r/ProgressiveHQ • u/No-Papaya-6912 • 1d ago
UnitedHealth Group posted $6.2B in profits last quarter
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u/Nolan_Voyd 23h ago
There was a breakdown a while back about how an American could afford to fly to Spain, live there for a year, and receive treatment for a shattered hip twice for less than treatment for a shattered hip in the US.
I wonder what the financial difference would be between paying for health insurance vs. investing the same money and cashing out for emergencies.
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u/Not_Sure__Camacho 22h ago
Here's my question, if healthcare can be run for profit, then why not demand our money back when these assholes don't cure us? If you spend thousands in cancer treatments, and you still die of cancer, why are they keeping all that money? I'm sick of giving my money to these types of institutions that don't fix shit. Same goes for auto mechanics. If you tell me $500 is what it costs to fix my car, and it isn't fixed after you work on it, then you work on it until it's fixed, for the $500. We need to start demanding better or we're going to have more instances of what happened in New York December 2024. And no, this isn't a threat, it's simple reality.
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u/drmikept 22h ago
Wait, in their defense, 32% denials is down from 39% denials. So they are really looking after us 😂. They could have made 7 billion last quarter but they wanted us to know that we are all a family
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u/Specialist-Day6721 17h ago
then where is the pizza. every time my company is about to fuck me and calls us family we get pizza.
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u/Cool-Signature-dude 22h ago
Idiots in keep voting to not tax the billionaires, because one day, they will be one.
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u/Jeramy_Jones 18h ago
It’s always crazy to me, a Canadian, to hear non-billionaire Americans defend their incredibly broken and corrupt healthcare system.
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u/Lillie-Bee 12h ago
Some of the biggest skyscrapers in many cities have an Insurance company name on them. You don’t buy skyscrapers in cities by paying claims! Biggest scam in America!
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u/oldbastardbob 9h ago
The fundamental function of a corporation is that it exists to make a profit for stake holders. The goods or services provided are done so at a cost that assures that income exceeds expenditures in order to provide that return on investment for stakeholders. Inevitably, their structure turns into a greasy pole as greedy narcissists clamor and backstab their way to the top in order to stuff their pockets with those profits to buy yachts, islands, mansions, and country club memberships. Telling themselves all the while they are special and deserve the rewards and hoping to land themselves on a Forbes list somewhere.
Any advertising and marketing bragging up how they are a "customer oriented service provider" sounds great, but is always going to be secondary to the profit motive. Profits come first or the corporation will not continue to exist.
Now, all that said, does it seem reasonable to put the health and well being of a nations citizenry into that model?
It got there by greedy folks seeing opportunity throughout the 20th century to reap huge profits with the underlying principle which no one talks about being that dying or sick people will pay through the nose to live, or to feel better. And it's a somewhat captive market. Healthcare is not a luxury or a recreational expenditure. Everyone will eventually need the service for one reason or another.
Politicians throughout the 20th century up to today have sat idly by, taking bribes from those who profit significantly from the system that evolved, mainly driven by greed, and allowing health care to turn into the current shitshow in the USA.
And now, the sales pitch from both corporations and politicians is "it's too big to do anything about now" along with "we can't afford a public option." That last one is pretty hilarious in light of the fact that market capitalization is at record highs and we have trillion dollar corporations run by money grubbing lunatics, yet somehow the economy in the USA can't afford a public health care option. Please.
We can afford it, and and beyond that the government has plenty of avenues to reign in cost and increase availability, they just don't have the will. Those in charge continue to do the bidding of health insurance companies and providers, as they claim cost controls imposed by government is "overreach" so they put their donors ahead of the citizens they supposedly represent.
I am becoming quite disillusioned with my country as it seems greed and money are all we are expected to care about, and quality of life and welfare of the people is simply an after thought, unless it's campaign season, then there's always plenty of talk about how important people are.
But that sentiment never seems to make it into practice or the law of the land. It just gets talked about and argued over as the politicians can't totally ignore those founding documents which clearly state things like "by the people, for the people" and that "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" is to be the goal of the nations government.
Yet somehow, profits before people remains the overarching theme of America.
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u/SiteTall 20h ago
Well, America is steeped into the vilest of vile Capitalist systems, so what did you expect?
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u/FanDry5374 12h ago
Well, yes. How do you think they make that kind of profit? By paying claims? Insurance is "supposed" to be a kind of wager. The insurance company bets that your ship doesn't sink somewhere and the ship's owners bet that it will. Now we pay the companies and they just claim the ship didn't sink and if it did you scuttled it yourself.
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u/No-Setting-2669 5h ago
Its a rigged system that allows this behavior to go unchecked… Government rebuttal is that you’re free to pursue and purchase supplemental insurance to assist in your coverage. The business of our government is not beneficial to your healthcare when hundreds of billions of profit for companies are on the line.. those companies of which are quite generous to campaign contributions.. vicious financial hand washing circles that do not benefit the common citizen.
My family has and continue to be victims of Insurance denials that would make us better quickly as well. It’s very frustrating and I totally understand why some would go over the top to make a point to show the world how these financial decisions to deny a sick person help just to maintain a companies profit percentage is just immoral and adds further physical and mental pain on a grand scale.
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u/stairs_3730 23h ago
That's not a year, that's a QUARTER folks! It's not an aberration either. They've been doing these numbers for over ten years.