this post was submitted on 11 Feb 2025
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410
UnitedHealth hired a defamation law firm to go after social media posts criticizing the company (fortune.com)
submitted 1 week ago by spaghettiwestern@sh.itjust.works to c/news@lemmy.world
45 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Two months after UnitedHealthcare chief executive Brian Thompson was killed, UnitedHealth Group has hired a defamation law firm to take on social media posts that it claims are untrue and reckless, according to Bloomberg Law.

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[–] spaghettiwestern@sh.itjust.works 112 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

United Heath would routinely deny payment for the entire visit if my doctor did anything besides look at the initial issue during an appointment. Let's say I was there for ear pain and my doc said I was due for a vaccination, UHC would deny payment for everything. Since making a second appointment for the vaccination was far more expensive, the only possible reason for this was that a certain percentage of people would pay the bill and United Health could just steal from them and pocket the money.

I spent many hours on the phone after doctor visits demanding they pay the bills as my policy's contract required. I wonder how much the UHC crooks made because of the people who just paid the doctor bills and UHC was able to steal money they didn't earn?

United Health Sucks.

[–] Thrashy@lemmy.world 18 points 1 week ago (1 children)

UHC denied coverage after the fact for my wife's gall bladder removal surgery because they claimed she was insured with a other carrier through her previous employer. That got straightened out with a couple phone calls, but it was still ridiculous.

Even more ridiculous, though, was the time that they convinced a former insurer of mine to retroactively deny already-paid claims, on the (false) basis that they had been my primary insurer in that time period, only to then deny those same claims when the doctor resubmitted them on the (correct) basis that I had no active policy with them at the time! I suspect that it was a case of a faulty automated system rather than active malice, but the net result was a massive headache for three unrelated parties and a mind boggling amount of paperwork on my part, because they couldn't be bothered to write software that could properly handle the same person having two different policies with a gap between them.

[–] spaghettiwestern@sh.itjust.works 14 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

IMO when dealing with corporations, after they've been notified once of a problem like yours, any others that happen because they haven't fixed their systems are clearly active malice. It is almost certain they've been notified of this kind of problem many, many times. It is also almost certain UHC hasn't fixed anything at all.

Corporations are legal persons but our society and government consistently hold them far lower standards than real persons face. They literally murder but don't face jeopardy from criminal laws, poison people and are met with a slap on the wrist, and enrich themselves while paying only a small fraction of their illegal profits in fines when they're caught. Can you imagine the penalties if you or I did these things?

The world would be a far better place if UHC was held to the same standards as the people they insure.

[–] ByteJunk@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago

Can one sue an insurance company over denied coverage/breach of contract and ask for like a millionaire compensation?

Seems like if that caught on, they'd be heavily disincentivized from denying coverage. A few high profile cases hitting them in the wallet would go a long way...

[–] PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat 47 points 1 week ago (1 children)

UnitedHealth came to my house and kicked the fuck out of my dog, and then they took a dump on my TV. I really hate UnitedHealth. I hope the whole piece of land their headquarters sits on slides into the ocean, and personally, I'm so reckless that I wouldn't even care if a bunch of other buildings nearby got caught up along with it.

[–] _cryptagion@lemmy.dbzer0.com 39 points 1 week ago (1 children)

They're going after posts they say are untrue? Hmm.

Hey, did you guys hear that Brian Thompson used to get caught all the time having sex with the tailpipe of his mothers sedan as a teenager?

[–] meyotch@slrpnk.net 4 points 1 week ago

Hear it? I saw it and smelled it daily whenever they would start the car. A black cloud of carbonized jizz would cough out as the engine turned over every evening as she left for work.

[–] ieatpwns@lemmy.world 36 points 1 week ago (2 children)

United healthcare put a hit out on Brian Thompson and they framed Luigi mangione as a scape-goat because Thompson was too woke

[–] boydster@sh.itjust.works 12 points 1 week ago

Thats what I heard, too!

[–] AlecSadler@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 week ago

I second or third this.

[–] MushuChupacabra@lemmy.world 32 points 1 week ago (5 children)

Well shoot, what's it going to take to get them to change their ways?

[–] earphone843@sh.itjust.works 23 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Universal Healthcare

No amount of CEO assassinations is going to change their behavior.

[–] MegaUltraChicken@lemmy.world 22 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I'm okay with testing your hypothesis.

[–] thesohoriots@lemmy.world 14 points 1 week ago (1 children)

There’s a whole risk analysis folder somewhere detailing exactly how many of their CEOs can be killed before it’s not worth insuring them for CEO deaths. It’s just some postmodern dystopian version of The Price is Right.

