https://mas.to/@MikeBeas/113666556469008087
EDIT: I think you should get the service you pay for, just so that’s clear.
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.
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.
it’s a business that helps you pay your bills
Quite the opposite, it’s a business that makes your bills expensive.
This gaslighting won’t work anymore
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.
Insurance is a racket. Is that what Lil Mikey is saying?
Without realizing it, Mike Beasley makes a great argument for why private, for-profit health insurance shouldn’t exist.
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 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.
You know… that kinda vow would be a great idea! Doctors take an oath like thing too, right?
“It’s a business” is not a justification for evil, and yet that’s always how the phrase is used.
It’s my understanding that health insurance companies hire doctors, who have taken the hypocritical oath, to review claims and deny them.
Are they practicing medicine here?
They are making medical decisions.
They are making financial decisions.
They are making medical decisions through a financial lense.
Report your denied claim to the medical board and please report back your results!
When the insurance company describes their functional area is the term “medical decision” listed anywhere?
Asking for a friend
Nice sea lioning just asking questions.
Health insurance companies specifically hire doctors often in unrelated specialties solely to deny claims as being not medically necessary.
Quit your gaslighting bullshit. I hope you’re being paid well for your simping.
Poor reading comprehension.
But yes:
companies specifically hire doctors often in unrelated specialties solely to deny claims as being not medically necessary
Has a doctor ever gotten in trouble with the board for this conduct?
Do you ever wonder why not?
Asking for a friend 🐸
I think a lot of doctors are gonna start getting their credentials threatened as more people learn how to use the system to their benefit. I for one had no idea one could get the info of whos denying care and then complain to the licensing board, until Luigi brought to light our shit ass medical system. People are waking up from the gaslighting.
Will there be any major changes? Probably not until more CEOs get killed.
My point being medical board will do nothing because from legal perspective it is not their jurisdiction.
I am not disputing that these whores are making medical decisions but that’s not how system views it.
They are essentially pleading to authority
we hired medical professionals to deny your claim, they know what they are doing
These people are not practicing medicine and they are not subject to any oversight beyond their corpo komissar
Probably not until more CEOs get killed.
The reverse of beatings will continue u til morale improves… Fuck them, nobody care if they die lol
PS. People should try to report their denoed claim to medical board within theIr state. Ot is a valid vector to attack these parasites. But both know medical board won’t do shit. But it would make a great propublica story
If the insurance company declines a patient’s treatment, citing that they believe it to be unnecessary, against the recommendations of their healthcare provider, is that a non-medical decision, then?
Where is the medical board that licenses these physicians then?
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.
Not a meme.
Oh, look, it’s the guy who doesn’t know what a meme is and insists on spamming it all the time
And the guy who proved that their bio:
I say unpopular things but never something I know to be untrue. Always open to hear good-faith counter arguments. My goal is to engage in dialogue that seeks truth rather than scoring points.
Was a lie yesterday.
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?
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.
Loans pay out.
Oh no, each claim is a new loan application. You pay in your premium to have the right to apply.
Funny how life insurance always pays, no problem. Because if they get a bad rep, people will go elsewhere. We can’t do that with employer-covered healthcare!
These tricks are many, this is just the tip.
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?
The free market is excellent at producing, at a reasonable cost, myriad voluntary luxuries like large televisions and speedy cars. These prices are naturally constrained by the consumers’ willingness to do-without. When the consumer cannot rationally choose to do-without, the elegant self-regulation intrinsic to the free market evaporates.
So well worded. I struggle to get this concept out when discussing the concern about grocery prices and why homesteading / community gardens are the only protection we can reasonably have right now
