UnitedHealth CEO Murdered

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.
It's like when a family member of the hospital's "leadership" team is in the hospital... so they demand that the patient is kept in the ICU.

It's like, 'Dude... you're the director of telemetry... if the care is so bad you wouldn't put your family member on your unit... maybe you should do something to fix it.'

Right on. Like, forgive me for not being upset when this suit and his boardroom cronies have had ages to do the right thing and stop stealing billions by rigging and re-rigging the game at every opportunity while the people they have contracted with to pay for their care suffer and die and someone finally decides that they've had enough.
 
@HemeOncHopeful19 Right.. murdering a leader of a healthcare org isnt justifiable because those guys write the rules. In a democracy no matter how flawed we have a way to change it. Im not here saying they arent corrupt.. they totally are.. they are a horrid organization and their vertical integration is terrible. I am sure you saw how United pays sound physicians more than what they pay other docs. Just a way to shuffle money around.
 
Right.. we see the special VIP treatment all the time. We all know it happens. Sometimes it benefits us. If I need to see a doctor i get in quickly. I think thats professional courtesy and thats a bit different. That being said when the donor to the hospital shows up they magically dont spend the same 14 hours in a craptastic ED be with a psychotic psych patient screaming near them. This happens in all of society. We arent all equal and we certainly arent treated as such.
 
Back in the day, companies profitted off of killing people to enrich a handful of people. When legislative efforts failed to improve things, the people being killed fought back. This led to pitched gun battles between the populace and hired goons. The main difference between then and now is that companies are now able to kill non-employees as easily as their own employees and they haven't yet been forced to start hiring Pinkertons on a grand scale.

We live in the land of plenty where the biggest topic of conversation is "Am I going to have 45 or only 30 years of a financially comfortable retirement?" There are a lot of people of people who live in the same land who have followed all the advice about how to do things right and are one mistake or one episode of misfortunate away from getting dragged into the financial undertow and losing everything. And the overwhelming response to that reality, especially on this forum, is "Have you tried not being poor?" I hope I'm wrong, but I don't see this dynamic changing in the near term.
 
@HemeOncHopeful19 Right.. murdering a leader of a healthcare org isnt justifiable because those guys write the rules. In a democracy no matter how flawed we have a way to change it. Im not here saying they arent corrupt.. they totally are.. they are a horrid organization and their vertical integration is terrible. I am sure you saw how United pays sound physicians more than what they pay other docs. Just a way to shuffle money around.

Man I usually really agree with your takes on this forum, but I feel like you are missing the broader point here.

Most people (maybe not RF, ha) would agree that murder shouldn't be the answer, that it shouldn't be on the table. But the desperation out there is reaching a point where it FEELS like this is the only thing that will get attention, and as easy as it is to say "murder is bad" (wow, hot take), it is because one act of outright violence is very easy to wag your finger at and tut-tut, but it's harder to do that to an entire complex nation-wide care organization with decisions that have assuredly resulted in the death of poorsies to enrich the company and its shareholders. Spreading out the blame doesn't make it less morally reprehensible IMO, but you get into some philosophical arguments there, to be fair.

You say that, well this is a democracy and things should be changeable without murder, but in reality your option is electing one politician over another, both of whom are bought and paid for by different groups (and often the same groups!), then those elected representatives enrich those who really put them in power. Sure you get some grassroots representatives that sneak through sometimes but they are far from the majority, and mainstream media (also owned by the super wealthy) tends to deride them and try to silence their opinions so as to not disrupt the status quo. I have said for many years that historians will agree that Citizens United will be a main inflection point in the downfall of the US as a superpower. Your free speech and mine doesn't mean jack anymore in comparison to the billions that the truly rich can pump into the system to get what they want.

The US has been a system of increasing crony capitalism for decades, but Citizens United marks the descent into oligarchy (Elon Musk, anyone?). So the system you say is available for change is already bought and paid for by the insanely rich. When money is the only thing that talks and the plebs have less money relative to the upper class than ever before in the past, calling your congressperson to say "Hey you know those guys who gave you campaign donations to run your election? Tell them to stop their bad business practices!" just doesn't really carry much weight. The cracks in the façade of America are starting to leak, and this is the downstream consequence of a population that feels increasingly marginalized and taken advantage of despite being the majority. Bread and circuses can only take you so far before revolt is inevitable, "right" or not.
 
