​Crimes with Little Guns and Huge Medical Bills

By Ed Raymond

fargogadfly@gmail.com

A new type of Civil War: “smash-and grab” capitalism and healthcare

The Divided States of America has the greatest economic inequality among wealthy nations on Planet Earth and has birthed a new type of crime because of wealth gained by the top One Percent. “High-End” stores where millionaires and billionaires buy very expensive jewelry and “stuff” have become the victims of robbers who may have a dozen gang members. The gang raids stores who cater to the superrich. They bring guns, quickly smash glass and metal display cases with clawhammers, sledgehammers, and mauls, fill bags with a million dollars worth of diamonds, rings, watches, and other expensive jewelry and race away in cars in minutes.

The method of attack is called “smash and grab.” San Francisco stores catering to Silicon Valley billionaires have been raided– and the idea is spreading across the country. It is a sign that our country has very serious economic and social problems. The response to the murder of the CEO of the country’s largest and richest health insurance company puts a few more nails in the DSA’s coffin.

The human species had already maneuvered itself into a narrow corner with the threats of nuclear annihilation and civil and other types of wars spread on most of the continents. Now we have the threat of economic “smash and grab” tactics of health insurance companies, equity firms buying hospitals, clinics, drug companies, and hiring thousands of doctors to “smash and grab” the bank accounts of millions of patients who deserve to be treated as if health care was a human right!

More than a decade ago our resident Philosopher-King Noam Chomsky wrote an essay “The Eve of Destruction” where he used blunt language to discuss the problems of the human species. I’m going to pick out just two statements he used in 2013 to alert us to our serious condition.

“Imagine you’re a historian 100 years from now — assuming there are any historians 100 years from now, which is not obvious.”

“For the first time in the history of the human species, we have clearly developed the capacity to destroy ourselves. That’s been true since 1945. It’s now being finally recognized that there are more long-term processes like environmental destruction leading in the same direction, maybe not to final destruction, but at least to the destruction of the capacity for a decent existence.” Think climate change.

It seems we have the start of a new pandemic after the murder of Brian Thompson. Some American people welcomed the murder by saying in person, on social media, and in interviews: “Forget the 'thoughts and prayers' for this leader of the 'smash and grab' gangs in the health care industry.”

More than 500,000 families are forced to file bankruptcy each year because the health care industry “grabbed” too much money by “smashing” policies — or the insurance scrooges “smashed” the thought they were actually going to cover the $30,000 it costs to keep a child for three days in a hospital.

Why the bottom 90 percent hates health insurance companies

United Healthcare (UH) paid Thompson $10,000,000 to keep the money rolling into the coffers of the largest health insurance company in the country. UH took in “$281,000,000,000 in 2023 and had $22,000,000,000 in profits. United Healthcare is part of the health insurance conglomerate United Health Group which is valued at $560,000,000,000 in today’s market. Over 90,000 doctors, one in every ten doctors in the U.S., work for Optum Division of UHG which tries to maximize profits for investors. UH insures 50 million Americans, and a UHG subsidiary processes 40% of the medical claims in the U.S. Meanwhile, 87 million Americans are uninsured or underinsured. By revenue it is the fourth largest company in the U.S. behind Apple, Alphabet, and Microsoft, and has 2,200 subsidiaries. It operates hundreds of hospitals and clinics and is constantly acquiring outpatient surgery centers and is expanding rapidly into home health services. The company is bound to make many Americans very unhappy.

The CEO of UHG described Thompson as “a truly extraordinary person who touched the lives of countless people throughout our organization and far beyond.” The company also “touched” the wallets and purses of those “far beyond.” A patient who had a bad experience with UH quoted an old Woody Guthrie comment about thieves: “Some rob you with a six-gun, some with a fountain pen.” Now the industry uses codes, computers, and algorithms to “smash” and “grab.” In 2022, the U.S. spent an estimated $12,747 per person on healthcare while the other Organization of Economic Cooperative Development (OECD) wealthy countries spent an average of $6,850. A few examples: Germany-$8,541, Sweden-$7,009, France-$6,924, United Kingdom-$5,867, and Japan-$5,434. We spent $4,500,000,000,000 (that’s a trillion), while each American paid $1,142 in out-of-pocket medical expenses.

