patrick.net

So, the new CEO of United Healthcare is doubling down.

Saying that their denials are in the best interests of everyone even if they are at twice the industry average.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/leaked-video-shows-unitedhealth-ceo-defending-practices-that-prevent-unnecessary-care/ar-AA1vxDtR

How about we just adopt Japan's healthcare finance system? They seem to do a good job of it.

The gun they showed on the news looks like a home build based on a P80 frame.

Misc says

denials are in the best interests of everyone

I am sure this fuckstick's motives are corrupted but I do think that unnecessary testing and subsequent unecessary interventions and prescriptions are a major US healthcare problem. Generally the less 'healthcare' the better.

Donald Light: “Epidemiologically, appropriately prescribed, prescription drugs are the fourth leading cause of death, tied with stroke at about 2,460 deaths each week in the United States. About 330,000 patients die each year from prescription drugs in the United States and Europe. They [the drugs] cause an epidemic of about 20 times more hospitalizations [6.6 million annually], as well as falls, road accidents, and [annually] about 80 million medically minor problems such as pains, discomforts, and dysfunctions that hobble productivity or the ability to care for others. Deaths and adverse effects from overmedication, errors, and self-medication would increase these figures.”

Yes, our medical system is both than twice as expensive per person as the next most expensive country on earth (Switzerland) and horrifically dangerous to patients, with medical errors in the top three causes of death all told.

Trying to navigate between the various doctors, hospitals, and insurers is itself a kind of torture of Byzantine complexity, something I think does not happen nearly as much anywhere else.

One problem is the relentless encouragement to "see your doctor" about absolutely everything all the time. Another problem is mass hypochondria, which I would bet accounts for well over half of all visits to a doctor or emergency room. So hypochondria is a major cash cow and no one has a motive to point it out and discourage it. Then there's legal liability for discouraging someone from seeing a doctor, even if statistically speaking, staying away from doctors is usually the best advice.

And then patients want the doctor to "do something", which usually means prescribing some unnecessary drug.

All non-emergency medical bills should be presented in advance of treatment, to let people shop around. Anything not on the bill agreed to in advance should be free. That one change would fix an awful lot of problems. But doctors and hospitals like to keep all the charges hidden until it's too late to shop. That is the core of their business model, and it must stop.

We know more about this CEO shooter guy in hours than we do months later about Trump's attempted assassin.

Kid breaks back on hike. Spine surgery, chronic pain. Turns to hallucinogenic woowoo bullshit healer, who "explains" that big pharma is of the Devil (not totally wrong), that we have to Liberate ourselves from Corporate Medicine. Gives kid a shitload of magic mushrooms and Nootropics and whatnot. This gels well with the Woke shit he learned in the Ivys. Kid goes full lunatic.

In a normal, traditional society, he'd have a few old fashions and his wife would give him a back massage.

https://petermcculloughmd.substack.com/p/police-make-arrest-in-thompson-shooting

On Monday, Dec. 9, sources with NBC News confirmed the man -- who they identified as 26-year-old Luigi Mangione -- was being questioned in Altoona, Pennsylvania. The sources said customers at a McDonald’s in the area called police after spotting Mangione, who they deemed suspicious. Responding officers noticed he had a fake ID and took him in for questioning.

Once at the police station, officers discovered Mangione had a gun similar to the one used in Thompson's killing, as well as a silencer and a fake New Jersey ID with the name "Marc Rosario" on it, law enforcement officials told NBC News.

Sources had said the gunman in the shooting used a fake New Jersey ID with the same name "Marc Rosario" when he checked into a Manhattan hostel last month.

Mangione was arrested on unrelated firearm charges, New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch announced during a Monday afternoon press conference. He has not been arrested or charged in connection to Thompson's death.

Mangione reportedly graduated in 2016 as valedictorian from Gilman School, an all-boys high school in Baltimore, Maryland.

The 26-year-old was born and raised in Maryland, apparently has ties to San Francisco, and a last known address in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Wouldn't anyone calm enough to do that shooting also be reasonable enough to dump the fake ID and the gun immediately?

Patrick says

All non-emergency medical bills should be presented in advance of treatment, to let people shop around. Anything not on the bill agreed to in advance should be free. That one change would fix an awful lot of problems. But doctors and hospitals like to keep all the charges hidden until it's too late to shop. That is the core of their business model, and it must stop.

And emergency bills should be set at a flat price from region to region.

"Why do you hate da Capitalism? Shop around during your stroke for the best bargain!"

Also, we need to reconsider our anti-polypoly strategy/policy outcome. I think medical care was better when there were dozens of small hospitals instead of a few big ones in each area

Finally, we need to accept the fact that 80% of lawsuits are B2B, not individuals trying to wring money out of poor State Farm. We also need some kind of "Fast Track" and Paperwork minimalization for long paying Home Insurance premium payers who have not made claims in over a decade getting the runaround when they finally DO file after a natural disaster.

