this post was submitted on 05 Dec 2024
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Showerthoughts
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tldr: one idea would be challenging their ability to hide behind licensed MDs who are paid to shoulder liability
This is actually my field, and I've spent countless hours of my life arguing with these insurance companies on behalf of patients they've denied, (losing more often than I've won, but you have to try). They suck.
When they're being exceptionally unreasonable, the bridge-burning hail mary I would throw would be threatening the license of the provider that denied the appealed claim. It has worked a surprising number of times.
Most people don't realize that it's not just paper-pushers at insurance companies who are denying claims. Those folks can routinely deny things that policy excludes, but if it's a judgement call or a challenge that their policy isn't meeting medical necessity, they hide behind doctors on their payroll who are putting their license on the line when they have to say that the insurance company is justified. Those individuals can be reported to their licensing board or even sued. Short of voting in universal healthcare one day, I think this is the most direct route to challenge this nonsense.
I appreciate your measured takes and inside point of view, more of both are always welcome (not that you need my invitation lol, you're basically famous around here).
The problem I see, though, is all the most morally defensible and procedural fixes require the healthy functioning of institutions that have been weakened, dismantled and / or perverted and turned against us. And a frightening number of us see that now and feel that normal channels for change are closed. I'm not at quite that point myself, but I know how bad it is for so many and I don't blame anyone who reads our current situation that way.
Our institutions no longer fix our problems, and that's growing worse, not better - the deck is getting stacked more and more heavily against us as time goes on.
I'm not advocating mass violence. What I am saying is that executives who create conditions like these, for people suffering under an increasingly-dysfunctional and hopeless system like this, should absolutely expect their lives to be in danger on the daily - out of just pure pragmatism. I'm not putting a value judgment on that, I'm saying it is flat out inevitable.
CEOs frequently measure any and all human events as costs to be managed. Especially these insurance executive pieces of shit. I don't see why a certain number of fairly predictable CEO murders resulting from their hideous behavior should be any different.
Relevantly, I think this also makes a good argument that "how we solve things" as a society is as important the problems we're solving. When our institutions are weakened or bypassed (through corruption, lobbying, or vigilantism), it's destabilizing and leads to bigger issues. I hate how much power insurance companies have over care too, and I get it, I just want to urge everyone to be cautious about this familiar type of language that tries to frame violence as the "only remaining option". It's almost always pure rationalization coming from people's anger rather than truly being our only option.
That's a great point. And truly, it speaks to what may be the root of the problem - skin in the game. Skin in the game shapes how we solve problems. When leaders make it plain they have none, people notice and reasonable problem solving falls apart.
At some point, I personally blame Jack Welch at GE decades ago for pioneering & normalizing this (thanks Behind the Bastards) - companies shifted from prioritizing outcomes for stakeholders to only prioritizing outcomes for shareholders. Historically I think that was because better outcomes for all stakeholders was seen as the primary driver of better outcomes for shareholders. Jack Welch realized they aren't nearly as coupled as everyone thought - over the short term only, a crucial distinction! To be fair, someone else would have, too, if he were never born.
For an example, he pioneered the tactic of closing profitable manufacturing plants that were not as profitable as he wanted - and despite the net loss of profit, and the sudden deep trauma to a town full of human lives - investors liked it. It's the origin of "line goes up".
Oversimplifying a complex issue of course because I don't want this to get any longer, but that behavior really does make two different systems of inputs and outputs that are often in competition with each other. One system for investors, and one for everyone else. And a growing number of people see it, see the different outcomes, and are rightfully enraged.
With that said, angry people are easy to manipulate and abuse, which is counterproductive and bad, and I'm not so much disagreeing with you as offering another point of view. Cheers!
Yup, I think we're totally on the same page here.
Fuck yeah behind the bastards out in the wild!
Also… anyone know of Jack Welch’s whereabouts these days? For you know …reasons…
This gets harder and harder to deny when we're still talking about most of the exact same issues that have gotten worse, not better for almost two decades. How many elections and protests and awareness campaigns and volunteer drives are people expected to do with no meaningful progress?
At some point it starts to simply feel like a parent telling their child 'not now, later' over and over again with zero intention of ever actually doing anything. No where in life are you allowed to infinitely delay with no progress (especially to your boss at work), so why should the public accept the same?
Three decades! Three! Not two! I’m 35 and had a sick parent growing up. This has been my entire life, my parents fighting with these ghouls until eventually my father died from lack of proper care.
How do lay people being denied coverage find out who their “doctor” is to go after their license?
Sounds like a lot of paperwork and waiting around and sick people don’t have a lot of time for that. A bullet is faster.