The CEO of United Health, America’s largest health insurer, was gunned down in New York City. The killer wrote on his bullets “deny, defend, depose,” an apparent allusion to the phrase critics of health insurers use to describe how they get out of paying claims: “delay, deny, defend.” Health insurers delay payments, deny coverage, and then defend themselves.
Evidently, the killer was taking revenge on the well-paid insurance executive for his company denying coverage for his debilitating back condition.
The shooter has become something of a folk hero to lots of people on social media who have had similar frustrations with health insurers. Murder must never be justified. This particular executive was not personally responsible for denying claims. He was a human being with a wife and children. Still, his killing has been a catalyst for new discussions about health care in America and the inadequacy of our current health insurance system. We don’t have to celebrate murder to participate in those discussions.
Get a random group of adults together and you are likely to hear horror stories about health insurance coverage. As I’ve said, my mother died last summer. In the last months of her life, my sister, who was taking care of her, tried to draw on the long-term care insurance policy that my mother had paid into for years for hospice care. The company delayed, delayed, delayed. . .and then she died. She paid thousands and thousands of dollars into that policy, which paid nothing.
So what, if anything should be done? Some are saying that private companies, by their nature, put profit ahead of patients. But government-run programs such as Medicare sometimes deny coverage too. So do socialized medicine systems, such as those of the UK, Canada, and Australia. The biggest frustration with socialized medicine is “delay,” since the demand for certain procedures is so great that it can take months or years before doctors can schedule them.
Any suggestions?
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