Mastodawn

Ben Royce 🇺🇦 🇸🇩

This is #healthcare in the #USA

A #doctor argues for approval for a procedure with a #UnitedHealthcare hack

She posted it on social media and is now blacklisted by #UHC and she had to sell her house and get a lawyer, they're ruining her career over this video:

https://www.gofundme.com/f/stand-with-a-surgeon-facing-retaliation

If you live in the #US dont get too mad- your blood pressure will spike and your healthcare sucks because you're just "a little person" and your moronic country prefers you to just die

#medicine #insurance #UNH

Maddad ☑️Aug 16

I think I can probably get MAID (Medical Assist In DYING) cheaper than I can get the health care I need.

It's been 1984 here for quite a while now and I'm getting tired..

Neil E. Hodges Aug 16

@maddad @benroyce At least it's a way out of the torment nexus. (Yes, I do think about this. :( )

Kid Mania Aug 16

@tk @maddad @benroyce

@clintruin @tk @maddad @benroyce 👍

@benroyce this is totally crazy!

Glad I live in Australia, we may have a few problems with health care, but overall it is way better than the US!

Peter Blok Aug 16

@skyfire747 @benroyce The US healthcare system is so fucked up. Full blown capitalism at the cost of patients. And insurance is part of the deal.
Obviously government should step in here, but not in the current political landscape.

Mrinappropriate Aug 16

@PeterBlok @skyfire747 @benroyce Insurance IS the deal. Take the money. Don’t part with money.

Catherine is not complacent Aug 16

@PeterBlok @skyfire747 @benroyce don’t think government run is better here. I’m on Medicare and it’s not.

@CatDragon @PeterBlok @skyfire747 @benroyce in Australia, we're on the NDIS and Medicare, and it's absolutely run better than the US healthcare system.

Chris Johnson Aug 17

@PeterBlok @skyfire747 @benroyce United Healthcare is among the worst of the worst. And they’re not just amoral and greedy, but actively criminal, engaging in fraud. The DOJ had 2 major lawsuits against them for fraud prior to the F47 administration showing up, IIRC.

Doug 🌈🇨🇦

@skyfire747 @benroyce America is rich, but has lost whatever morality it had. Trump is setting the stage for economic collapse and hyper inflation so they may lose the wealth too.

Ben Royce 🇺🇦 🇸🇩Aug 16

@Oldfartrant @skyfire747

i agree with you

there is an economic reckoning coming for the usa

@benroyce @Oldfartrant @skyfire747 Every Republican President since Eisenhower has crashed the economy, every Democrat has fixed it, in some cases with the active opposition of the GOP. The only way that will change is if Trump crashes our society so badly rebuilding it is hopeless.

@jhavok @benroyce @Oldfartrant @skyfire747 shutting off investment in international goodwill, education of the young and talented, medical and scientific research, and honoring a social contract to take care of people’s health is a bit worse than the typical Republican make the poor suffer policies.

craignicol Aug 16

@Oldfartrant @skyfire747 @benroyce 1% of America is richer than most of the world. The rest are sold a dream, because no-one would buy the reality.

Catherine is not complacent Aug 16

@Oldfartrant @skyfire747 @benroyce American is credit card rich.
Bills coming due any day now.

McWabbit 🇺🇦🍋🌻🍉Aug 16

@benroyce Gonna need a bigger #Luigi

Cassandrich Aug 16

@McWabbit @benroyce Time to start farming magic mushrooms.

David Njoku Aug 16

@benroyce Holy. Shit.

I guess the one positive is that doctors like her exist. Though, if this is the price she has to pay, I don't see that many of them standing up for their patients in the future.

@benroyce Wow! Takes no prisoners! I wonder if she has a JD with her MD.

Josh (humbug)Aug 18

@jhavok @benroyce It’s insane because she shouldn’t need the JD just to exist as an MD but she’s definitely a smart and tough cookie.

Thankful for her.

Bodhipaksa Aug 16

@benroyce So when United Health's CEO was assassinated, the lesson they learned was not "let's be less shitty and actually help people," but "Let's continue to be shitty but hide our identities."

