Louisiana Voice

This is in no way to be interpreted as an endorsement of violence but if the incoming Trump administration does attempt to cut Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security benefits, yesterday’s killing of United Health Care CEO Brian Thompson could well be a precursor of things to come for this country.

Yes, it’s calloused to make such an observation, especially when Thompson’s killer is still at large and we don’t know for certain the motive behind his assassination though the message “delay, deny, defend” found on the shell casings at the scene would appear to refer to the insurance industry’s method of handling claims: delay addressing claims, then deny them and if necessary, defend the denials in court. It’s a proven tactic whereby the insurance industry depends on claimants eventually just giving up out of frustration. It’s always a win for the insurance companies.

HUFFPOST had a slightly different version of the message on the shell casings: “deny, defend, depose.”

You think those folks in South Korea got upset when martial law was declared there this week? You haven’t seen anything until you rip away or reduce benefits that our seniors have paid for all their working lives. We’re gonna have hordes of blue-hairs who are going to say in unison, “What the hell, we got nothing to lose now” and it ain’t gonna be pretty.

Why am I attempting to draw a line from the murder of an individual in Manhattan to the possible imposition of benefit cuts to America’s poor and elderly – and perhaps tens of thousands of Louisiana policyholders?

Because United Health Care has been systematically doing the same thing with its policyholders with no signs of the abating of that practice any time soon.

One local physician told LouisianaVoice today that his group no longer accepts United Healthcare because of problems getting the company to (a) approve needed procedures for patients and (b) delays in payments for those it does approve.

In fact, UHC is facing a potential class-action lawsuit over allegations that it used an algorithm to deny claims for post-acute care services in Medicare Advantage, resulting in a “90 percent error rate.”

A 90 percent error rate is pretty drastic in any field of endeavor. A baseball player who fails 90 percent of the time at-bat hits only .100. A .100 batting average won’t even get you a ticket to watch a professional baseball game, much less participate in one. A quarterback who completes only one of nine passes won’t even be issued a pair of cleats, let alone be allowed to play.

And here’s the kicker for 63,000 Louisianians (myself included) who are members of Peoples Health. It was announced in June that UHC had PURCHASED Peoples Health, headquartered in Metairie. The acquisition will make the Minnetonka, Minnesota-based UHC the largest health insurer in the U.S.

If UHC follows the trend of corporate takeovers, it will swallow the smaller company, gut it of its assets and pass the hit on to the latter’s customers. Such is the nature, sadly, of corporate TAKEOVERS.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Justice has SUED to block UHC’s acquisition of another company, Amedisys, a home health and hospice provider.

It was almost two years ago that PROPUBLICA, an online news service, exposed the methods employed by UHC in denying claims. The narrative was eerily reminiscent of the plot of the John Grisham book and movie THE RAINMAKER.

Thompson, meanwhile, along with two other UHC executives, was accused of insider trading in May of this year in a class-action LAWSUIT filed by the firefighters’ pension fund for the City of Hollywood, Florida. The lawsuit accuses the three of dumping more than $120 million of stock while the company was the subject of a federal antitrust investigation.

Between the time DOJ told UHC to turn over their financial records and when that news became public, Thompson cashed out more than $15 million of his Healthcare stock.  Then he sold all his stock in pension funds like those of the Hollywood Florida Firefighters union, which the lawsuit claims cost the firefighters’ pension fund $25 billion virtually overnight.

So, for those of you who are Peoples Health policyholders, be forewarned. Angela Hill is very probably a nice person. The former New Orleans TV news anchor certainly seems to be a great spokesperson for Peoples Health. As of this writing, it’s a great company and I, as one policyholder, have absolutely no complaints or misgivings. But with the takeover by a troubled company, you should be ever-vigilant to any changes in benefit coverages offered as UHC more and more becomes the face of the company that it has purchased.