It's weird being in Minnesota these days.
Of course, we have Tim Walz returning to the governorship rather than becoming Vice President.
There's the vile Pete Hegseth, the fully unqualified and disgusting nominee for Secretary of Defense, who's from a suburb north of the Twin Cities, so when there's coverage of him in our local media, he gets softer-than-deserved hometown play, as if he were a baseball player.
And now there's the street killing of Brian Thompson, the UnitedHealthcare CEO. The giant conglomerate is based here and he lived with his family in the northwest suburb of Maple Grove. So all the local politicians have to layer in an extra bit of deference to a big employer and (I imagine) donor, even though it has been known for years that everyone hates the company. They weren't even allowed to operate in Minnesota for many years, which used to require only nonprofits until Republicans had a trifecta in governance and changed that.
Just before the shooting, there had been a brouhaha in our local news, telling of a dispute between United and several other large health care networks. The service providers were planning to drop United's Medicare Advantage plans from their coverage because United was rejecting too many claims. That discontinuation of coverage would have affected large public employee unions, like Saint Paul's teachers and public employees, so there was a lot of outrage.
It was a standoff between multiple powerful players in the local medical landscape, and it was just settled recently, with the several health care providers agreeing to continue United's coverage. I don't know who caved. Did United agree to stop denying claims at such a high rate? I hope that's what happened, rather than that the health care systems gave in to pressure and to eat the cost of covering the care, or that they would figure out a way to pass the costs on to the patients.
Anyway... here's another wrinkle in the hatred that has bubbled up against UnitedHealthcare. I saw this shared on Facebook by a friend. The person who wrote it, Ann Marie Lund, made it public there.
As Lund says in the post, she works in the Twin Cities as a Non-Emergency Medical Transportation provider, working with people in wheelchairs. Her post enlightened me on several things, including another way that UnitedHealthcare is bad and why I will never go near anything they do:
As long as we're talking about the United Healthcare CEO, I just was talking to a friend about this and it's something that no one thinks about unless it affects you.
Let me explain how even something like transportation can affect health outcomes (all you need to do is look at numbers nationally to see which states have the best health outcomes, Minnesota tops that list).
Minnesota is generally a great place to have health coverage. Well, unless you have United Healthcare ... actually need coverage, don't have any or consistent transportation, or specifically: are in a wheelchair.
Think about it. What DO you do if you're even temporarily in a wheelchair because of illness, stroke, fall or otherwise to get to your dr's appointment? Take the bus? good luck wheeling to that. Especially if you can't even wheel your own chair.
Years ago I transitioned from the corporate world to working for myself as a NEMT wheelchair contractor. (Non-Emergency Medical Transportation)
All those "Taxis" you see on the road in the Minnesota metro? (Blue & White, Transportation Plus, ABC, RideSure, etc) every one of those drivers is a medical transportation contractor now.
All this means is I'm transporting anyone in a wheelchair (permanently or temporarily) to and from their medical appointments, and getting them in and out of their facilities and homes - it's pretty specialized transportation. The contract is through insurance companies.
If you DON'T have United Healthcare, you really don't have to think about it because all you do is call up your insurance company, schedule your medical ride, and they in turn send it to one of the existing companies they're contracted with.
This is CLUTCH for people who don't have consistent transportation and ensures people routinely get to their important medical appointments = better overall health outcomes because people get seen more consistently.
It's why Minnesota has a dedicated budget line for it as something that is reimbursed through Medicaid and Medicare. Most states don't.
Years ago I started understanding that how an insurance company performed (for its policyholders, not shareholders) overall is directly related to how they covered medical transportation for the most vulnerable. Simplistic as it may seem, if you look at that graphic we've all seen as to claim denial percentages, this absolutely tracks.
United Healthcare will not cover any medical transportation for you unless you are under 19 and/or pregnant. And they don't cover wheelchair van transport at all.
It absolutely breaks my heart every time I have to pick up someone who should never be paying cash to get to their chemo appt, dialysis, checkup, whatever it is - and they're paying out of the little $ they have, probably social security or disability.
Millionaire/billionaires don't ever think about this as they'll just buy a wheelchair van. Easily $30K for a used one, and ridiculously expensive to try to maintain, because of the modifications.
I'm saying: all you need to do is look at the health outcomes of the most vulnerable who are insured by a company like United - who *can't even get to their appointments that coverage is probably going to be denied for* and you can't help but understand the absolute RAGE and anger at the amount of harm CEO Brian Thompson and a company like United Healthcare can do to people.
This is all coming from someone who just deals with extremely vulnerable people on a daily basis, but connecting the dots is not difficult.
Rant over - from someone who wishes for single payer so none of these folx have to worry about anything related to their "coverage" and could just get WELL and thrive.
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