It's time to burn the whole fucking thing down to the ground and start over.

gunstick Aug 17

@bodhipaksa @benroyce assignement was misunderstood and so trump is burning down the whole country instead. And probably the world.

Luuk_Aalders Aug 17

@bodhipaksa @benroyce maybe one dead insurance CEO is not enough?

jonathankoren™Aug 17

@Luuk_Aalders @bodhipaksa @benroyce

The Penguin of Evil Aug 17

@Luuk_Aalders @bodhipaksa @benroyce Needs a change of government and public heathcare, then you can just watch their empire burn and save lives at the same time.

Robert Petersen

@bodhipaksa @benroyce appropriate GIF is appropriate.

@bodhipaksa @benroyce Or burn it to the ground and walk away. Wait. Not everyone can walk away. We need to post a guard, so that anyone who tries to start it over can get stabbed in the ass and locked to a vinegar-soaked seat cushion.

Galactic Stone Aug 16

@benroyce For some odd reason, this makes me think of Mario Brothers.

@benroyce
This should be on 60 minutes. It's completely outrageous. UHC needs to be shut down.

SooJinL ⚽️🐈🫖🚲🧶🪡😷Aug 16

@benroyce United Healthcare is such a racket. They require an annual “wellness” exam, which is a good thing but they do not define, otherwise your monthly insurance premium increases $150 per person on the plan. Since the “wellness” exam is not clearly defined, we argue with them every year when they refuse to pay for the standard blood testing 🙄

Lazarou Monkey Terror 🚀💙🌈Aug 16

@benroyce not even my country but I will add my voice to calls for a certain video game character #FreeLuigi

Nicole Parsons Aug 16

Billionaires are funding the destruction of American health care.

Bradley, Koch, Coors, Scaife Mellon, Seid, Uihlein
https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2025/02/14/gop-and-koch-groups-want-to-slash-medicaid-to-pay-for-trumps-tax-cuts/

Voters didn't suddenly wake up one day & volunteer to die.

It's the Heritage Foundation that wants to remake health care into a revenue source for the 1%
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/09/koch-network-tries-to-counter-biden-public-option-obamacare.html

https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/koch-cash-behind-latest-attack-obamacare/

Nationalized healthcare is better. It makes businesses more competitive moving healthcare to the public sector.

https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/thanks-koch-brothers-proof-single-payer-saves-money/

GOP and Koch Groups Want to Slash Medicaid to Pay for Trump’s Tax Cuts - EXPOSEDbyCMD

In launching a $20-million campaign last month to persuade Congress to extend President Trump’s first-term Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, Charles Koch’s astroturf group, Americans for Prosperity, boasted about making the largest investment of any other conservative group in support of Trump’s second-term legislative agenda.

EXPOSEDbyCMD

Arena Cops 🇺🇦✌Aug 16

@Npars01 @benroyce@mastodon.social Fake "Republican politicians" are passing the bills authored by their billionaire bribers.

When the "legislative branch" doesn't even sit in Congress, but in oligarchs' offices, downgrading bribed "Republican congressional representatives" to be their mere paid-for "Executive branch" passing what their super-rich donors are throwing onto their desks.
Corruption stinks - and it emanates red fog over all of the U.S. cautioning us to take a wise decision next time politicians are up for reelection or being fired from Congress for depriving people of the care they deserve & paid for,
while freeloader Trump's not paying for a single trip to allegedly "his" golf courses, each causing $millions of costs to American taxpayers Donald will never be going to reimburse for what he sucked in from them.
The system cries to be justly reformed.

Noel Kelly Aug 17

@Npars01 @benroyce

There's an extra kink to this. People who conveniently die at 70, don't collect their social security benefits. Less taxes/more tax cuts and hand out for the 1%.

Ken M Sweeney Aug 16

@benroyce she should move to the EU. We actually understand social services.

@benroyce The thing Trotsky advocated may have been "Eternal Revolution" but right about now "Eternal Luigi" sounds like music to my ears

ferricoxide Aug 16

@benroyce

I feel like there needs to be a preemptive legal defense fund that anyone who kills a healthcare C-suite member can draw from.

