The video of the murder of the CEO of the largest commercial health insurance company, United Healthcare, was shocking. The brazen attack in midtown Manhattan, and killing of the CEO from behind with a silencer gun was horrific. The gunman calmly crossed th street after the murder and rode a bicycle to the Central Park in the city of New York. As shocking as the murder was so were the varying reactions of the public, on the social media, to the execution of a CEO. Many praised the killer as a hero and were sympathetic to him. Though not condoning, the public reaction was not perceived to be surprising, since it was a reflection of the profound dissatisfaction, frustration, and at times hatred, towards the greed private commercial health insurance companies.
The writings on the bullet shell cases, Deny, Defend and Depose tell a story about the heartless practices of the profit oriented health insurance companies. The shell case writing are said to be inspired by the book Deny, Delay, Defend: Why Insurance Companies Don’t Pay Claims and What You Can Do About It. The suspected killer, Luigi Mansion, was arrested after a few days at a McDonald restaurant in Pennsylvania. The police claim that his fingerprints an the gun match the evidence they gathered during the investigation.
I am not sure what triggered Luigi to commit such a crime. Apparently, Luigi had lower back pain that required surgical intervention including screw and rod fixation of his lumba spine. It is unclear if he had any denial or delay issues with the medical care he required but one thing is clear as far as the tactics of the commercial health insurance are concerned. Delaying or denying needed care to the patients is, unfortunately, far too common in America. Trust me! As a neurosurgeon in practice for 29 years, I have a lot of personal experience, over many years, with the unreasonable delaying and denying profit mongering methods of th insurance companies, and it is getting worse and worse. Even after exhausting all the conservative treatments to manage spine related pain and then submitting authorizations for the needed surgical interventions, the surgeries are denied. The companies find a nonsens reason to deny or delay, needing peer to peer calls or appeals to get needed care authorized. In spite of going through all those hoops the care is still denied. That’s not the only issue. Even if they authorize a surgical procedure they can still deny reimbursements for the care already delivered. The patients, who have diligently and regularly paid the insurance premiums are slapped with enormous bills by the hospitals that many can not afford. That is the reason wh medical costs are the number one cause for personal financial bankruptcies in America.
Greedy health insurance companies are not the only bad actors in the health care delivery industrial medical complex in America. They are one of the many players responsible for why, in spite of spending more than four trillion dollars on healthcare, America is the only developed country in the world that does not have universal healthcare. There are still thirty million Americans without healthcare, resulting in 30,000 deaths annually from lack of healthcare. Many other industrial nations provide universal and better healthcare to their citizens for less than half the cost that America pays for healthcare.
What is the root cause of this sick healthcare delivery in America? As a surgeon who has been involved in patient care for close to three decades I have dissected the pathological American healthcare. The fundamental and foundational illness that American healthcare suffers from is the disease of profit oriented motive of the greedy healthcare industry. Unlike the other developed nations that consider healthcare as human right, America considers healthcare to be a profit oriented business beholden by the stockholders or multi-million dolla CEOs of the healthcare industry.
I am not sure if the brazen murder of the CEO changes the current healthcare system but it has brought to the surface, and shed light on, the frustration, anger and disgust of the public against the greedy health insurance companies. Changing the healthcare industry is very difficult in America. There is an expression in India that says, “When you pull the vine the enti swamp moved’. Greedy health insurance companies are only part of the swamp.
Pharmaceuticals, profit oriented so called non-profit hospitals, medical device manufacture some fraudulent doctors and other ancillary healthcare deliverers as well as the politicians that are in the pockets of the powerful healthcare players are all responsible for the sick American healthcare system.
The death of the CEO of United Healthcare by a denial shell case bullet was equated by many in the public on social media to deaths of many patients by denial or delay of the badly and urgently needed healthcare. What is the antidote and fix for the dying America healthcare? There is no fast and effective cure. The first step is for the public to diagnose become aware of the etiology of the sickness of American healthcare, which is, the deep rooted profit motive of the healthcare industry run by stock holder companies and th politicians beholden to those companies. The next step is grass roots action to change the fundamental principle of considering healthcare in America as a profit oriented business rathe than a human right. I am not sure if the action of Luigi Mangione ignites any such change but it certainly brought the anger of the public towards the current healthcare industry to the forefront. It is time to also shine light, but not commit violence, on the other bad players in the greedy American healthcare industrial complex.