In highly polarized times, there remains at least one thing most Americans can agree on: The financial side of the country’s health care industry is a nightmare.
Don’t believe it? Poke around and look at what people are saying about the killing of Brian Thompson, CEO of the nation’s largest health insurance agency, UnitedHealthcare. Thompson was essentially assassinated — shot in the back in broad daylight by a lone gunman while walking to an investors’ meeting in Manhattan. And people celebrated. Look at the comments on any news story about the case, and you’ll find post after post from individuals who thought Thompson got what he deserved.
The reaction has been disturbing, but telling.
The way I see it, murder — which is what shooting suspect Luigi Nicholas Mangione has been charged with — is wrong, end of story. No matter what you might have against someone or whatever troubles you’re dealing with, violence — absent of self-defense — is not the solution. I’ve seen many people say the same thing on news panels or social media, and the immediate counterargument is that Thompson’s company, and others like it, raked in profits while killing or financially ruining countless Americans by denying coverage for vital and costly medical procedures, prescriptions and treatments.
The only thing I can say to that is two wrongs don’t make a right, but I understand why so many people feel the way they do about this.
More than four years ago, I wrote a column on my own issues with the health care system, and how they were reflective of a problem that nearly every American experiences at one point or another.
A week after my son was born, he had to be hospitalized because of a life-threatening illness. After all of the trauma that entailed, my wife and I had to fight the insurance company tooth and nail to cover some of the costs, and still wound up taking the better part of a decade paying off what was eventually due. When we missed a payment, we were threatened with a lawsuit.
In my early 20s, I put off necessary medical treatments because insurance wouldn’t cover it. My health needs were dubbed a preexisting condition. My health suffered as a result and, eventually, I ended up paying for nearly everything out of pocket, which I certainly couldn’t afford at the time.
The costs for my wife’s cancer treatments were, and remain, astronomical.
She recently switched jobs, and her new insurance doesn’t cover our son’s braces, so we’re having to figure out a way to pay for that.
And that’s just the stuff we’ve dealt with or are dealing with now. One thing we can be fairly certain of is that new medical needs will pop up here and there, and it becomes one more thing on the pile.
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I’m not listing these things as a way of feeling sorry for myself or my family. I’m deeply and eternally thankful to the wonderful people who saved the lives of my son and my wife.
The reason I cite my own experiences is because I know that just about everyone else in this country has or will have to deal with something similar, if not worse, and it can cause enormous financial and emotional strain. And these huge bills come despite paying increasing monthly health insurance premiums and meeting insanely high deductibles.
According to a study published in the Journal of American Health, medical expenses were a factor in 66.5% of all personal bankruptcy filings in the United States from 2013 through 2016. A more recent study, from the American Cancer Society, found that more than half of cancer survivors and cancer patients undergoing treatment incur medical debt, and that 53% of those people wind up in collections. About 22% had medical debt of more than $10,000.
Unless you’re very well off financially or simply never get sick, the system as it exists makes a lot of money for insurance execs and stockholders, but it doesn’t work for you. (Or, to paraphrase my previous column, the American health care system is great for most people as long as they never have to use it.)
Speaking of that previous column, I closed it by saying that, unless things changed, it wouldn’t be long before people revolted, gathering torches and pitchforks and marching on insurers like a village mob in an old horror movie.
Now, we don’t know if that’s what happened in Thompson’s death. Mangione has not been tried or convicted. News reports revealed that he had a manifesto of sorts that railed against corporate greed and, according to The Associated Press, referred to health insurance companies as “parasitic.†News reports have also said the 26-year-old had severe back problems that, The AP reported, “interfered with many aspects of his life.â€
Mangione was born into an affluent family and had an Ivy League education, although that doesn’t automatically mean he couldn’t have a grudge against health insurers or wealthy corporate executives.
Really, we don’t know why the suspect would’ve wanted to kill Thompson. We have some bits of evidence that point in a particular direction, but there is just so much we don’t know. It could be as simple as it seems. Time will tell.
The poignant thing for me, again, is the sheer number of people who have had such miserable experiences with the U.S. health care system that they either didn’t care or were actually glad that Thompson was shot and killed. I don’t view the suspect as a hero. I don’t think homicide is heroic. But, to reiterate, I can understand why so many people feel the way they do.
Within the scope of the health care system, there are all kinds of things we can argue about regarding what should or shouldn’t be provided or covered, or, if it is covered, where the money comes from. Those kinds of debates (abortion, marijuana legalization, mental health, etc.) get politicized. People can also argue about how to solve the problem of our health care system, and that can become politicized.
But it seems one thing most everyone can agree on is that a system set up to punish people financially while also forcing them to navigate a bureaucratic hellscape just to get the health care they need isn’t working and has taken its collective toll on our nation.