@HemeOncHopeful19 Right.. murdering a leader of a healthcare org isnt justifiable because those guys write the rules. In a democracy no matter how flawed we have a way to change it. Im not here saying they arent corrupt.. they totally are.. they are a horrid organization and their vertical integration is terrible. I am sure you saw how United pays sound physicians more than what they pay other docs. Just a way to shuffle money around.
Do we, though? I’m not so convinced it’s as simple as that, and I think people are starting to recognize this and you see it in the reaction this shooting.

I think to really have a shot at reforming/improving healthcare you’d have to somehow raise enough $$ to overcome the lobbying and propaganda (err… excuse me, the “free speech”) arm of the healthcare industry. Much easier in theory than in practice, IMO, their pockets run pretty damn deep.
 
Do we, though? I’m not so convinced it’s as simple as that, and I think people are starting to recognize this and you see it in the reaction this shooting.

We don't .

I think to really have a shot at reforming/improving healthcare you’d have to somehow raise enough $$ to overcome the lobbying and propaganda (err… excuse me, the “free speech”) arm of the healthcare industry. Much easier in theory than in practice, IMO, their pockets run pretty damn deep.

Yep. Easiest to shoot a guy .
 
Why is it that we are held responsible for bad patient outcomes? If someone dies in the ER and you didn’t get a certain test we can get sued but Insurance companies have immunity and they get the money directly.

They dont do any medical research they dont innovate and pharmaceutical companies dont have price negotiations but we have our salaries determined by Medicare and further price cuts each year?

The thing is we have to pay for medical school and work crap hours during residency but private equity buys up everything but has no liability.

Defensive medicine costs us a lot of money how many negative CT scans do we have but people demand it and we are tied by press ganey and if we give good but not excellent care it counts as a failure

Even for malpractice docs win 92% of cases that go to trial so it’s not even about finding “bad actors”
 
Man I usually really agree with your takes on this forum, but I feel like you are missing the broader point here.

Most people (maybe not RF, ha) would agree that murder shouldn't be the answer, that it shouldn't be on the table. But the desperation out there is reaching a point where it FEELS like this is the only thing that will get attention, and as easy as it is to say "murder is bad" (wow, hot take), it is because one act of outright violence is very easy to wag your finger at and tut-tut, but it's harder to do that to an entire complex nation-wide care organization with decisions that have assuredly resulted in the death of poorsies to enrich the company and its shareholders. Spreading out the blame doesn't make it less morally reprehensible IMO, but you get into some philosophical arguments there, to be fair.

You say that, well this is a democracy and things should be changeable without murder, but in reality your option is electing one politician over another, both of whom are bought and paid for by different groups (and often the same groups!), then those elected representatives enrich those who really put them in power. Sure you get some grassroots representatives that sneak through sometimes but they are far from the majority, and mainstream media (also owned by the super wealthy) tends to deride them and try to silence their opinions so as to not disrupt the status quo. I have said for many years that historians will agree that Citizens United will be a main inflection point in the downfall of the US as a superpower. Your free speech and mine doesn't mean jack anymore in comparison to the billions that the truly rich can pump into the system to get what they want.

The US has been a system of increasing crony capitalism for decades, but Citizens United marks the descent into oligarchy (Elon Musk, anyone?). So the system you say is available for change is already bought and paid for by the insanely rich. When money is the only thing that talks and the plebs have less money relative to the upper class than ever before in the past, calling your congressperson to say "Hey you know those guys who gave you campaign donations to run your election? Tell them to stop their bad business practices!" just doesn't really carry much weight. The cracks in the façade of America are starting to leak, and this is the downstream consequence of a population that feels increasingly marginalized and taken advantage of despite being the majority. Bread and circuses can only take you so far before revolt is inevitable, "right" or not.
I agree here. I think we need major reform. I think it is crazy the power the RNC and DNC have. If I donate money to them it can go anywhere. We saw this with the Georgia special election last cycle where a crazy amount of money came in there. I dont think money from California, NY, or Texas should impact an election in Georgia. I also agree the system if F’ed. But murder is wrong especially of a non violent person who is but a figurehead. He isnt a dictator.

