UnitedHealth overcharged cancer patients for drugs by over 1k%
The report is the latest indictment of America’s broken healthcare system.
This shit is straight up evil, will the company be held accountable for their crimes? This is what our justice system is for. Based on what we know so far, more crimes would be bound to come out in an investigation.
Even if they’re held to account there just gonna Texas two step and declare bankruptcy.
And then spin up another subsidiary and start over,
Luigi held them accountable, let’s hope for more
Allegedly
It’s not the justice system, it’s the legal system
That's how leftists traditionally point out that the rule of law is often immoral and unfair. An important distinction and longstanding ideological point of disagreement.
But when the law says one thing but the judges say another out of fear of political consequences, it's not even legal system either. Which is what happened with Trump's cases and is going to keep happening increasingly often especially with a strongly partisan SC.
Americans need to understand that the rule of law is dead or dying and won't save them. It does not matter anymore what the law says, the fascists and oligarchs control all three branches of federal government and are open about the fact that they'll drop all pretense of political neutrality or independence. The judicial branch won't stop the executive from violating your rights and vice-versa. The only counterpowers are the states and the people, to the extent that they give a shit (election says about 3/4 of Americans do not give a shit or actively support fascism). It's not a legal system anymore. It does not matter that the law is on your side when your enemy makes regular "campaign contributions" to the rulers.
From where I'm sitting, the justice system seems to be more interested in investigating poor individuals than rich companies. I can't think of many modern examples of rich companies (or even people) being held accountable for something that didn't involve stealing from other rich people.
There's examples but they aren't proportional. Oh, a company with 3 billion in revenue poisoned the water supply for a whole county? Let's fine them $10 million.
That definitely teaches them a lesson about consequences, except the lesson is that they don't matter.
US Government: Best I can do is a slap on the wrist to the tune of about 0.0000001% of their yearly profits and a hardy, "don't do that."
The shareholders are quite pleased with their returns
When will we start holding these people accountable? It is easy to say "corporations are bad" and then sit on your hands. It's different to start calling out the people who ultimately make the corporations evil.
We have whole classes of people comfortable fucking people over -- sometimes with deadly consequences.
“We” as in society, the government, and the legal system, will never hold them accountable.
Shielding against personal responsibility and liability is one of the bedrock features of American corporations. Piercing the corporate veil is the rare exception and is seen as a big deal. And that’s because the veil protects rich people.
“We” as in highly motivated individuals who may or may not have a plumbing company with their brother, seem the most likely to do something about it.
Well, the Law is supposed to protect us from Bad People, or so they and the powerful tell us again and again (and again, and again, and again).
Of course, in reality as the Ju$tice System's reaction to Luigi's action compared to their reaction to abusive and even murderous actions done by those hidden behind UnitedHealth makes painfully obvious, the Law mostly protects powerful Bad People from our reaction to those people doing Bad Things.
While I desperately want to believe that we have finally reached a tipping point where it becomes time to start investing in companies that make diagonal shaped blades, I'm resigned to the fact that no matter how angry we get, most of the hoi polloi is too lazy to care about it as long as they have the newest fun gadget in their hands and a bigger TV than last year.
People don't make corporations evil. The system of economics makes evil corporations win. Until the system changes, nothing else can
America is going to miss Lina Khan a lot in the next 4 years.
Probably the best part of the biden administration. But let's be real, the oligarchs were making moves to replace her either way.
Same as Katie Porter. Her white board was awesome for Americans, but also her death knell.
I've never seen a woman set herself up in a better position to run for office in this country though.
Just fucking write “tenfold”, Jesus fuck.
Edit:
I'm an idiot
What is "1k%?"
10x what they should've paid
Yeah 1000% is 10x but they were charged 11x what they should have paid. Overcharged by (over) 10x.
1 * 10^3
Horrible. A family member of mine needs a medication called Tolvaptan according to their doctor to prevent kidney failure due to a genetic disease.
From drugs.com: "The cost for tolvaptan (15 mg oral tablet) is approximately $4,482 for a supply of 10 tablets, while the brand Jynarque can cost around $21,238 for a supply of 56 tablets, depending on the pharmacy. Prices may vary based on factors like location and insurance coverage."
15mg is the lowest dose of this medication too. Often the dose is 30mg or 45mg, up to 60mg max.
If you really want to get pissed off, google the same medication but in the Netherlands.
Unchecked capitalism is really something, huh?
We've tried capitalism 1000 different ways and we are out of ideas!
Archive: https://archive.ph/7vHah
So people are going to jail over this and proper hard measures are going to be taken to address the obvious imbalance of power that allows companies like this to do this over and over again right? They're not just going to give the company another slap on the wrist fine that won't even cover how much money they've stolen from people, leaving them still making a profit for doing this and leaving the door wide open for more abuse like that to happen over and over again, right?
Right?
Quite interesting how big tech and big pharma are linked. Oh well.
And why is execution not ok to skip to the end of again?
Sometimes courts are just delays to the justice we all know is coming. Kinda pointless to have a detailed decision of just how dead they should be.
Let's just kill every insurance official. Insurance will just pay every claim ever now. If a readable request is submitted, it is approved. Just tap a random billionaire's account directly for it.
I'm an ideal world people would just suffer immediately for every infraction. And even ONE instance of this is death worthy honestly. So I don't need a giant list of every sorry decision they've ever made.
Fuck your budget, fuck your money, if you kill even one person with a "no" you go straight to hell later that day IMO. No mercy.
No one should die solely because they're expensive to keep alive.
If we could get maga to stop defending these people and see them for who they are, it would be over pretty quick. They're not very efficient, but they can break into some important buildings if they get riled up enough.
Americans love their health insurance providers
UnitedHealth, employer of slain exec Brian Thompson
Not quite correct sort of. This is OptumRx, which is owned by United Health Group, which also owns United Health Care, which Brian Thompson was nominally the CEO of. In other words, this is like the sibling of the company Brian Thompson ran.
To be clear, Brian Thmpson wasn't a billionaire, he was a mid-level at best millionaire worth only $41 million. He was just another star-bellied prole who thought he was in the aristocracy.
Point being, the whole thing is stupid. The health care system, the people getting rich off it, Luigi's reaction to it, our reactions to it, the media's reporting on it, all of it.
As many people here can tell you, I am not cheering on the idea of assassinating CEOs as a way of making systemic change because I simply do not think it will work.
That said, I 100% sympathize with Luigi Mangione and I 100% understand exactly why he did what he did. He was driven to the breaking point by a heartless company that, like all healthcare companies and, in fact, all for-profit companies in America that put their profits over human health and life.
He was desperate and driven to the brink of madness by the system that should have been helping him. Of course he did what he did. I'm honestly amazed someone hadn't done it sooner.
I still don't think it will solve a damn thing, and neither will killing a half dozen more healthcare CEOs if that happens, but I will totally understand if it happens again and likely sympathize with the killer.
What are you trying to say? That you could do a better job then Luigi?
Brian Thompson was accessible and his location was known. Probably why Luigi allegedly went after him.
Please don't violate LW's ToS. Be aware of what you're posting publicly. This is not a bar with your friends. This is the internet where things are recorded forever and can possibly link back to you/us with consequences. It's not that hard to express yourself without breaking the rules.