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RE: Now Here's a Controversial Opinion on the United Healthcare Executive's Murder
I used to feel the same but there is a nuance here. Generally speaking insurance companies can be a good source of oversight. A doctor might make a mistake and the insurance company could catch it. I do think millions of dollars of profit for an insurance company is inefficiency from the point of view of the client. An insurance company that is barely scraping by is the one I would like to use. Unfortunately, by denying a valid claim they avoid keeping their promise and keep more money. The company is collectively rewarded by not fulfilling its function.
On the other hand, when agreements are not kept, and the law is useless, violence is what must follow. I have a suspicion this particular company delayed and denied to the wrong family. Indeed if they have denied thousands of claims in a year, linking based on motive becomes impractical. Fortunately or not.
Funny, I was actually thinking about that nuance just earlier today because I myself know that physicians and their offices have been, with increasing frequency, billing for services not rendered. If insurance companies actually compensated the physicians fairly (rather than keeping the compensation identical to or les than it was decades ago - you read that right!) then this type of fraud wouldn't occur nearly as much. They're preventing physicians from earning even inflation-adjusted amounts for the same services. It's terrible.
Now, regarding actual errors from the physician side - definitely, those do exist and should be caught and punished appropriately. However, I'm yet to hear of an insurance company preventing a medical error lol! It seems that more damage comes from physicians not being able to practice the way they should, and instead conforming to the restrictions placed by insurance companies.
I would be interested to find out the motive once this killer is caught. At least one positive thing came out of this: executives might now become a little bit more fearful of denying at such extreme rates that UnitedHealthcare has been doing (approximately 1/3 of claims!).
The idea is not punishment. The doctor say puts a diagnosis of hypothyroidism but her handwriting is really poor, and the it looks like hyperthyroidism and the treatment prescribed is not something that treats hyperthyroidism. When you take it to the insurance for approval the administrator can say "no." Now, there is no malpractice because the error is caught. The patient doesn't get the wrong medicine. This is the kind of problem I had once.
The clerical error shouldn't happen. If people have really poor handwriting, we pretty much can type everything including prescriptions. However I do have a feeling higher level problems could happen. There should be a double budget in an insurance company. The value of 80% of the premium should go to customer payouts and be inaccessible except for payouts. The 20% should be for running the company.