Flipper 🐬🏳️‍🌈Aug 16

@benroyce This is how the insurance industry literally wastes half a trillion dollars a year to protect its monopolies and profits. But, of course, a public or even single-payer option would be inefficient. 🤔

Grovewest Aug 16

@benroyce I worked in insurance including some health insurance companies as a consultant. I once interviewed at UHC and it was strange. When I described what was said my companies rep was stunned and refused to let me work there. It sounds like UHC is using the privacy laws to intimidate and impose non-disclosure on customers for technically legal but unethical activities that they fear will be exposed. (1/2)

Grovewest Aug 16

Every minute of a surgeons time is extremely valuable so they are intentionally wasting it hoping she will go away. (2/2)

Knut 🏳️‍🌈 🇳🇴🧸Aug 16

@Grovewest @benroyce Best thing to say whenever a company is wanting you to do something unethical is say "I'm going to tell my mommy that you touched my no no place". They are stunned by such a remark, but the message is clear - I...will...snitch.

Grovewest Aug 16

@praetor @benroyce Many insurance companies, UHC is probably one, required me to sign very strict non-disclosure and no compete agreements that they do enforce. There are some legit reasons, I was always dealing with very sensitive business and medical data. But some use them to hide activities they do not want exposed. It’s not very difficult to know which companies to avoid. They don’t hide their hubris - are proud of it.

Knut 🏳️‍🌈 🇳🇴🧸Aug 16

@Grovewest @benroyce whistleblowing is protected by law and a lot of people don't know that because a lot of HR departments don't tell you that. If they even know. I'm a contractor so I've signed TONS of NDAs, and they can only cover actual trade secrets, they can't be used to hide illegal or unethical activity or illicit retribution to disclosing that activity to the authorities.

Grovewest Aug 17

@praetor @benroyce If it’s unethical but not illegal they can do it. Called loop holes, big business exploit them all the time. I worked for one insurance company where the floor below the one I was working on was entirely populated by their lawyers. Whistleblowers were not a big concern for them.

Peter Brown Aug 16

@peterbrown @benroyce https://mastodon.scot/@peterbrown/115040683307342585 Partly the consequence of current gun 'freedom'?

Peter Brown (@peterbrown@mastodon.scot)

Attached: 1 image @benroyce@mastodon.social yup

mastodon.scot

Peter Brown Aug 17

@Scubyw @benroyce there obviously must be a small effect, but only one percent of total deaths in the USA are gun related so the overall effect is almost 0

@peterbrown @benroyce ....as perhaps a helpful reference point, the inflection point in the graph at say around 1980(?)-ish corresponds rather splendidly with Reagan's first term...& just for some added, if tangental, context, that's the same moment when the transfer of of trillions and trillions of wealth and from the vast working/middle class to the tiny top 1% wealthy US population ramped way up...sickness, death, strife & poverty are the Republican's legacy....

DeterioratedStucco Aug 18

@peterbrown
Source for this, please? I'd like to post it elsewhere.

Peter Brown Aug 18

@SoftwareTheron @benroyce no idea, but it’s quite recent so it should come up on an image search. This is older.

DeterioratedStucco Aug 18

@peterbrown
Thank you.

Bin Chicken 🗑𓅠 Aug 16

@benroyce How many UHC CEOs need to be shown the error of their ways before the company takes the hint?

Moriel 🏳️‍⚧️Aug 16

Last year when I renewed my health insurance policy (through the ACA marketplace) I intentionally switched away from United because of their bad faith practices. I was never personally harmed by them, and quite frankly my new coverage does provide access to as many doctors, but I could no longer in good conscience be a customer of UHC. I encourage everyone who can to move away from them. Deny them business. Drive them out of business, even.

@moriel @benroyce I switched because my wife had seen the stories about their bad faith practices. And the next day Luigi.

@benroyce
Hnnngnn.... (Speechless)

@grootinside @benroyce - Is she Pissed at TACO Trump.

Dima Pasechnik 🇺🇦 🇳🇱Aug 16

@benroyce our employer, a university, is switching to UHC from Blue Shield and the university Senate (the governing body, the tenured profs, more or less) are doing meetings to decide what to do ..

@benroyce
Paging Dr. Luigi…