Summary
Reddit’s r/medicine moderators deleted a thread where doctors and users harshly criticized murdered UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
Comments, including satirical rejections of insurance claims for gunshot wounds, targeted UHC’s reputation for denying care to boost profits.
Despite the removal, similar discussions continue, with medical professionals condemning UHC’s business practices under Thompson’s leadership, which a Senate report recently criticized for denying post-acute care.
Thompson, shot in what appears to be a targeted attack, led a company notorious for its high claim denial rates, fueling ongoing debates about corporate ethics in healthcare.
I have been following the news about Brian Thompson’s assassination in New York, and I am astounded by the flood of sympathy the media has poured out for him. Why? This man spent his entire career working tirelessly to deny healthcare to millions of Americans, all in the name of lining his own pockets and enriching shareholders. Yet the media praises him for his “kindness” and “generosity.” Let me be clear: pushing your company’s claim denial rate to nearly double that of your most cold-hearted competitors, bankrupting families through deceptive fine print and delay tactics, is not kindness, and it is not generosity. No, setting up boiler-room style offices with denial scoreboards is one of the most inhuman things I can imagine.
I spent nearly a decade writing software to help hospital systems fight insurance claim denials, and I can tell you, these insurers are getting better at it every year. They deny even the most justified claims, banking on the fact that most people won’t have the energy, resources, or will to fight back. And for the majority, they’re right. We had a team of a dozen nurses and PAs working alongside twice as many analysts. These were people who knew the system inside and out. We knew the deadlines, the bureaucratic jargon, the documentation required, and we tracked every claim meticulously. But even armed with all that knowledge and experience, we couldn’t win them all. On a good month, we might win two-thirds of the denials. That was considered a success.
What’s even worse is that for every claim we fought, there were countless others that never even made it that far, we only got denials on services that actually happened. A patient’s doctor tells them they need surgery, but an insurer like UnitedHealth says no and that’s it. The patient gives up and it is difficult to imagine they get better.
If you’ve ever had a serious medical condition—and I pray you haven’t—you know how much it drains you, how it strips you of your will to do anything. When every moment is agony, you don’t have the strength to sit on hold for hours, fill out endless forms, or chase down a bureaucratic system designed to wear you down. All you want is to sleep, because that’s the only place that pain can’t find you. How many people have simply lacked the strength to fight back, and ultimately succumbed to their conditions? How many families have been driven into poverty, their lives torn apart by a single emergency, all because of these executives’ policies?
We all know someone who has been through a health insurance nightmare and we also know that while political changes could probably help this problem the reality now is that these people are making a choice to run their companies this way, knowing full well the impact of their greed and indifference.
Where are your tears, your headlines, for the thousands of people and families whose lives have been destroyed and whose loved ones have died because of these same executives?
“…fueling ongoing debates about corporate ethics in healthcare.”
Don’t make me fucking laugh ‘corporate ethics’
There is such a thing as a non profit corporation
We need corporations. We just need to outlaw the for profit ones.
We need corporations.
I’m sure many people think the same about religion, or kings and queens
Absence of ethics is still on the spectrum of ethics.
Corporate ethics are centered around not getting bad press. Now that the press is controlled and for sale to whoever wants to pay for an outcome, we dont need corporate ethics anymore. Its ancient history.
It’s kinda hilarious watching billionaire owned media try to suppress the fact that absolutely no one feels bad for the CEO. The same thing happened when some billionaires decided to visit the Titanic, and after the Trump assassination attempt. The memes afterwards were top notch
Everyone is so fed up with this country and the shit is this close 🤏🏼 to the fan
I disagree. I think it just hit it. Think about how shooters crave noteriaty. Think of how this assain is seen as a hero. No. This is just the beginning.
I think too many people saw this as a kind of justice that the courts have never and will never provide.
I don’t advocate violence. I also don’t think this has a different outcome.