Here is the real “smash and grab”: The private U.S. health insurance companies charge an average of $1,055 per person just to administer their complex and often bewildering policies while the top 38 wealthiest countries in the world pay an average of $193 per person to do the same process. Medicare spends 2% on administrative costs while private health insurance companies average 17%.

We have a for-profit health care system while the rest of the developed world has single-payer universal care– Why are we so damn stupid and greedy? It’s a very ugly combination. Even the Congressional Budget Office estimates that we would save $650,000,000,000 by going to a government-run health care system. That’s just slightly lower than the total national defense budget! When will we determine that health care is a right and not a privilege of wealth? The National Nurses The United Union has been advocating government-run health care for years. It proclaims: “Join the movement to win Medicare for All. The most efficiently run healthcare systems in the world have been proven time and time again to be single-payer systems.

A few reasons why Americans are so pissed at healthcare insurance

1. In 2024 there are 875,000 veterans who owe $382,000,000 in medical debt. Seventy-two year-old Marine veteran Pat McFeely received a letter in 2023 saying he owed the government $108,094 because he had been overpaid for his legal benefits. The VA said it would withhold $221 a month from his other benefits until the sum was paid — which would take 489 monthly payments ---and the last payment would be when he reached 112! While teaching Marine officers how to fire howitzers and artillery at Quantico, Virginia, he damaged his sciatic nerve and had to have both hips replaced. The debt was finally erased when a Tampa TV station took up his case and battled the VA for him. In 2022, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau reported that American families faced $88 billion in medical debt along with the VA debt of $382 million.

2. A Navy veteran made the national news when he gave a speech at a political rally of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. He said he was going to commit suicide because he couldn’t pay a $139,000 debt created in treating Huntington’s Disease.

3. Military services average about 5,000 medical debt cases annually because military hospitals are not prepared to treat unusual cases not caused by military action. When the baby of an Army couple turned blue during delivery in a military hospital in North Carolina, the baby was sent to a private hospital for treatment. The treatment saved the baby, but the couple got the following bills: $12,166.40 for air ambulance, $61,624 from a private hospital, and a $594,304.00 bill from Duke Health.

4. And then we have the $414 surgery to remove a tiny splinter from a child’s palm. A father took his toddler son to a pediatrician for a checkup. The doctor noticed a small splinter and took a pair of tweezers and removed the splinter. It took all of a second. The toddler hardly noticed and did not cry. When the bill came, “removing the splinter” was listed as surgery under the billing code CPT code 12120, described as “incision and removal of a foreign body, subcutaneous.” The father complained to the clinic manager who refused to change the code because “it was correct.” He said the tweezers were “used to open the skin,” therefore it was surgery! No wonder people are angry at insurance companies and doctors.

5. Here is another “surgery.” A Seattle woman went to her dermatologist for an annual skin checkup. She mentioned a tag label on her clothing was irritating. The doctor froze the tag with liquid nitrogen with a “squirt, squirt. That’s it.” When she got the bill for $469 the “operation” was listed as surgery. When she complained, she was told the “operation” was listed as surgery under CPT code17100 because the skin was broken and included “destruction of 1-14 benign lesions.” Although the dollars are small in comparison to other medical bills, millions are made now with code17110. The use of the code has increased 62% in the last decade-from 1,739,708 bills to 2,817,190 in 2022.

P.S. We have about 800 billionaires in the Divided States of America. With the recent murder of the CEO of United Health, Forbes should do a study of how much the One Percent spend on personal security. Mark Zuckerberg of Meta spent $23,400,000 on his personal security in 2023.