UnitedHealth CEO says U.S. health system 'needs to function better'
https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/unitedhealth-ceo-says-us-health-system-needs-function-better-rcna187980Open linkView original on lemmy.world339
Comments82https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/unitedhealth-ceo-says-us-health-system-needs-function-better-rcna187980Open linkView original on lemmy.world
“Please don’t kill me. :(“ Begs UnitedHealth CEO
Not really, he's doubling down:
They serve the shareholders.
So it's a true statement in the sense that they made the healthcare system better at extracting profit from their costumers to serve the shareholders. Death and suffering is just a method. Andrew Witty, what a soulless shit.
Just trying to reframe the narrative.
"The insurance companies are the good guys, fighting against outrageous hospital charges, doctors fraudulently demanding excessive tests and care, and odious government regulations."
This is Corporate America slight of hand, they think the people they serve are the shareholders, not their customers. Their customers are an operating cost to them and they'll do what they can to keep that cost down so they can maximize their profits.
Many of you knew Brian … he devoted his time to help make the health system work better for all of the privileged we serve.”
Fixed it.
Nah, he's trying to promote a narrative of "there are bad guys in the system, but not us, look at those drug company CEOs over there please... they are the ones really screwing you..."
wrote the same thing before reading the other comments ^^
"Don't mistake their self-preservation for empathy." -Josh Johnson
That’s exactly what I came to say.
Actions man, actions...
"The system needs to function better," says the figurehead of a completely unnecessary middleman.
Cool. Shut down your company and tell everyone else in your network to do the same.
But then who will protect us from "unnecessary care"? He's just trying not to get shot
There is actually a shred of truth in that.
The insurance company is supposed to watch dog and make sure that the doctor's office is doing the right thing.
Since the average patient doesn't know what the hell the doctor's supposed to be doing anyway, capitalism makes for some pretty shitty health practices. Like the $60 tylenols.
To eliminate private insurance you also need to create oversight and limits on the healthcare side of things too.
I worked in IT in health insurance years ago, those mom and pop doctor's offices would submit the same bill six or seven times back to back. Our system at the time had no ability to de-doop so they just kept getting payday after payday until we caught on.
Not all health care providers are good people either.
I'm trying to think of the name of something we could call an alternative option to that... maybe something like The Blederal Blovernment.
Absolutely, many governments in many countries do an absolutely adequate job at managing healthcare soup to nuts.
Would patients fall that much into debt if regular doctors were setting the prices, though? The invoices are quite outrageous across the board in the US as it is. After all, the blame lies on the MBAs who are the experts at juicing the system and not the MDs who inevitably get dragged into. I'd argue the great majority of MDs actually sympathize with patients since they are the ones who signed up to help people in the first place and I've befriended a handful of them who I can point to as examples.
At least where I live, this balance is somewhat managed by the competition between the public vs private sectors. If the public one is failing you, you can always opt for a private one or vice-versa. I've done both and each has its benefits and shortcomings. But, mind you, this is a system without insurance at its core as a consequence of the universal care that we have.
The problem is that the whole health care can't be run by the doctors. You need the might of a corporation or a government with a tax stream income to be able to afford the equipment. Well outfitted hospitals are mind-bogglingly expensive. So the problem becomes how to not attach the greed to the healthcare, But still process the billions of dollars required to set up and maintain institutions.
are they a health insurance or a revenue stream insurance?
Come now, I think we already have that answer.
In other words, productivity gains increase poverty. Congratulations on owning your most powerful smart phone yet, but now a bean and rice burrito from a fast food place is over 6 USD.
That has to be one of the most tone deaf and evil (the banal greedy kind) of things I've ever heard.
Same vibe right?
You have your answer under capitalism. Unfortunately good healthcare and late capitalism seem to not be too compatible.
Haven't seen that one before...
Love it!!
did you know commas are baby parentheses that were picked before they were full grown?
also, threatening healthcare CEOs lives might be the only practical way back to humane healthcare and that should scare the shit out of everybody that yes in fact things are that bad
wow he really said this?
“Participants in the system,” he said, derive benefit from high health care costs. While lower prices and improved services can be good for consumers and patients, Witty said, they can “threaten revenue streams for organizations that depend on charging more for care.”
Yes this basic human right could be cheap or even free, but then how would shareholders make more money exploiting it?
He's also just straight up lying. I'm a participant in the system with chronic health issues. I would have benefited more from never going to see a doctor and kept my family out of debt than what I ended up doing.
Healing patients would “threaten revenue streams for organizations that depend on charging more for care.”
They prefer the endless treatment model.
So by extension, creating sick people is akin to opening a new account. (Aside: A good task for other parts of the institutional investors portfollio) And nobody wants to close a customer account.
Bro literally said,that they don't care about anything but profits and are willing to kill people for this.
His entire business model is based on reducing the efficiency of health care spending and he is directly incentivized to maximize profits by minimizing health care spending efficiency.
US health insurers literally offer zero social benefit. They should not exist as the entire industry in harmful rent seeking.
The concept of insurance makes sense - pooling risk so that everyone can share a little pain all the time, so that unlikely but catastrophic events don't wipe individuals out. Making this arrangement for-profit is asinine.