Lol, I appreciate that final line in your comment. So many of us were that close back in 2020… Now things are slated to be worse, and I think I speak for at least millions of Americans when I say we are just fucking over it.
When we’ve tossed out any semblance of justice in our country at the highest levels, literally ruling that the president is immune from all prosecution (you know, like a fucking king), then asshole corpos that indirectly murder countless people getting gunned down doesn’t exactly concern us. In fact, this sort of thing genuinely seems more just than what our highest courts are allowing.
Shit is fucked up in this country, and I don’t think many of us want to pretend otherwise any longer. I’m not advocating violence, but I definitely don’t think I’ll lose sleep over this situation.
Royalty has forgotten that laws are the peaceful alternative to the guillotine. If you stop enforcing laws that protect the peasants what do you think is going to happen?
I’ll quote something that I heard from someone earlier today. “I don’t advocate violence, but I also can’t pretend that justice was not served.”
I’m still absolutely flabbergasted at how quickly we all moved on from Trump literally getting clipped in an attempt on his life.
They tried to muster some outrage and solidarity, but most of us just shrugged and went, “Damn. Oh well, maybe next time.”
The sympathy lasted two days. I was expecting maybe a week.
You guys had sympathy?
No but I saw sympathy
Found it hiding under the couch, but squashed it with my shoe real quick.
flabbergasted in a good way?
You know I’m honestly not sure. Mostly good I think?
Sidestepping the issue entirely of the act itself - strictly speaking more about the news cycle around it. I don’t know that it needed much more extensive, exhausting coverage. Just given the nature of the news currently, you gotta admit, surprising right? I’m not even trying to imply any sort of conspiracy about why it wasn’t more popular. I’m just saying, I think news cycle would’ve latched on harder if they could have, but the public gagged and said no thanks, we’re simply not interested, causing them to shift focus.
Biden dropped out shortly after and that dominated the news cycle.
Gotta admit in hindsight, that was funny as hell.
He got to pose for like a week like a badass and then quietly remove the ear bandaid.
Then the next time came, and it was even more disappointing. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
What was it the IRA told Thatcher? “You have to be lucky every single time. We only have to be lucky once.”
That’s fuckin metal
They tried to get her so many times and each time they were foiled by more and more lucky series of events.
He didnt get clipped. He cut his hand on glass, on the ground, and didnt realize it, then transfered the blood to his head. Thats why his ear was miraculously fully recovered like a week later when he was caught on camera without bandages.
Funny I always thought he was juicing like they do in professional wrestling, they cut themselves just a little bit to make it look like they’re injured.
Weird, since I didn’t see blood on his hands (especially his right hand).
Are we really starting conspiracy theories that are already going the direction of “yeah, but was it really an assassination attempt???”
I don’t have any love for the guy, but holy shit, I don’t need Lemmy starting conspiracy theories. Back to reddit if you do.
Interesting. Got a source for that?
nothing besides the picture of him with blood on the side of his head with no visible injury, and another one with a bandage off a little after a week after the shooting with not a single sign of injury (ears dont heal that fast), and the fact that he absolutely refused to let anyone see his wound or the medical records.
Trump is an opportunistic aggrandizemer.
If he legitimately got even the slightest injury, he would have been ripping the bandage off 15 times a day and pointing at it and screaming about what the “evil woke liberal mob” did to him. And he didnt.
he barely acknowledge it at all after a few days. Does that sound like the Trump you know? The trump that ruminates and obsesses for years, even decades over perceived and imagined slights? That constantly comments on them, regardless of relevance to the topic at hand?
Damn…
My guess is that a piece of teleprompter glass grazed an old man’s ear. Ears are known to be bloody, moreso on older people. But there’s no way in fucking hell he actually took a bullet, he wouldn’t even have that ear.
So yeah, your assessment fits.
Yeah, I figured it was from a dozen burly secret service guys wrestling a 78 year old man to the ground.
No, it was just his superior genetics that allowed him to heal quicker than a normal person would.
