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I was listening to the Acquired episode on Epic and they touch on the severe cost overruns in our healthcare system. They make a point to share that hospitals aren't the ones making a killing. It's insurance companies.

They make a compelling argument that if you add up the total that you pay to insurance, taking into account what your employer pays, there's no way you get that much value out of your health insurance annually.

I imagine it's something like this that helps:

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Last I heard UnitedHealthcare was denying claims with an AI -- https://arstechnica.com/health/2023/11/ai-with-90-error-rate-forces-elderly-out-of-rehab-nursing-homes-suit-claims/

Abstraction. They don't even see individual numbers of denied claims, they see a percentage, a percentage of chance and other KPI. For they, there's no people being affected by the denials, only indicators.

One of them is taking a dirt nap

Literally nobody in their social circles holds them accountable for what they're a part of.

It's like ignoring your friends are part of the Nazi Regime because they're "just doing it for the money."

Thank you for the opening, I have a very true story to tell about that very subject.

I met my wife on vacation in the 90's, and after a few long distance months, she decided to move to where I lived. As a trained, experienced secretary from NYC, she used her own tried-and-true method of getting a job - she signed up with a good temp agency, and worked a series of temp jobs until she found a job where she fit in, hoping they would want to keep her.

She went through a series of bad employers, until she ended up working a temp job with the state's biggest healthcare company. She sat outside the office of a corporate lawyer whose sole job was to look through the files of people with the most expensive treatments, and find some excuse, any excuse, to cancel them, no matter how flimsy. Usually it was some pre-existing condition, like allergies. For example, if someone was getting expensive cancer treatments, this lawyer would find some evidence that they knew they had allergies when they got their insurance, and the lawyer would cancel their insurance based on that small unrelated issue. People who had paid premiums for years, were cancelled at the very moment they needed their insurance the most. They also didn't refund the thousands of dollars they'd paid in premiums, they kept it all, despite refusing to provid the service that had been paid for. Her refusal of treatment DEFINITELY led to the deaths of people, and this lawyer was nothing short of a Corporate Serial Killer.

My wife worked the job for three months, becoming increasingly uncomfortable and unhappy as she realized what she was assisting this Corporate Serial Killer in doing (and so did I), and was planning on having the temp agency find a a new position for her.

Before she was able to do that, she came home and told me "They offered me the job." It was a good opportunity, with better pay and good benefits. Normally, it would be time to celebrate, but she was clearly heavily conflicted. I asked what wanted to do, and she reluctantly said she was going to take the job, because we needed the money.

I told her we didn't need the money that bad, that it wasn't worth destroying her soul over (we aren't religious, I meant it in a more metaphorical way). I had already been concerned about the psychological toll the job had been taking, so I also told her that she was never going back there, and to call the temp agency tomorrow for a new position. Let them tell the company that she was never going back. We'd get by for a while longer, until something better came along.

I still remember her look of relief when I told her that I didn't expect her to work that soul-sucking job any lomger. She got a new temp job that developed into a permanent position that she held for years.

Years later, when Sarah Palin started talking about "death panels" associated with Obabacare, my wife said "Death Panels already exist at healh care companies, I personally worked for that company's one-woman death panel."

I know personally how psychopathic these health care companies are, and they should be run out of business for their fraudulent practices. They are Serial Killer Corporations, murdering people for profit. We need to put health care in the hands of an entity without a profit motive, and the only thing like that is the government. I was already thinking along the lines of Universal Health Care before my wife's experience cemented my firm belief in it.

My wife's experience is why I support Luigi 100%, even though he is totally innocent of all charges.

Don't kill people with guns. Kill people with paperwork. Most effective serial murder in the world. We know their motives, MO, and exactly where they live, but nobody will prosecute them.

No, the judge just gets another Caribbean vacation.

Reminds me of a scene in Fight Club when Robert Paulson accidentally becomes a martyr. The crew partially took his death as, "we are all Robert Paulson," we are all this martyr.

There is a nation of Luigis, and it's everyone. Everyone just has to stop waiting to die. It need not be violent or deadly, either. One way would be merely: Everyone just has to stop. Doing everything. At the same time.

Probably a good time would be around when the supply chains completely collapse in 10 or so days from now.

Always remember: it's only terrorism if poor people do it.

Who's Tim Noel? The new CEO of UnitedHealthcare.

They appointed a new one (a Tim Noel) back in late January.

No, it doesn't. Because we all know Luigi is innocent.