because 14 years ago his husband worked not for a health insurance company but for a drugs manufacturer. Have any of his decisions so far given any indication of bias in the matter?

Do you also say Judge Merchan should, as Trump's lawyers argued, have recused himself from hearing Donald Trump's trial because his daughter runs a political consulting firm that advises various Democrats and because he contributed $35 to Democratic campaigns in 2020?

 

[Free]

Yes, and I'm asking why the fact the Magistrate Judge's "impartiality might reasonably be questioned " because 14 years ago his husband worked not for a health insurance company but for a drugs manufacturer. Have any of his decisions so far given any indication of bias in the matter?

I don't think I'm competent enough to provide an analysis of the vast intertwining tentacles of wealth and influence throughout the pharmaceutical industry, intermediaries such as pharmacy benefit managers and the like, and health insurance companies. Certainly not for a forum thread. So I'll leave my response at "whatever."

Do you also say Judge Merchan should, as Trump's lawyers argued, have recused himself from hearing Donald Trump's trial because his daughter runs a political consulting firm that advises various Democrats and because he contributed $35 to Democratic campaigns in 2020?

If an argument can be made. It would be difficult to make a serious connection with the political views of ones children and ones legal decisions, but to say it shouldn't be assessed at all is wrong.

 

[detrius]

Yes, and I'm asking why the fact the Magistrate Judge's "impartiality might reasonably be questioned " because 14 years ago his husband worked not for a health insurance company but for a drugs manufacturer. Have any of his decisions so far given any indication of bias in the matter?

Do you also say Judge Merchan should, as Trump's lawyers argued, have recused himself from hearing Donald Trump's trial because his daughter runs a political consulting firm that advises various Democrats and because he contributed $35 to Democratic campaigns in 2020?

The article also clearly states that she currently "holds hundreds of thousands in stock, including in Pfizer and other health-care and pharmaceutical companies".

Why did you leave out that part?

I'd say that several hundred thousands of dollars weigh more than 35 bucks, and that investing such an amount of money into the healthcare industry counts as being invested. That's why it's called investment.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

The article also clearly states that she currently "holds hundreds of thousands in stock, including in Pfizer and other health-care and pharmaceutical companies".

Why did you leave out that part?

I'd say that several hundred thousands of dollars weigh more than 35 bucks, and that investing such an amount of money into the healthcare industry counts as being invested. That's why it's called investment.

I'd read about the case, but didn't read the article, so I wasn't aware of the judge's shareholdings, but I don't see how they're relevant. If she owned shares in a health insurance company it might be different, but how do her shareholdings in a pharmaceuticals company affect things one way or another?

I'd have thought that a far greater issue would be the fact almost everyone involved in the case will have health insurance of some sort, as will their immediate family, and might therefore be expected to have views, whether positive or negative, about health insurance companies in general based on their experiences.

 

[WolfEyes]

I'd read about the case, but didn't read the article, so I wasn't aware of the judge's shareholdings, but I don't see how they're relevant. If she owned shares in a health insurance company it might be different, but how do her shareholdings in a pharmaceuticals company affect things one way or another?

Health insurance is part of the health care industry.

 

[Soen Eber]

As an aside though, this stuff is infuriating

The person in the bottom photo massacred four people during a home invasion.

Those cops [and their agencies] have always wanted to part of a CSI montage. Life imitates television. More realistically, the establishment is sending a message. They're scared.

 

[Soen Eber]

Health insurance is part of the health care industry.

By owning large amounts of stock, the judge profits. Ceasar's wife, and all of that.