Insurance generally, yes. But health insurance, no, especially when it could be funded by taxes like in other countries and still have that same element of shared risk, but without the perverse incentive to let people die just to create a little more profit for the precious shareholders.
Which I appreciate is what you said, but I thought it bore repeating. Other forms of insurance I suspect would be harder to nationalise, but in theory there's no reason they couldn't.
Directly government-funded healthcare and government-run single payer insurance are essentially the same thing. There's some rationale for keeping the government-run single payer system (whether you call it insurance or not) at arm's length from the sitting government to prevent too much political chaotic nonsense each time another government takes power, but they achieve the same things in terms of health care delivery and risk management.
Sounds like he's trying to cast everyone else but the insurance companies as the bad organizations, and that they will be taking measures to make that more clear to the people.
In short "don't shoot us, shoot these other guys if you have to shoot someone!"
Agreed. Ask the government to take you and the other big insurers over, and fire your overhead asses.
“We only do reprehensible things because we’re allowed to. We would totally be ethical if forced to!”
Here's an idea. Take out the pieces that inflate costs, provide no actual healthcare, and make ridiculous profits.
But that's him and his company! 😯
Luigi Mangione did more for the American health care system than any health insurance CEO. Just to clarify, killing a man is deplorable but the fact that his actions sparked these debates and brought them to everyone's attention should make everyone aware of what his actions caused.
Killing a cold blooded murderer is... well, even if you don't believe it's justice it's definitely not something to cry about.
I've seen arguments for it being self defense, especially if you have united insurance.
They've "legally" killed thousands of people through paperwork.
Not to mention CEO has to be the most replaceable job ever. It's the one job I'm 100% chatgpt could do better, and save these companies millions every year.
The problem with that is you can't easily sCapEgOat ChatGPT. No one would feel satisfied when they tell us "because of the company image after this recent scandal, CEO GPT will be replaced with CEO Copilot."
This is such a good point. That's always the story. Company does something horrific - almost certainly at the behest of investors. People call them out for it, CEO gets "fired", company takes no accountability, and they place another CEO that will tow the investor's line.
They say this because...
... anyone?
That's right, Timmy, it's because they want to execute a large merger once Trump is in power.
“We’ll be able to improve efficiency, reduce duplicative effort and increase profits.”
“And lower rates?”
“What?”
I hear Mario bros music....
"Somebody involved in it, perhaps towards the top, should do something about that", he continued.
“I mean, not me. I only just got this job. Still finding my way. But someone should definitely do something. Gonna be a lot of work figuring out what should be done. It’s just so complicated. We’re going to have to invent some way to make sure everyone can access competent and affordable healthcare. How do you do that? Where do you even start? What a monumental task. But think of the accomplishment if we could do that. Think of the example we’d be setting for so many other nations. We’d be pretty great. I mean we already are pretty great, but we’d be better. Man, we’d be awesome.” At this point he’s gone, like a poor person dreaming about what they’d do if they won the lottery.
Translation: "Needs to function better *for me and my company's earnings report"
Thieves guild boss says people should earn more and have more money in their wallets.
Now that is funny.
By getting rid of private health insurance.
Says the insurance company adding friction into it and telling doctors that they know better which treatment should be done.
"We can't lower costs. We won't make as much money."
Which means removing your company from the equation. It's the cause of the system not functioning
you're going to get lip service and faux sympathy, but at least you got them talking about it. this is a clear example of how the only thing the american people have left to create change is violence.
It needs to function without a layer of parasites between doctors and patients.
Ha ha ha ha ha DUH
What a headline...'I thought they need to get worse'
Said no one ever about anything sensibly...
UnitedHealth CEO says U.S. health system needs to bend in such a way that UHC makes more money by the government making sure they get more money and that it’s everyone else’s fault the HC system sucks because they need to make more money. Everything will be better when they make more money.
Burglar says houses, "shouldn't be so easy to break into."
And to do that they are going to increase premiums and double your max out of pocket limit every year. Perfect!
Edit: ok having read the article it looks like he is going to push for regulating pharmaceutical companies while simultaneously pushing for states with stricter insurance regulations to be forced (via federal courts or legislation) to lower their standards.
So, a combination of reducing his costs and reducing benefits for the consumer. Sounds like the only one winning is him.
He's right. Let's get rid of the part that doesn't function well. His entire industry.
All it does is put barriers between patients, their doctors, and the care they need while increasing costs with no actual benefit to anyone other than the insurance executives. Nearly every job in the industry would still be needed under a universal health care system, there just wouldn't be a middle man increasing prices by billions every year so they can make a profit.
What is he worried about?
Player 2
Bang bang bang
Mario, presumably
Nintendo announcing another Year of Luigi.
The best way to achieve this is to entirely dismantle the US health insurance industry.
lol someone doesn’t want to be next… so what changes is he going to be making?
Tell him to quit stealing everyone's lives and things might start working better
It would be functioning better if you and the rest of publicly traded and private equity-owned healthcare systems made way for a functional public option.
You don't say? Please, tell us more words.
Hopefully this doesn’t mean it just needs to be dressed up more to appear as if it’s functional.