Our Collective Rage at Health Insurance Companies is Boiling Over
We’re tired of worrying about healthcare
About six weeks before United Healthcare’s (UHC) CEO Brian Thompson was gunned down in broad daylight by an apparent assassin, United HealthGroup, the parent company of UHC, reported over $6 billion in profits for Q3 2024. Part of the reason they’re so profitable is that the company is notoriously good at denying claims. They denied about 32% of claims in 2023, the highest claim denial rate of any major U.S. health insurer (the industry average is 16%).
In 2023, United Healthcare reportedly began using AI to automate the claims denial process. They implemented an AI algorithm that targeted elderly patients, broadly denying claims that doctors had already approved. The algorithm had “a 90% error rate” according to this article in Neoscope and it’s unclear if UHC is still using their robot death machine to deny people needed care.
There’s been an unnerving response to Thompson’s murder in online spaces like Threads, Bluesky, and the comment sections of articles about the shooting.
People are being openly gleeful and vindictive, unleashing their disdain for this man and the industry he represents. This response is upsetting, but not unexpected. Celebrating a healthcare executive’s murder…