Im not sure which of my takes you disagree with. Are you supportive of murder? I assume not.. where did i miss the mark? Sure these acts will make a mark but I’ll just point out im old enough to remember Columbine. I remember Sandy hook.. nothing meaningful came from those events which imo shook the core of the avg person more than this. No one was cheering the death of those kids.

Im a supporter of 2A but there are plenty of common sense solutions but none have come. This isnt Libby Zion imo.
 
Do we, though? I’m not so convinced it’s as simple as that, and I think people are starting to recognize this and you see it in the reaction this shooting.

I think to really have a shot at reforming/improving healthcare you’d have to somehow raise enough $$ to overcome the lobbying and propaganda (err… excuse me, the “free speech”) arm of the healthcare industry. Much easier in theory than in practice, IMO, their pockets run pretty damn deep.
Or through the court system. Right now there is a good chance of PBM reform. This will began to dismantle the vertical integration of insurers. Will it pass? I dont know. I sure hope so.

Keep in mind these businesses like united lobby hard and employ a ton of people. Of course they have power. In most cities hospitals have insane power.. why? They employ a lot of people. Thats reality.
 
Defensive medicine costs us a lot of money how many negative CT scans do we have but people demand it and we are tied by press ganey and if we give good but not excellent care it counts as a failure
Easy solution, admit any patient that needs a CT for anything. No Press Ganey then!

But, for real, Press Ganey will hopefully go the way of “pain as the 5th vital sign”.
 
Easy solution, admit any patient that needs a CT for anything. No Press Ganey then!

But, for real, Press Ganey will hopefully go the way of “pain as the 5th vital sign”.
Im lucky that my system doesnt care. Oddly we do fairly well but i have never had anyone complain to us to do better. We usually use it to tell the hospital they suck at throughput.
 
Sure these acts will make a mark but I’ll just point out im old enough to remember Columbine. I remember Sandy hook.. nothing meaningful came from those events which imo shook the core of the avg person more than this. No one was cheering the death of those kids.

You cannot compare healthcare reform to gun reform.

Over the past ~50 years, a very specific interpretation of the second amendment was successfully mainstreamed to the point of being accepted as dogma by a large portion of the population. This is the reason why dead elementary schoolers led to the legislative equivalent of a shrug.

Ultimately, I agree with you that this CEO shooting is not very likely to lead to much reform, but it is significantly more likely to happen than gun reform.
 
You cannot compare healthcare reform to gun reform.

Over the past ~50 years, a very specific interpretation of the second amendment was successfully mainstreamed to the point of being accepted as dogma by a large portion of the population. This is the reason why dead elementary schoolers led to the legislative equivalent of a shrug.

Ultimately, I agree with you that this CEO shooting is not very likely to lead to much reform, but it is significantly more likely to happen than gun reform.
2A is dogma and people have a tremendous mistrust of the govt. Gun reform may be a partisan issue and people dislike health insurance in a much more bipartisan manner. That being said PBM reform is here and is step 1. Last I looked UHC was “only” 6B of the 22B UHG profit.

I dont think anything will come of this in part acting on this will lead to hope for the same in other industries.
 
I refuse to AIDET..
Damn, this brings back bad memories. I was medical director when this came down. I just ignored it and told my docs to do it if they want but I am going to do what I normally do.

I don't even remember what this stood for and what metrics kept showing up in my mailbox.

What a complete waste of time. I hope this is not still pushed in the ER. Patients don't care if you AIDET. They care if they get what they want, how they want it, and how fast they can leave the ER.
 
Damn, this brings back bad memories. I was medical director when this came down. I just ignored it and told my docs to do it if they want but I am going to do what I normally do.

I don't even remember what this stood for and what metrics kept showing up in my mailbox.

What a complete waste of time. I hope this is not still pushed in the ER. Patients don't care if you AIDET. They care if they get what they want, how they want it, and how fast they can leave the ER.
Again this isn’t an issue for us. No idea what it stands for but the CMG overlords bow down to it. Have to do whatever to maintain the contract.
 
Top