…Trumperine???
OMG, this was the first thing that came to my head too and you beat me by 2 minutes
Getting downvoted for an obvious sarcastic ribbing? For shame, Internet.
We have the best ears…
r/all is covered with positive press for the shooting. Anything getting removed would have to be pretty egregious.
It was just the News community.
News requires a email, and reddit wasn’t worth the effort. Lemmy is.
I think it makes more sense to use the 🤏 emoji in that context, rather than the Italian gesture.
Fixed :)
Really? Somehow it appears unchanged on my end. And the last edit is before my comment. Lemmy bug?
Buttah we’reah theese aclosa…! 🤌🏼
where are the bot writers when you need them. We need italian-accents-as-a-service bot.
I would love to see an Australian or Scottish accent bots.
Jar-jar, is that you?
Billionaires who own the means of production trying to own the means of communication as well.
When they can’t, they’ll own the government, and outlaw it.
It’s like poetry.
I think the only thing stopping people from posting even worse inflammatory shit about it is not wanting to show up on an FBI watchlist or something later on.
Literally the only reason. I’ve thought of some goooood ones.
It’s not worth it. No matter how hot the meme would be. Let it sizzle in your mind meatball. Drinking in the basement and playing Factorio is more important
Been mostly on Cyberpunk lately but pretty spot on
Let us take a moment to consider how long the list has grown these past few days.
Maybe just keep track of who isn’t on the list instead?
Its also hilarious that lemmy.world admins/mods did the same thing with early threads about this yesterday, nuking individual comments celebrating Thompson’s death and 24 hr instance wide banning the users that made those comments, then within 2 hrs they undid the bans, and by today seem to have just given up trying.
Hell yeah!
I’m only seeing one upvote and one downvote lol
I think people are having a hard time deciding whether to celebrate your comment or not
Bit of an ambiguous one, when I look back at it myself lol
I mean it’s pretty obvious most people are in favor of making yesterday a National Holiday. It’s not like the more outspoken people were in the minority in their feelings.
Even the most vile MAGAs have probably been screwed over by insurance companies, or at the very least had to spend valuable hours of their life fighting for something they should have already had.
I mean it’s pretty obvious most people are in favor of making yesterday a National Holiday.
Nobody Saw Nothin’ Day.
I mean it’s pretty obvious most people are in favor of making yesterday a National Holiday.
Brought to you by my being awake when I don’t want to be:
Remember, remember! The fourth of December, A U-H-C CEO shot; I know of no reason Why the U-H-C season Should ever be forgot!
Taking a look at the recent modlog, as well as other comments around here, it looks like they’re trying to find the right balance for what’s okay and what has crossed the line.
There are an alarming number of comments that are actively encouraging murder and the amount of upvotes that even the worst of those comments receive is sickening.
Something something “kill the billionaires… in minecraft” /s
There are an alarming number of comments that are actively encouraging murder and the amount of upvotes that even the worst of those comments receive is sickening.
Can you really blame people, though? The poor and middle class been screwed and driven against each other by ultra-rich assholes for decades. Murder might not be the most ethical solution from a moral purist standpoint, but at least it has people talking and agreeing about the underlying problem.
You can both not blame people, AND also not allow speech like that.
alarming number
Yeah, alsrmingly low
For some people in might be self defence, who knows who has a treatable illness they were denied coverage for.
The US mocked Trump for being shot at, then failed to keep him from being elected again.
Pretty good sign that people are not going to direct that anger towards actually fixing the problems.
My empathy for America was lost decades ago when literal children were gunned down in Sandy Hook.
We didn’t collectively mourn as a nation and do anything. Instead, some went to defend guns. Others went to blame the victims, the parents who are literally holding their lifeless child in their hands.