Here's a really insane story about a property owner having his insurance company claim check refused by TD Bank, on grounds the insurance company might claw it back.

https://www.abcactionnews.com/news/local-news/bank-refuses-to-let-some-fl-homeowners-cash-hurricane-insurance-checks

(Original Version: I remembered it as Wells Fargo)

“I never thought I would sit across from you and say, wow, fantastic, God bless insurance companies, but it helps,” he said.

That is, until he went to TD Bank to try to cash the check, only to learn that the bank, which holds the mortgage on the property, wouldn’t endorse it.

“They informed me that they won't endorse the check because they have requirements,” he said.

Those requirements include notarized documentation detailing the need for the money and how it will be spent.

But despite providing documentation proving his damage, Razavi said the bank isn’t budging. Instead, he’s being asked to provide more paperwork, including a claim adjuster’s report which is backlogged by at least a month.

Razavi isn’t alone.

His neighbor also got an advance check from his insurance company worth $2500.

But TD Bank won’t endorse that check either.

"Cash the fucking check is a terrible regulation that would burden business!" - RINOs, probably.

Patrick says

Trying to navigate between the various doctors, hospitals, and insurers is itself a kind of torture of Byzantine complexity, something I think does not happen nearly as much anywhere else.

Well put.

As I get to be an old fart, it strikes me that shit was far more simple in the days of typewriters and triplicate forms. Computers have seemed to make it too easy for banks, insurers, medical providers, etc. to cause a lot of annoyance and delays.

https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/two-murders-tuesday-december-10-2024

Two local police officers nabbed Mangione while he was munching fries in an Altoona, Pennsylvania McDonalds. (He’s probably not MAHA.) According to unconfirmed reports, even though Mangione was wearing his blue surgical face mask, an anonymous tipster recognized his distinctive eyebrows.

Consider that for a second. Here is a link to some affordable eyebrow trimmers. Had he used them, who knows how things might have turned out. Just saying.

Officers reported that on arrest, six days after the shooting, Mangione was still carrying the murder weapon. I guess he really liked that gun. They also said that, even though he had a laptop, Mangione —who earned an honors engineering degree— had a three-page handwritten “manifesto” folded into his pocket.

Apparently, Mangione’s manifesto was an anticapitalist screed against big insurance companies, which he called “parasites.” NYPD Chief Detective Joe Kenny said, “It does seem he has some ill will toward corporate America.”

Yes, it does seem that way.

According to police descriptions of his manifesto, murderous Mangione targeted UHC only because it was one of the biggest and most profitable companies, and targeted Brian Thompson specifically only because he was UHC’s CEO.

Mangione doesn’t fit the New York Times’ preferred assassin’s profile. Maybe they were hoping for someone more diverse...

So he was 'caught' in a MacDonalds while wearing a face mask WITH the 'gun' and WITH his fake ID, after performing an anonymous shooting and well executed stealth getaway.

I guess the arresters had to the follow the signs saying 'Patsy this direction' while he was wearing a sign saying 'I'm the Patsy, stupid'.

AmericanKulak says

But boy did the Blues try to hide the Trans-shooter's manifesto

the chief of police, who works for mayor btw, probably got pressured to not release it. this is different, we will see. once investigation is done it’s public record subject to prr.

you can always request all correspondence related to it, it’s all public record.

Mangione was on Substack:

Patrick says

Sources had said the gunman in the shooting used a fake New Jersey ID with the same name "Marc Rosario" when he checked into a Manhattan hostel last month.

AmericanKulak says

As I get to be an old fart, it strikes me that shit was far more simple in the days of typewriters and triplicate forms.

You weren't an old fart then, so how can you compare?

Here is the dude screaming about his "lived experience"!

https://twitter.com/bonchieredstate/status/1866576276015677489

Even if he was denied some claims wrt his back issues, as an Ivy grad employed in tech he absolutely not the type unable to afford to pay for his care. Some people get this idea that paying for a fancy car you probably don't need all that much is OK, but paying for a surgery you absolutely need is an outrage. I can understand being angry at a surgeoun who botched your surgery to the point of enterntaining murderous thoughts, but doing this shit over fucking money? Cheeses H. Crust!

Patrick says

The dude is 26, isn't he? How many children does he have? Should be at least 4-5 by now, judging by his views on the subject of procreation... 🤡

Eric Holder says

I can understand being angry at a surgeoun who botched your surgery to the point of enterntaining murderous thoughts, but doing this shit over fucking money?

I got the impression that the murder was his way of objecting to the whole system of legalized extortion that is our medical/insurance industry.

Patrick says

I got the impression that the murder was his way of objecting to the whole system of legalized extortion that is our medical/insurance industry.

He's an idiot then.

Isn't McDonalds licensed to hold lotteries to issue Presidential pardons since Trump got elected? Maybe he was in McDonalds buying pardon scratchers.

https://eccentrik.substack.com/p/luigi-mangione-charged

Or perhaps, as others have suggested, the whole McDonalds-employee-recognizing-him story is total bollocks, just a cover for the real way they were able to locate Luigi under the Golden Arches.