[–] BassTurd@lemmy.world 8 points 1 week ago

Well, shoot.

[–] OutlierBlue@lemmy.ca 7 points 1 week ago

I feel like the answer is here somewhere, close at hand.

[–] xpinchx@lemmy.world 7 points 1 week ago

You make a great case, the shell of the idea seems pretty sound. It will be a real slug for some of us though.

[–] samus12345@lemm.ee 5 points 1 week ago

The answer will blow you away.

[–] dneaves@lemmy.world 30 points 1 week ago (1 children)

From denying healthcare, to denying denying healthcare

[–] superminerJG@lemmy.world 8 points 1 week ago

soon they'll be denying denying denying healthcare

[–] zib@lemmy.world 26 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Dear UnitedHealthcare,

I've had your coverage before. You're the worst health insurance I've ever had. Not only was I paying your premiums, but my healthcare costs were like I wasn't even insured to begin with. My financial situation would have been marginally better if I hadn't been paying for your coverage at all and this was at a time when I could barely afford rent and food. Go suck on some donkey ass.

Sincerely,

A former customer

[–] LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

"You're the worst health insurance I've ever had. Not only was I paying your premiums, but my healthcare costs were like I wasn't even insured to begin with."

They take this as a compliment

[–] 2ugly2live@lemmy.world 21 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Damn, imagine if they put this effort into being a less shitty company.

[–] Zess@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

And put the money into saving lives.

[–] nimble@lemmy.blahaj.zone 20 points 1 week ago

United health had a teachable moment and they don't appear to have learned anything.

[–] shittydwarf@lemmy.dbzer0.com 19 points 1 week ago

Missing from the title, Clare Locke is the name of the firm

[–] Allonzee@lemmy.world 13 points 1 week ago

That's just silly.

United Healthcare isn't a company.

It's a state sanctioned confidence scheme.

[–] foggy@lemmy.world 13 points 1 week ago (1 children)

United health CEO:

"Alright, the way I see it, we could pay ourselves less absurdly...

...

...haha okay just kidding.

Our options are to either kill less people and make less money...

... Haha okay, so that leaves us with "Spend millions on frivolous lawsuits in an attempt to strongarm public dissent."

[Shareholders cheer]

"Strongarm the public it is!! Who needs the profits when we can use them on power"

[–] 1024_Kibibytes@lemm.ee 8 points 1 week ago

Well, what do you want them to do? Pay for the services people pay them for? Kill fewer people? If they did those things their shareholders wouldn't make as much profit. Their CEO wouldn't be able to say things like "we guard against unnecessary care" and he wouldn't be a multimillionaire not even living in North America. He might even have to realize that doctors order care in good faith, so unnecessary care is almost not a real thing.

[–] poo@lemmy.world 12 points 1 week ago

Maybe another Luigi will set em straight 😄

[–] octopus_ink@lemmy.ml 11 points 1 week ago

UnitedHealth hired a defamation law firm to go after social media posts criticizing the company

Whew, better be a big firm. Do you think they can analyze all those posts before the heat death of the universe?

[–] Cool_Name@lemm.ee 11 points 1 week ago

They make profit off of being a useless barrier that prevents customers from accessing money they've contributed to use towards their own healthcare. They do nothing of any real value. Their constant profit seeking kills people. Every single administrator in their company is killing people.

Luckily, they won't come after me because everything I said was true.

[–] not_that_guy05@lemmy.world 9 points 1 week ago

United healthcare runs a death Mill and the CEO tend to torture puppies at their headquarters.

Dispose, seems to be my fav new word to say to CEOs.

[–] blakenong@lemmings.world 9 points 1 week ago (1 children)

My new job is providing UH. My first thought was, so no healthcare?

[–] spaghettiwestern@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

You might as well put their Customer Service number in your phone now. If your experience is anything like mine you'll be spending lots of time ~~talking to~~ shouting at them.

[–] blakenong@lemmings.world 1 points 1 week ago

I’ll be spending a lot of time asking about their ceo

[–] blarth@thelemmy.club 4 points 1 week ago

I’m starting to understand why Japanese defamation law is so weird.

“the act of unlawfully lowering the societal evaluation, such as the credibility or reputation, of a specific person to an unspecified or broad audience.”

It doesn’t matter if what was conveyed about the “injured” party was true, only that it harmed their reputation.

Can’t wait for our current government to follow suit.

[–] DoucheBagMcSwag@lemmy.dbzer0.com -1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

UH is not looking for posts like the these. They want to sue the ones that go viral

[–] spaghettiwestern@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 week ago

Who gives a crap what UHC is looking for?