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Comments

• dhork@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I’d like to respectfully suggest that sending a chat to a customer service representative with a physical threat to a building (with your real name attached, no less) might not have been the best tactic to get your concerns addressed. Yes, we all know you are frustrated and were joking about it, but I don’t think the FBI will be as amused as we are. At least you’ll get your message on time while in custody.

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  • njordomir@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    While I wouldn’t have an ounce of sympathy for UHC if this happened, I agree that threats, no matter where they are sent, are not a smart move.

    There are much more creative ways to wish them ill. I will pray every night that everything they eat tastes like moldy rotten meat left in a car in the Phoenix summer for a week straight. I hope their CEO breaks the world record for most hemeroids on a single person and can’t get any pain meds because he has to go through Optums mail order pharmacy. I hope ants swarm them in their sleep and eat off their limbs until they wake up screaming as a disembodied head and torsoe. I hope they fall asleep on the top deck of the yacht they bought with our healthcare premiums and get so sunburnt their skin wins a baking competition for flakiest croissant.

    This system is absolutely inhumane. I can’t imagine the kind of mental gymnastics a non-narcessist, non-sociopath would have to do to run this kind of business.

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  • riodoro1@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Clearly he should have just sent the fucking pipe bomb.

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  • vox@sopuli.xyz ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Image

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  • Confused_Emus@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I didn’t send them a threat. Mistr isn’t associated with United Healthcare/Optum. I was making an expression of frustration to someone who would likely understand since I’m sure I’m not the first person they’ve had to help with this insurance provider.

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    • FartsWithAnAccent@fedia.io ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      That was still pretty stupid and you might very well end up in trouble for making a threat like that. Not a great way to communicate frustration.

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    • dhork@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Doesn’t matter if it was a threat to them or not, it’s still a threat. I’m sure it’s been reported. Sorry.

      If anything, a single isolated threat meant in jest may fuck your life up more than being a legit asshole. If you have a pattern of threats like this, the authorities will be forced to charge you with something, and you will at least know they are paying attention. But a single threat probably just places you on some list, and you’ll never know you were placed on it. Who knows where being on that list will fuck you over.

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    • Potatos_are_not_friends@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Dude, easiest way to fuck your case up is to make a threat where they can close your account and take you to court.

      You know how when you say things like “I’ll sue” to customer service, their immediate action is to stop all conversation and send it to a lawyer? You’re a number in the system. Min wage customer service who would absolutely empathize with you, has to stop all communication.

      And instead of getting any help, you’ll be explaining your message to a judge about how your “j/k terrorist threat” wasn’t real.

      Delete all of this. Cool down. Try again and be professional.

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  • bdonvr@thelemmy.club ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Eh they said someone needs to. (But yeah, I wouldn’t personally recommend it.)

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  • raynethackery@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Not likely.

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• conditional_soup@lemm.ee ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Yeah, all the insurers are pushing for vertical integration of pharmacies and using their mail order pharmacy. Check out Dr.Glaucomflecken on Youtube, he does short, witty, educational dives into this bullshit. We tried using the mail order pharmacy for my kids’ ADHD meds and it was fucking terrible. Federal law prohibits filling refills until we’re out or very nearly out, and they have one distribution center on the opposite coast from us, and they’re having standard shipping to ship these meds. You do the math on that one.

  Like much of big corporate America, they want the fat payouts without putting in the legwork to actually make a better product that people will choose on their own, so they just hamper competition and make shit worse for everyone to make line go up a little faster.

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  • Splatterphace@lemm.ee ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    At least you have insurance.

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    • conditional_soup@lemm.ee ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Yeah. I’m in favor of universal healthcare, but at this point I think it’d be more likely that California wraps up High Speed Rail construction next year. I have no idea why so many people are so willing to defend our completely broken-ass system; dealing with the insurance company is arguably worse than dealing with the DMV. At least you know the DMV aren’t trying to fuck you to pay for a new mega yacht, they’re just fucking you because those are the rules.

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• reddig33@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Sounds like something that should be illegal, if it isn’t already.

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  • jeffw@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    It is, but only in some states. Probably not where OP lives

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  • dotMonkey@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I wouldn’t doubt that mailing pipe bombs is illegal

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• FlightyPenguin@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Health insurance is a scam. American healthcare is atrocious. Stochastic terrorism is never okay. Don’t you dare claim that it is.

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  • Confused_Emus@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Yes, that comment was over the line. No I do not endorse terrorism.

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• SquishyPandaDev@yiffit.net ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Have you looked at Cost Plus Drugs? I have been using them for a while and have no complaints. If the have your meds, it’s the cheapest option available.

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  • Confused_Emus@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Will give them a look. Thanks for the suggestion!

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• corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I went to America for the wealth and riches 25 years ago; but I came back about 20 years ago, for reasons entirely related to healthcare and filled with issues that in this country we don’t understand actually exist.

  To restate: the problems of in-network/out-of-network are so alien to us that you’d need to convince my peers it’s real, because they almost believe it’s made up.

  My Indian boss, raised in Tanzania, had a certain bias. “People who can leave India,” he said, “do.” I’m thinking soon people who can leave America, despite the promise of riches and because of the healthcare, do.

