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.
How exactly is this not considered murder for all parties involved in a decision like this?
Because corporations are considered people for the rights, which allows them to vote in either VT or NH, but they aren’t people for responsibilities, which is why TX hasn’t executed one.
Luigi should get a medal and a statue.
The shot heard round the world part II. Luigi is a hero. At this point anyone working against him are criminals.
850 million medical claims are denied annually by insurance carriers. If even 10% of those are unjustly denied (likely a very low number), then that is 8.5 million people left hurt, suffering, or dead.
We called 11 million deaths a holocaust in WWII. WHAT THE FUCK DO WE CALL OVER 8 MILLION A YEAR? We need to get the “business” out of Healthcare. Luigi had the right of it.
Source showing 8 million deaths per year due to poor coverage/lack of coverage/denied claims:
These motherfuckers deserve a lot more than 3 bullets.
Seeing a lot of removed by mod posts here, so let me test something (see next comment)
Luigi
What did this say?
So when are we going to jail United execs and managers tgst signed off on this?
If I pay someone to delay another person’s care that that other person gets brain damage, I’ll go to jail for at least a decade. If I do it on an industrial scale, ill get a bonus.
A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic.
START JAILING NTHEDE FUCKERS! NOW!
A million deaths is an extra percent on my stock bonus.
Thank you for sharing this, OP.
The horrors of privatized healthcare appear to be unending.
May UnitedHealth and other “healthcare” insurers get what they deserve.
One CEO got what he deserved.
We need a necromancer to keep bringing him back to life so we can do it millions of times, then he would have got what he deserved.
Nah, once is good enough. Better to spend all those other bullets on other deserving CEOs.
I mean I would prefer everyone get good quality healthcare for free, so don’t listen to me cus I am the radical here right…? (only radicals respond to threats of senseless cyclical violence with appeals to collective visions of the future that benefit all by truthfully recognizing the present incongruity?)
Maybe we could both sides things here a bit? Exchange some bullets for some affordable end of life care and I have a queer premonition the angry mobs might start to go home to their families that now have a chance at a humane future.
The literal fatal flaw of this strategy however is that the people in power have to panic and pick the “appease the angry mob” option before the angry mob has no families left to go home to for it to have the possibility of working.
If you wait too long inveitably and irrevocably you face a counter force, not a force, which is a much worse eventuality for everyone most especially our children in the end.
I remember when they were trying to pass the ACA Republicans were screeching about government “death panels” that would decide it wasn’t worth it to keep you alive. Anyway, I’m glad nothing like that ever came to exist
Back in the 90s, my wife once briefly worked for the largest health care company in our state, working with a lawyer whose entire job was to go through the files of patients who had been diagnosed with chronic or expensive issues, and find a reason, any reason, to deny them. This lawyer was very, very good at her job, and routinely invented reasons to deny people the health care that they had been paying for over years, just when they needed the coverage the most. She was a one woman death panel, and she sentenced people to death, or suffering, every single day.
This started as a temp job, and every day my wife would come home feeling terrible about what this woman was doing, and supporting her efforts as her assistant. Then one day she came with the news that they had offered her a permanent position, which is why she was temping in the first place.
I’ve never seen anyone so unhappy about a job offer. I had a good job, and we didn’t NEED the money, but it would be nice. She felt obligated to take this job, but it was clear her soul was highly conflicted. I had also been conflicted about this job, and told her that under no circumstances was she to accept it, and the relief on her face was obvious.
She ended up with a different job that fit her much better, and didn’t require her to be a functionary in Corporate Serial Killing.
Years later, Sarah Palin started yammering about the “death panels” in ObamaCare, and I thought “the insurance companies already have death panels, why isn’t anybody worried about that?”
Years later, Sarah Palin started yammering about the “death panels” in ObamaCare, and I thought "the insurance companies already have death panels, why isn’t anybody worried about that?
And not even death panels, just individuals who are not licensed to practice medicine who deny anyone and everyone they can make up a reason for. The merits are never considered, death is the default option.
Jeez, just when I think the thread is safe from me having to post an “it’s always projection” comment for once, you go and tee this up for me.
Fore!
It’sa me!
Removed by mod
Why are we still using .world?
Serious question: why not?
Every time an “eat the rich” topic comes up, the moderators whip out the banhammer. They hide behind some justification about how the cops are toooootaly gonna raid their servers if they aren’t explicitly supportive of oligarchs, but really it’s simple cowardice that shouldn’t be rewarded. Don’t pre-comply with fascists and all that…
- Censorship of anything vaguely left-populist (Luigi for example)
- Mod abuse who will ban users because they don’t wanna handle critcism of themselves (JordanLund)
- Admins/mods have tried to platform dumb ideas, like flat world and transphobia, saying debate is how you win with idiots
- Admins are currently trying to hide that one of their users committed an act of terrorism, and was active until they died https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-05-20/fire-fascination-with-explosives-family-discord-marked-path-to-clinic-bombing
Watch very carefully for the removal of OP’s post and this comment.
Bootlicking mods
Fuck insurance companies. They’re literally scamming grandmothers out of healthcare.
May they all live in interesting times.
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
Removed by mod
At this point, we need guillotines outside of every exit of every United Health office.
Looks like my comment was removed for mentioning green Mario.
sung to the tune of I need a hero.
-
All current and pensioned government employees should have the same healthcare.
-
No government employee should be allowed to pay for private insurance.
-
No government employee should be allowed to pay cash for health care.
Three rules that have no direction towards private businesses (freedom!), that if applied, would ensure immediate care for all.
When a former president can’t get treatment, the situation changes.
The issue is that the president and congress already get government-provided healthcare, and it is far above what Medicare provides. We should just require all elected officials to use Medicare with no extra private insurance, and Medicare will get fixed real fucking quick.
Presidents and former presidents already don’t pay for healthcare. They get free government subsidized healthcare for life. The same goes for members of Congress.
We should just get rid of all private insurance and enroll every person in Medicare.
Make it that all elected officials have to go with the worst-rated insurance provided in any given year, with points 2 and 3. Let’s see how long it takes them to get those plans sorted out.
-
Even if you’re the most naïve person in the world and willing to give unending benefit of the doubt, I’m not really sure how you can conclude that the late CEO wasn’t at the very least grossly negligent on an industrial scale.
This isn’t negligent. There is no way that “i pay you for not transferring a person to a hospital that needs a hospital” isn’t intent.
Do you read my comment and interpret it as me saying that I think that this was negligence?
I agree with what you are saying, just drawing the line earlier.
In my eyes even the most naive person would understand this to be intentional. Or well, if we take children as the example of the most naive in the world there is many things where adults think they need to give a level of benefit of the doubt that a child would not give.
To be fair: gomers
We all know that “healthcare” companies are rotten scumbags who dont care about the health of individuals, but could The Guardian have identified something by The Guardian to prove by the Guardian that these united healthcare companies were doing something The Guardian thought proved these companies were scumbags by The Guardian? Also, The Guardian.
Removed by mod