After all, the authorities can’t publicly admit the level of Orwellian surveillance tech they likely used to find him, thereby violating all kinds of laws and moral boundaries. They can’t disclose their parallel construction. That would cause an outcry, and their masters are already trying to clean up the outcry over insurance companies…

Yes, the Panoptic Surveillance State is alive and well, hiding in plain sight. ...

People have scoured his social media accounts, from Goodreads to YouTube, finding extensive evidence supporting what was claimed in his manifesto.

Users have also found, reportedly, some rather anomalous things…




... Because yet another angle here, that makes things interesting, is that of Luigi’s family.
They are a powerhouse Baltimore Italian-American family, with their tentacles in many real estate and healthcare ventures across the state.

But aside from Luigi’s economic advantages, he’s also got some political connections, as he’s cousins with Republican Maryland House of Delegates member Nino Mangione.

You know who also has a lot of power and prestige in the Baltimore area?

The D’Alesandros - the family of former Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi.

Is that the same Nancy Pelosi who would potentially be implicated in a DOJ probe? Was Brian Thompson going to spill the beans on all kinds of insider trading with top-level Democrats and Republicans?

How far will the investigation into UnitedHealth Group, the world’s largest healthcare company by revenue, really go?

https://petermcculloughmd.substack.com/p/handwritten-manifesto-cited-by-nypd

As I noted in my post this morning—Did Luigi Mangione Want to Be Caught?—six days after he allegedly murdered UHC CEO Brian Thompson, Luigi Mangione dined in a McDonald’s 280 miles from the crime scene, wearing the same clothing he apparently wore on the day of the murder, with multiple incriminating objects still in his possession, including a 9 mm pistol and a handwritten manifesto the NYPD is regarding as akin to a confession.

At the time he was arrested in McDonald’s, he was wearing the same black jacket and blue surgical mask as the young man who was photographed getting into a taxi on the Upper West Side shortly after 7:00 a.m. on the morning Thompson was shot. However, while dining in McDonald’s, Mangione was also wearing a stocking cap, but he didn’t pull it down quite low enough to conceal his conspicuously bushy eyebrows. One wonders why he didn’t wear this stocking cap (pulled all the way down over his eyebrows) when he got into the cab. If he had done so, he might have evaded capture.

To my knowledge as of this writing, the police have not shared any photographs of the manifesto with the press. So far, it appears the police have only made verbal representations to the press that they found a 262-word manifesto in Mangione’s possession. The document purportedly states that healthcare companies “continue to abuse our country for immense profit because the American public has allowed them to get away with it … I do apologise for any strife or trauma but it had to be done. These parasites had it coming.”

Did the high school valedictorian and University of Pennsylvania graduate experience some kind of mental breakdown that resulted in him committing murder without taking the most elementary steps to dispose of evidence that would incriminate him?

Stochastic Terror is Great when we do it - Taylor Lorenz and Bluiesky posters



I honestly looked through the "Ivy" tweets and part of me thinks is satire.

Patrick says

Two local police officers nabbed Mangione while he was munching fries in an Altoona, Pennsylvania McDonalds. (He’s probably not MAHA.) According to unconfirmed reports, even though Mangione was wearing his blue surgical face mask, an anonymous tipster recognized his distinctive eyebrows.

Even before he was spotted in the McDonalds I believe the FBI always knew exactly where he was. As I also suspected with Patty Hearst back in the day, they just want to see if they come in contact with more associates. Then some tipster just happens to turn them in. Really?
Even with the Unibomber: when LAX went buzerk about planes being bombed on the news relentlessly for a week saying he was going to attack; I said to my friends. OMG they know who the Unabomber is; they are just making sure we all are familiar with the story before they magically find an excuse to expose his whereabouts and arrest him. Same with Magione.

Patrick says

Patrick says

Sources had said the gunman in the shooting used a fake New Jersey ID with the same name "Marc Rosario" when he checked into a Manhattan hostel last month.

With 25 years of travel, I've NEVER been asked for an ID at a hotel domestically. I don't do hostels, but they're basically a yuppie hotel. They want a credit card. Foreign they need the passport at check in is one thing. Even if they did there's no chance they'd make a copy/scan of it.

I smell bull shit. Tell me I'm wrong, but I'm in a hotel about once a month on average. Never had an ID request domestically.

I've definitely been asked for ID at US hotels.

casandra says

Even before he was spotted in the McDonalds I believe the FBI always knew exactly where he was.

Welcome back, @casandra

Yes, I think that their tracking abilities are better than they let on, because if they let on, people would know how to evade them.

And there's the possibility that he was set up by the FBI, or maybe by Pelosi as yet another trading opportunity:

https://www.caclubindia.com/money/legal/nancy-pelosi-luigi-mangione/