Uncaring

To the editor:

Luigi Mangione has been charged with both murder and terrorism for gunning down Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare. As a story in the New York Times put it, “The killing … gave rise to a debate about the frustrations that Americans have with the health insurance industry – the high costs, denials of coverage and what many say is the industry’s prioritization of profits.”  

That debate is what C. Wright Mills called the “the sociological imagination.” This is the ability of individuals to connect their personal troubles with the social issues that create those personal troubles. 

An example of a personal trouble involved UnitedHealthcare, the Medicare Advantage conglomerate. When the company, with profits of $22 billion in 2023, rejected the claim of Carly Morton for surgery to correct nMALS, an extremely painful condition, it was a personal trouble for Carly and her family. Cigna Healthcare’s denial of coverage for 17-year-old leukemia victim Nataline Sarkisyan to get a needed liver transplant turned into personal trouble for her and her grief-stricken family. 

An example of a social issue is when, as Derrick Crowe with People’s Right Action Institute pointed out, each year private health insurance companies issue 248 million medical rejections, either through prior authorization or care denial. It’s also a social issue when, as Wendell Potter, author and former health care executive, pointed out, 100 million Americans have medical debt.  Most of these people have health insurance but can’t get the companies to pay for their needed care. 

It’s highly unlikely things will change given the economic and political power of not only Medicare Advantage companies, but also Big Pharma, major hospitals and medical associations. Each has an incentive to maximize profits at the expense of patients and taxpayers. The result is expensive and poor health care coverage, in contrast to peer countries that provide universal coverage.

Howard Elterman