Testimony of a former UnitedHealthcare employee who says she worked under CEO Brian Thompson

[pknopp]

100% true. Excess cost growth in health care since the passage of the ACA in 2010 has been zero (the data there goes through 2021, but the story continued through 2022; official health spending data for 2023 will probably be out next week). That's never happened over any period this long.

ACA subsidies have always cost less than expected, to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars cumulatively at this point. A few years ago, Biden and the Dems actually reformed the ACA subsidies to be more generous and available to more people and they're still costing ~9% less right now than spending on the ACA’s original skimpier, less-widely-available premium subsidies was projected to be this year when the CBO released (well-publicized at the time) updated cost estimates ten years ago. The impacts of bending the cost curve have been substantial.

The ACA was originally designed to be deficit-reducing and in practice its spending has been much lower than expected and its savings much higher, so it isn't "funded by debt."

In fact, the ACA era has seen enormous improvements in the long-term budget/debt picture in that trillions of dollars in future federal health care spending (i.e., Medicare, Medicaid, premium subsidies) obligations have melted away as health care cost growth stalled out. You can see the progression in the parade of CBO Long-Term Budget forecasts over the past decade and a half. Trillions of dollars in health care costs, entire points-worth of GDP, vanishing as the health care cost curve bent for the first time. A BFD!

What did you do with your $2500 savings?

You can try and use obscure stats all you want but everyday people become less and less able to afford their health care.

 

[Greenbeard]

What did you do with your $2500 savings?

The savings has been considerably more than that for the average person.

Real per beneficiary Medicare spending hasn't risen since 2010! 45 straight years of growth abruptly halted. That's huge savings. Real per member growth in the employer-based coverage since then has been in the single digits (not per year, total over the last decade and a half). The savings from bending the cost curve have been huge.

 

[pknopp]

The savings has been considerably more than that for the average person.

I was going to save $2500 from what I was paying in 2008.

 

[Greenbeard]

You can try and use obscure stats all you want but everyday people become less and less able to afford their health care.

Health care spending isn't an obscure stat.

 

[pknopp]

Health care spending isn't an obscure stat.

Nor is the fact that everyday fewer and fewer can afford their health care.

Why do you think there was so few upset at the CEO getting shot?

 

[ThisIsMe]

It justifies itself.

Lol, I'm glad you think so, I think most sane people disagree

 

[Greenbeard]

Nor is the fact that everyday fewer and fewer can afford their health care.

If true, that's a statement about income inequality, not health care.

You can bump the nation's per capita health spending numbers up against per capita income or per capita GDP numbers to understand whether health care has been getting more costly for society. If you look back over the 62 years of available data, you see something remarkable: steadily increasing health care costs throughout each decade right up until 2010.

The ACA is the moment when health care actually stopped getting less affordable. For society, at least.

If your statement is true, then it's a statement about rising inequality (i.e., that per capita income and GDP numbers are masking something, in that more and more people aren't enjoying the fruits of their steady growth), not health care.

Why do you think there was so few upset at the CEO getting shot?

Because there's not much sympathetic about insurance companies or their execs.

 

[pknopp]

If true, that's a statement about income inequality, not health care.

You can bump the nation's per capita health spending numbers up against per capita income or per capita GDP numbers to understand whether health care has been getting more costly for society. If you look back over the 62 years of available data, you see something remarkable: steadily increasing health care costs throughout each decade right up until 2010.

The ACA is the moment when health care actually stopped getting less affordable. For society, at least.

If your statement is true, then it's a statement about rising inequality (i.e., that per capita income and GDP numbers are masking something, in that more and more people aren't enjoying the fruits of their steady growth), not health care.




Because there's not much sympathetic about insurance companies or their execs.

Obama had a 70% approval rating. He invited the Insurance and pharmaceutical companies in to write health care. We got Pelosi saying "We have to vote for it to find out what is in it".

Democrats were wiped out in 2010. It also helped lead to Trump (among other lies).

The only Democrat that was willing to be honest about Obamacare was Dennis Kucenich and the Democrats got rid of him over it.

 

[initforme]

What did you do with your $2500 savings?

You can try and use obscure stats all you want but everyday people become less and less able to afford their health care.