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• STRIKINGdebate2@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Be very careful with bomb stuff because tos is very strict about that here. Thank you

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• blackluster117@possumpat.io ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Is this something that Mark Cuban’s new pharmacy company could take care of? Not to shill for something dystopian, but I’ve heard people are saving money on the medications they cover. Something to look into?

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  • quicksand@lemm.ee ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Yeah I love the concept though, despite the dystopian energy built into it. It’s something like at cost + 10% for operating costs. Unfortunately I think they have limited options at the moment. Something tells me big Pharma doesn’t like this concept so it’s hard to make deals with them.

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  • Confused_Emus@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I’ll have to look my meds up on there and check out their details. I’m hoping they just won’t be that expensive at my local pharmacy across the street from my apartment, though. I’d love the convenience of just picking them up at the same building I get my morning coffee from. Which for me is the most absurd thing - I have a local pharmacy right next door, but no, we need to involve Optum and the USPS to the mix.

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    • blackluster117@possumpat.io ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      The real money is always made in the middle. Sorry you’re going through this nonsense.

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    • captainlezbian@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Yeah I feel that. My pharmacy is about as far as my mailbox and far faster. But nope, Optum it is, and unlike my pharmacy optum is regularly like a week late with meds and struggles to send them all at once

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    • intensely_human@lemm.ee ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      What’s the medication?

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• Denalduh@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I understand your frustrations. The company I work for was recently acquired and with that came a new health insurance policy. We went from a REALLY good insurance plan to UHC for health insurance and optum rx for prescriptions. It’s utter dog shit. Everything is exceptionally more expensive. Just last week I opted to pay the cash price for my prescription because the insurance covered price INCREASED the bill by $50.

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• seaQueue@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Contact your state health/medical ombudsman and or AG. States come down hard on companies that have patterns of behavior like this.

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• XEAL@lemm.ee ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Hey Kansas City, your image is not properly censored!

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  • Confused_Emus@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Kansas City comes up a number of times in my post history, so I’m not too worried about it. And I’ve got one of those names that don’t really help you in Google unless you’ve already got some fairly specific info on me. But thanks for looking out!

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• Boozilla@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Healthcare in the United States is super expensive and not very good (lots of neglected care and adverse outcomes) for several reasons. But if we eliminated PBMs like OptumRx (PBM = pharmacy benefit manager - think insurance middle-men for pharmacies) then costs would go down a very significant amount overnight. I can’t put an exact figure on it, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it saved everyone 50% or more.

  PBMs add no value to the system, they are 100% rent-seekers (or bloodsuckers as OP accurately put it). PBMs add tremendous cost to the system because they wan their “cut” of the action, even though they add nothing of value. They are far worse than passive friction in the system, they are highly active intelligent parasites.

  Of course you seldom hear about this stuff because if you want to get away with evil, hide it inside of something large, complicated, and boring. And few things are more large, complicated, and boring than the way a PBM conducts its business. We’re talking fee structures and contracts that make sense to nobody, clawbacks, lack of respect for PHI, all kinds of shenanigans. PBMs simply should not exist.

  Instead what do they do? They punch down, of course. They tell you to wear a smartwatch. They tell you to lose weight. They give you an HSA card and act like it’s god’s gift when you’re just spending your own money with a slight tax benefit.

  I once wrote a letter to my representative (a Democrat) about how evil PBMs are and how they need to be eliminated. I got a generic “corporations create jobs, tho” type of response. Very disappointing.

  Fortunately there are some efforts underway and a champion has emerged, Lina Khan of the FTC. She has launched a probe into the matter and it’s getting some attention. Finally.

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• njordomir@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  They’ve killed so many trees sending me letters to convince me how great their mail order pharmacy is. I don’t even fill any fucking meds other than the occasional antibiotic or something if I get sick. I bet they would have sent me some Paxlovid when I got covid too. It probably would have arrived just in time for me to be all better. Thankfully I haven’t been forced to use them…yet.

  Decoupling work and health insurance is one of the absolute biggest wins we could have as Americans right now. What’s it gonna take? I’m happy for the entire economy to crash if they lose power. That’s a nonpartisan statement too. Even though they’re not equally bad, its like ball cancer vs lung cancer. I want to lecture these nitwits while metaphorically shaking them until they get a concussion. This is not how you treat human beings. We are truly a third world shithole in a crappy disguise.

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• satanmat@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Yep. I’ve got a different insurance, but yeah I have a very expensive med , where I can only use their pharmacy-by-mail. So I have to deal with this same shit.

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• Nougat@fedia.io ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  UHC has always been fucking awful.

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• Veedem@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I have the same thing with Express Scripts. Thankfully, if there’s ever a predicted gap, I can call and they’ll send a short term prescription approval to my local pharmacy to cover that gap.

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  • Confused_Emus@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Optum does that, too. I’ve had to do it on a number of occasions. The source of my frustration there is if I’m having to call in and go through that process on a regular basis, I should just be able to get my meds from the pharmacy they end up sending it to, anyway. But that would make too much sense, so of course it’s the last thing they’d allow me to do.

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