Jacobin —
M ajor media outlets are giving wall-to-wall coverage to UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson’s murder while taking millions in health care industry advertising. They’re silent about the real story: how profit-driven health care kills 68,000 Americans every year.
Several years ago, my insurance plan would only cover Admelog insulin to treat my type 1 diabetes, which caused my blood sugar to hover high for months. In the long term, prolonged high blood sugars can lead to complications like blindness and amputation. In the short term, they can lead to a life-threatening condition called diabetic ketoacidosis, which turns blood acidic.
When I asked my doctor to switch me back to Humalog, a type of insulin that had worked for me before, he refused: “It’s going to be too difficult for me to get a prior authorization from your insurance.”
It took weeks, but I was eventually able to convince him. And since then, after many similar experiences, I’ve left my home country of the United States for the Netherlands.
I have a Dutch passport, and decided it was no longer worth it for me to live in a country where the insulin and diabetes supplies I need to live are not only price-gouged but locked behind the door of hours-long hold times and teary fights with representatives from insurance and medical supply companies. Diabetes, after all, is the most expensive chronic disease to live with in the United States.
On Wednesday, Brian Thompson, CEO of UnitedHealthcare, known for being the private insurance company with the highest rate of claim denial, was assassinated on a Manhattan sidewalk. The online discourse instantly upstaged the news itself. Articles and social media posts about the event spurred a stream of comments expressing hatred for the health insurance industry.
”Thoughts and prayers require a pre-authorization.
wrote one person underneath a Washington Post Instagram post about the event.