Undeniable. Health care needs to move to the top of issues that needs to be addressed. It's been kicked down the street for 50 years. Inexcusable.

 

[Seymour Flops]

Who refuse to look at the way other developed nations do health.

What are you talking about? We heard all about that from people coming to the U.S. to avoid dying on waiting lists.

 

[initforme]

What are you talking about? We heard all about that from people coming to the U.S. to avoid dying on waiting lists.

They must all be very wealthy.

 

[Seymour Flops]

100% true. Excess cost growth in health care since the passage of the ACA in 2010 has been zero (the data there goes through 2021, but the story continued through 2022; official health spending data for 2023 will probably be out next week). That's never happened over any period this long.

ACA subsidies have always cost less than expected, to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars cumulatively at this point. A few years ago, Biden and the Dems actually reformed the ACA subsidies to be more generous and available to more people and they're still costing ~9% less right now than spending on the ACA’s original skimpier, less-widely-available premium subsidies was projected to be this year when the CBO released (well-publicized at the time) updated cost estimates ten years ago. The impacts of bending the cost curve have been substantial.

The ACA was originally designed to be deficit-reducing and in practice its spending has been much lower than expected and its savings much higher, so it isn't "funded by debt."

In fact, the ACA era has seen enormous improvements in the long-term budget/debt picture in that trillions of dollars in future federal health care spending (i.e., Medicare, Medicaid, premium subsidies) obligations have melted away as health care cost growth stalled out. You can see the progression in the parade of CBO Long-Term Budget forecasts over the past decade and a half. Trillions of dollars in health care costs, entire points-worth of GDP, vanishing as the health care cost curve bent for the first time. A BFD!

Impressive numbers - if they came from anyone but the lawyer in charge of Health and Human Services.

Also, those numbers appear to be about government expendatures, leaving out exendatures by people who had to buy these new Obamacare regulated policies.

As explained by the Architect of Obamacare, it was and is a system in which healthy people pay in and sick people get money, but lack of transparency about that was a huge political advantage along with the stupidity of the American voter.

So, I can't really have a change of mind about Obamacare due to some new numbers designed to play on that same stupidity.

 

[Crepitus]

Lol, I'm glad you think so, I think most sane people disagree

I think most don't.

 

[Seymour Flops]

They must all be very wealthy.

I'm sure many of them are. The wealthy, and the politically powerful always find ways around socialized medicine's worst failures.

 

[initforme]

I'm sure many of them are. The wealthy, and the politically powerful always find ways around socialized medicine's worst failures.

And the rest well we got nothing. Wonderful

 

[cnm]

What are you talking about? We heard all about that from people coming to the U.S. to avoid dying on waiting lists.

I'm talking about the surveys which compare national health systems/outcomes.

​

Best Healthcare in the World 2026

List of countries ranked according to the quality of their healthcare systems, with a ranking from various sources including which country has the best and which country has the worst healthcare in the world.

worldpopulationreview.com

​

Where does the US rank in the world for healthcare?​

The US ranks 38th in the world for healthcare according to the Numbeo Healthcare Index.​

 

[cnm]

I'm sure many of them are. The wealthy, and the politically powerful always find ways around socialized medicine's worst failures.

Slack jawed yokels will slack jaw yokel.

 

[Seymour Flops]

I'm talking about the surveys which compare national health systems/outcomes.

​

Best Healthcare in the World 2026

List of countries ranked according to the quality of their healthcare systems, with a ranking from various sources including which country has the best and which country has the worst healthcare in the world.

worldpopulationreview.com

​

Where does the US rank in the world for healthcare?​

The US ranks 38th in the world for healthcare according to the Numbeo Healthcare Index.​

I don't see "average time on waitlist" or "percent deaths while on waitlist" as one of the criteria.

 

[otto105]

What did you spend your $2500 savings on?

How much time did you take to read through it online before it was passed like Obama promised would happen?




Many who still can't use it because of deductibles and co-pays.




Costs have raised constantly. It was inevitable.

Hilarious nop

 

[otto105]

Not true. But lets add in other factors. Huge government subsidies (which aren't bad in themselves) funded by debt.

Just think all the people made healthier because of the law that can work now.