Nah dude, this shit finally hit the fan. Just wait. Terrorism works. Look at what bin Laden did to this country - is it not obvious to everyone alive before and after that he won? He wanted to destroy America and he did. What this was is an act of terrorism, and it’s going to work. Corrupt leaders all over the spectrum are getting nervous. Americans are armed to the teeth and pissed. It only takes a couple of lone wolves with intelligence and gun skills to do some major damage. And who doesn’t wanna be famous these days? I mean who doesn’t like this guy? I’d put him on the cover of time as person of the year. This is just the beginning of some very interesting times. I can’t believe it took this long.
And even more uplifting, this isn’t politically divisive. There isn’t going to be right vs left retribution over this. The entire political spectrum save for a few uppity pearl clutchers (mostly lib elites) are celebrating this.
School shootings are just a matter of course now, they’re not even newsworthy anymore unless there’s an Uvalde-level of utter incompetence involved. And even then, what happened? Nothing, nothing happened to the cowards who were complicit and accomplices to the murder of children by actively preventing people from around the killer. We’re told to get over it.
So, you know, if I had to choose between school children being murdered as a matter of course and evil profiteers who revel and flourish on the pain and suffering of everyday people being murdered as a matter of course, I’d definitely chose the latter. I wouldn’t then tell people to get over it, I’d tell people the system obviously need to be dismantled and rebuilt entirely.
My real preference would be that there are no evil profiteers who revel and flourish on the pain and suffering and that systems be functioning for the people in the first place, but unfortunately that’s not an option.
Pussies.
removed by mod
This is a really uncomfortable situation for me as a user and made me want to use Lemmy even more
Reddit is a piece of shit platform, people who use it deserve the poor treatment they sign up for
Earth is a shit platform. How do I unsubscribe?!
Just be a CEO of a large corrupt corporation and someone will be along shortly to process your request.
Easy, just start a new instance and leave this one.
Because Lemmy has never had a moderation problem 🙄🙄
on reddit, you have to hope an admin replaces a bad mod. On lemmy, you can create a competing community that’s well modded, and the user base will generally want to be where the mods are chill, and follow.
I don’t mean to sideline the conversation too much, but I’m only part of .world. What are some other recommendations? I’ve seen lots of complaints about moderator censorship here, though I don’t want to end up in a dark hole of violence, either.
reddthat is pretty dope
Lemm.ee or sh.itjust.works are probably the best options right now. World is the most similar to Reddit, and a lot of subreddits were essentially replicated on world.
I choose sh.itjust.works on name alone, and I couldn’t be happier with the choice
I was speaking more about Community (equivalent to a subreddit) moderation, as opposed to instance level moderation from admins, since for the most part a community mod is what users will be interacting with.
I wouldn’t worry much about .world being your home instance. The only real downside is you can’t post or comment on Beehaw, since they defederated from World due to a lack of moderation tools on their end.
.World is the largest instance, so if you wanted to help spread the load across the fediverse and prevent centralization, you could export all your subscriptions to a new account elsewhere.
If you go that route, I’d personally recommend looking for an instance that at least has Hexbear and Lemmygrad in their block list. Lemmy.cafe is a good choice for a smaller instance, while Sopuli.xyz is a solid medium sized one, both general instances. But if you’d like a more themed instance that appeals to you, by all means go for that instead. https://lemmyverse.net/ or the instance finder tool at https://join-lemmy.org/ are good places to find one. :)
This is very helpful, thank you. I will read this post over a few times as I consider and explore Lemmy.
I like where I ended up. I started on Lemmy.ml
If Reddit mods (or lemmy mods for that matter) are overwhelmed by the workload of a thread, they should lock it, and clean it up. not delete it!
Even threads here on Lemmy got locked.
If you’re a moderator that locks threads: fuck you and stop abusing your power.
Fuck Reddit and the life is cheap US healthcare system.
Fuck censorship.
Good choice by the mods to lock that first thread.
Meddit is pretty high quality so it doesn’t surprise me. They don’t like too much shit posting by people without flair.
It isn’t just scammer CEO’s that are worried.
