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| -Short Attention Span Theater- |
| The Massive UnitedHealth Hack Is Obamacare's Fault and That's No Lie |
| 2024-04-28 |
| [Breitbart] The incompetence that guided Obamacare was on display recently when cyber hackers outsmarted UnitedHealth Group in late February. The division of UnitedHealth Group that transmits claims, Change Healthcare, was the subject of a ransomware attack, delaying payments for prescriptions, doctors, and everything else. The company performs 15 billion transactions per year, so the consequences of UnitedHealth ignoring adequate cybersecurity is proving disastrous. The cyberattack is such a big deal that the Senate Finance Committee next week is holding a hearing on the subject, where they will (one hopes) hold the feet of UnitedHealth CEO Andrew Witty to the fire. The House Energy and Commerce Committee will hold a similar hearing on May 1. The most obvious question to ask is, “How can you not afford decent cybersecurity?” UnitedHealth has been raking in record profits thanks to Obamacare. Last year, its net profits were $22.4 billion, and it’s in the running to become the first healthcare conglomerate with a $1 trillion market cap. So, it seems like the company could afford some white hats. It increased premiums 13 percent last year.? One of the reasons UnitedHealth pulls in its record profits is because it rations care. The company used AI to systemically deny benefits to people through an intermediary called NaviHealth. Insurance monopolies like UnitedHealth are increasingly trying to control every step of patient care, and technology is making that easy for them. So, if you’re one of the 52 percent of Americans worried about the future of AI, don’t worry: the bad stuff is already here. It could get worse though. From 2019 to 2022, AARP spent more than $60 million to push a “rent seeking” provision in the Inflation Reduction Act – legislation so dishonestly named that it makes the Affordable Care Act almost sound honest. This provision allows Medicare to engage in so-called “negotiations” with pharmaceutical manufacturers over prices. The problem is that making companies an offer they can’t refuse by imposing a 95 percent tax on them if they don’t agree isn’t a negotiation at all. And AARP’s victory lap article left it unsaid how these negotiation requirements would benefit private insurers who subsidize AARP. Moreover, the IRA expands subsidies under ACA to private insurance providers, which will help pad those billion-dollar profits even more. |
| Posted by:Skidmark |