A Guardian investigation finds insurer quietly paid facilities that helped it gain Medicare enrollees and reduce hospitalizations. Whistleblowers allege harm to residents
UnitedHealth Group, the nation’s largest healthcare conglomerate, has secretly paid nursing homes thousands in bonuses to help slash hospital transfers for ailing residents – part of a series of cost-cutting tactics that has saved the company millions, but at times risked residents’ health, a Guardian investigation has found.
Those secret bonuses have been paid out as part of a UnitedHealth program that stations the company’s own medical teams in nursing homes and pushes them to cut care expenses for residents covered by the insurance giant.
In several cases identified by the Guardian, nursing home residents who needed immediate hospital care under the program failed to receive it, after interventions from UnitedHealth staffers. At least one lived with permanent brain damage following his delayed transfer, according to a confidential nursing home incident log, recordings and photo evidence.
Any market where choosing not to participate is simply not a viable option should be prohibited from being for-profit.
If all smartphone makers start getting too greedy and charge too much, people will just not upgrade their phones and the smartphone makers will have to lower their prices or justify their higher prices with innovations. People can choose not to participate in the market and pressure the entire industry to lower their prices or create new features to encourage participation.
If insurance starts getting (read: gets even more) greedy, cancelling your insurance isn’t an option, especially if you’re sick. Foregoing insurance means either dying or accumulating extraordinary medical debt you can never repay. There is no pressure on insurance companies to lower their prices because you will always have to pick one of them. As long as they all increase their prices together, they all benefit and their profit keeps going up. Their only “innovations” in the industry are to minimize payments for medical services and maximize how much they shove in their pockets.
For-profit health insurance should be illegal.
All insurance is gambling. They are betting that you’ll pay thousands in home insurance or car insurance, and never make a claim, like most people. It’s a good bet for the insurance companies.
But Health Insurance is different. Unlike your house burning down or your car getting wrecked, which seldom if ever happens, EVERYBODY gets sick, and eventually dies. It’s ALWAYS a losing bet for the healthcare insurance companies. They have no choice but to rig the game so they can win.
That’s why we need to forget about Health Care INSURANCE, and think in terms of Health Care MANAGEMENT. That needs to be in the hands of an entity that isn’t motivated by profit, and that’s the government. EVERY other country in the world understands this, but America is a Ferengi nation, and we literally worship profits. And I mean LITERALLY - Prosperity Doctrine is the most powerful religious philosophy in America at the moment.
There’s a lot of things that shouldn’t be for-profit (ie: affordable housing, food, potable water) but the Reagan/Thatcher trickle-down bs has led Western nations to this point.
If we want change we’re gonna have to fight tooth and nail for it.
This is the future that libertarians have been fighting for for the past century. Congrats Ayn Rand, you won i guess