https://mas.to/@MikeBeas/113666556469008087
EDIT: I think you should get the service you pay for, just so that's clear.
Without realizing it, Mike Beasley makes a great argument for why private, for-profit health insurance shouldn't exist.
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.
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.
"It's a business" is not a justification for evil, and yet that's always how the phrase is used.
it's a business that helps you pay your bills
Quite the opposite, it's a business that makes your bills expensive.
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.
It’s my understanding that health insurance companies hire doctors, who have taken the hypocritical oath, to review claims and deny them.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I'm launching my burger insurance company
Didn't Domino's do a stupid Pizza insurance thing?
This gaslighting won't work anymore
Not giving you the coverage you pay for is theft. When are we going to normalize that and start putting CEOs in jail?
Only after revolution, share holders run the country, they wont allow us to cut into their grossly unnecessary wealth, they would rather we die.
Oblige them
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?
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?
Loans pay out.
Oh no, each claim is a new loan application. You pay in your premium to have the right to apply.
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.
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.
That why insurance should not be for profit.
Not a meme.
You know... that kinda vow would be a great idea! Doctors take an oath like thing too, right?
Insurance is defined at its core as a transfer of risk. Its that simple. If insurance denies everything I send their way while I am paying them, its no longer a transfer of risk, I am simply paying someone to tell me 'no'.
That out of the way, the whole health insurance industry does not follow the concept of transfer of risk. The insurance companies rather follow the concept of transfer of action. Basically I am not going to spend all day negotiating with a hospital. That said, them denying is because they do not want to do the work still, so in other words, I am still paying someone to tell me 'no'.
In both concepts, the insurance companies are not doing what they ascribed to. Along with the laws that congress stripped away affordable care to its basics that we all are required to have it - read an extra tax but to corporations who give kick backs to their congressional lackeys - and the fact that insurance companies basically are price fixing all the rates and such, it becomes a lose (you)/lose (you)/lose (hospitals)/only ones who win are the companies.
Late stage capitalism hard at work.
... This dude needs to understand how other types of insurance work
I think that if money exchanges hands, it's part of a deal that must be honored by the other party.
They're getting very close to saying the quiet part aloud, and the quiet part is...
"Everyone except for the .0001% exists for the service of said .0001%, and the fact that you have any self-respect or value for your lives is a failing on your part peon!"
Not a fan of the smug liberal aura this post has.
I feel like every time someone uses the word "liberal" on lemmy, the meaning of the word shifts slightly to the right.
Liberals are right wing. They're comparatively further left than conservatives but both ideologies favour capitalism as the economic system which is inherently on the right -- in opposition to a more controlled market.
Conservatism is just far right liberalism as a pit stop on the path to fascism.
Liberals are right wing.
If that's the tack he wants to take with his argument, than in fact that opposite is true.
They're a business. You provide them money and they provide a service. So in that respect, there should be no such thing as denial of service for ANYTHING because you've already paid for it.
To make it easier to understand for our short term minds, let's sketch a different scenario.
You hire a bodyguard. They're a 7"2 giant bodybuilder with armor. Then someone walks towards you with a knife, raising it up and staring you in the eyes with a frantic expression.
Your giant bodyguard steps aside, and watches are you slowly get tortured to death. Little by little, while you scream for help. The bodyguard tells you Venezuelan blood torture is not covered.
I think someone might rightfully be upset with this bodyguard company. Perhaps as much as the health insurance company that forces people to go into a year long legal battle to get cancer treatment.
At least, that's what I've been hearing about the healthcare system in the usa as of recent.
Any company that promises goods and/or services in exchange for money that takes your money in exchange said goods and/or services and then doesn't deliver services or goods is a scam
I would assume that I actually get a coffee when I go to Starbucks and pay for it.
Beasley kind of has a point that it's a stretch to call monetary debt as murder, but I really hope more people start voting for politicians who will end privatized healthcare.
Even if a claim gets denied the fact that it was submitted means you already got the treatment.
Even if a claim gets denied the fact that it was submitted means you already got the treatment.
That's quite often not true. There are tons of procedures/tests/etc that don't get run until a "prior authorization" has been granted by the insurance company. Also medications and durable medical equipment are not dispensed until insurance has been approved. If the prior auth is not granted or the medication is not covered, they usually will not be performed/provided unless the patient pays up front, and without the negotiating power of the insurance company, the patient will be paying 5 to 10 times what the insurance company would have paid.
I've personally been dealing with medical issues the past 3 months and the amount of prior auths I've seen go by is astounding. Tomorrow I actually go in for some more tests that they couldn't do a few weeks ago because these ones in particular needed some prior auths that are harder to get.
Generally speaking, uninsured medical costs and medication are cheaper than what the insurance company pays. SOURCE
Hospitals and Insurance companies do this because it's a write-off for the insurance company and it makes the patients feel better about their coverage plan.
You likely could get the treatment without the authorizations if you pressed, I sincerely doubt the hospital would try to stop you, but that would put you into debt so obviously don't do that.
Denied treatment is murder. Social murder. Stop simping for these companies they don’t give a fuck about you.
Insurance companies deny payments for treatments. Hospitals deny treatment.
Insurance companies shouldn't exist, I would never simp for them, but as a personal policy I always call out lies. The lie in this case being "insurance companies are murderers."
You’re being pedantic and ridiculous.
Pedantic or a liar, I guess we get to pick our class.
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