# United Healthcare has taken note of numerous critiques of its business model and is taking steps to correct them **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [February 12, 2025, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-healthcare-has-taken-note-of-numerous-critiques-of-its-business-model-and-is-taking-steps-to-correct-them/1014216 "2025-02-12T03:57:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2025, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-healthcare-has-taken-note-of-numerous-critiques-of-its-business-model-and-is-taking-steps-to-correct-them/1014216/1 "2025-02-12T03:57:36Z")
By suing. Not by changing its business practices, of course. Just going after the people that put them in a bad light. It’s retained a defamation firm to go after social media posts that put UHC in an unfavourable light. That should stop all those critiques. > **[UnitedHealth hired a defamation law firm to go after social media posts...](https://fortune.com/2025/02/10/unitedhealth-defamation-law-firm-social-media/)** > > The insurer and its law firm denies a doctor’s online claim that it refused to cover care for a cancer patient. > **[UnitedHealth hires defamation lawyers](https://boingboing.net/2025/02/11/unitedhealth-hires-defamation-lawyers.html/amp)** > > The immediate result is, of course, the Streisand Effect: yet more scrutiny of the very practices that made the focal point of public fury > **[UnitedHealthcare Is Mad About ‘In Luigi We Trust’ Comments Under a Doctor’s...](https://gizmodo.com/unitedhealthcare-is-mad-about-in-luigi-we-trust-comments-under-a-doctors-viral-post-2000560543)** > > The massive insurer hired a lawfirm that specializes in defamation to force a public apology from a doctor in Texas following a post on social media. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2025, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-healthcare-has-taken-note-of-numerous-critiques-of-its-business-model-and-is-taking-steps-to-correct-them/1014216/2 "2025-02-12T03:58:47Z")
Link please? ETA: Thank you. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2025, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-healthcare-has-taken-note-of-numerous-critiques-of-its-business-model-and-is-taking-steps-to-correct-them/1014216/3 "2025-02-12T04:02:25Z")
Hit « Reply » instead of « save draft » while gathering links. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2025, 11:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-healthcare-has-taken-note-of-numerous-critiques-of-its-business-model-and-is-taking-steps-to-correct-them/1014216/4 "2025-02-12T11:42:00Z")
I can hardly wait for DOJ to bring an anti-SLAPP suit and a RICO suit against UHC for their blatantly illegal behavior. Oh … wait … Crap! ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2025, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-healthcare-has-taken-note-of-numerous-critiques-of-its-business-model-and-is-taking-steps-to-correct-them/1014216/5 "2025-02-12T13:07:08Z")
Eh, in this case I don’t think it’d matter who was running the government. Neither party would actually go against the money. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2025, 9:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-healthcare-has-taken-note-of-numerous-critiques-of-its-business-model-and-is-taking-steps-to-correct-them/1014216/6 "2025-02-22T09:31:11Z")
Follow-up: the doctor at the center of the stories linked in the OP has done an interview with CNN and posted it on her Insta. She’s definitely not backing down. More power to her. > **[Elisabeth Potter, MD on Instagram: "Take a moment to listen to this...](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DGWvxFvNarg/)** > > 4,982 likes, 204 comments - drelisabethpotter on February 21, 2025: "Take a moment to listen to this interview. And let my patient’s words, while recovering from mastectomies, land. > > “I have been far more terrified of insurance by a power of 100 than... She makes it clear United didn’t _demand_ she interrupt her surgery in progress and leave the patient on the OR table to answer questions about coverage. She made that choice herself. But the fact that she _did_ make that choice, that she thought it was not just reasonable but _necessary_ when she knew the insurance company was calling, tells you everything about the destructive power these fucking vultures wield in the American health care system. Whatever lessons they claimed to have learned from the outpouring of anger in the wake of the CEO’s murder were clearly short-lived. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2025, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-healthcare-has-taken-note-of-numerous-critiques-of-its-business-model-and-is-taking-steps-to-correct-them/1014216/7 "2025-02-22T14:53:49Z")
“Critique of its business model”: Is that what we’re calling assassination, these days? ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2025, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-healthcare-has-taken-note-of-numerous-critiques-of-its-business-model-and-is-taking-steps-to-correct-them/1014216/8 "2025-02-22T14:58:27Z")
And here I thought that UHC had enough to contend with already, without invoking the Streisand Effect. > **[UnitedHealth's rough stretch continues, with buyouts, a reported DOJ probe and...](https://www.cnbc.com/2025/02/21/unitedhealth-faces-doj-investigation-buyouts-stock-price-drop.html)** > > It extends a tumultuous period for UnitedHealth marked by the killing of a top executive, a costly cyberattack against its subsidiary and high medical costs. As for Potter, the criticism that she’s posted appears to be dead on target, though early reports of a UHC rep “interrupting” her surgery were incorrect. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2025, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/united-healthcare-has-taken-note-of-numerous-critiques-of-its-business-model-and-is-taking-steps-to-correct-them/1014216/9 "2025-02-22T15:03:59Z")
> [@Cervaise](#): > > But the fact that she _did_ make that choice, that she thought it was not just reasonable but _necessary_ when she knew the insurance company was calling, tells you everything about the destructive power these fucking vultures wield in the American health care system. I am no fan of our system, and UHC is in my experience the worst. Their law suit is stupid. And no. It tells only about her judgment and the appropriateness of her own staff support business set up. I honestly don’t get some of the complaints. Here’s the most recent investigation into them. [https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/doj-investigates-medicare-billing-practices-unitedhealth-wsj-reports-2025-02-21/](https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/doj-investigates-medicare-billing-practices-unitedhealth-wsj-reports-2025-02-21/) > … is examining the company’s practices for recording diagnoses that trigger extra payments to its Medicare Advantage plans … Insurers are paid a set rate for each patient, but can be paid more for patients with multiple health conditions. … The charge basically is that the are actually making an effort to get credit for all the accurate diagnoses that their patients have and recording them. Setting up systems to help their employed physicians do that better and more easily for the patient groups that that more labor intensive and time consuming process will result in a getting paid more. There is no accusation of these diagnoses being inaccurate. It is the system as it is designed to be: if you can document that your patient population has more baseline problems you deserve to get more per member per month to care for their care. So much they do wrong but this ain’t it.