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League fines Hawks $100,000 for Young missing NBA Cup gameAs you know, the C.E.O. of UnitedHealthcare, fifty-year-old Brian Thompson, was murdered on the street in midtown Manhattan, on Wednesday morning, twenty minutes before sunrise. He was in town for an investors’ convention, and had worked for UnitedHealthcare for more than two decades—a company that is part of UnitedHealth Group, a health-insurance conglomerate valued at five hundred and sixty billion dollars. UnitedHealthcare had two hundred and eighty-one billion dollars in revenue in 2023, and Thompson, who became C.E.O. in 2021, had raised annual profits from twelve billion dollars to sixteen billion dollars during his tenure. He received more than ten million dollars in compensation last year. Andrew Witty, the C.E.O. of UnitedHealth Group, remembered Thompson in a video message to employees as a “truly extraordinary person who touched the lives of countless people throughout our organization and far beyond.” Thompson lived in a suburb of Minneapolis, where UnitedHealthcare is based, and he is survived by his wife and two sons. The Lede Reporting and commentary on what you need to know today. The particulars of this murder are strange and remarkable: it occurred in public; the suspected shooter went to Starbucks beforehand; he got away from the scene via bicycle; he has not yet been found. But the public reaction has been even wilder, even more lawless. The jokes came streaming in on every social-media platform, in the comments underneath every news article. “I’m sorry, prior authorization is required for thoughts and prayers,” someone commented on TikTok, a response that got more than fifteen thousand likes. “Does he have a history of shootings? Denied coverage,” another person wrote, under an Instagram post from CNN. On X, someone posted , with the caption “My official response to the UHC CEO’s murder,” an infographic comparing wealth distribution in late eighteenth-century France to wealth distribution in present-day America. The whiff of populist anarchy in the air is salty, unprecedented, and notably across the aisle. New York Post comment sections are full of critiques of capitalism as well as self-enriching executives and politicians (like “Biden and his crime family”). On LinkedIn, where users post with their real names and employment histories, UnitedHealth Group had to turn off comments on its post about Thompson’s death—thousands of people were liking and hearting it, with a few even giving it the “clapping” reaction. The company also turned off comments on Facebook, where, as of midday Thursday, a post about Thompson had received more than thirty-six thousand “laugh” reactions. What on earth, some people must be asking, is happening to our country? Are we really so divided, so used to dehumanizing one another, that people are out here openly celebrating the cold-blooded murder of a hardworking family man? That people are making jokes about how the assassin could’ve won the Timothée Chalamet look-alike contest in Washington Square Park? That when a journalist at the American Prospect called an eighty-eight-year-old woman who was aggravated by her poor Medicare Advantage coverage for comment, she wisecracked that she wasn’t the killer—she can’t even ride a bike? There had been prior threats against Thompson, his wife told NBC News, motivated, she said, by, “I don’t know, a lack of coverage? . . . I just know that he said there were some people that had been threatening him.” There had been protests at the UnitedHealthcare headquarters, in Minnesota, in April and July; during the latter, eleven people were arrested. The group responsible for the protests, People’s Action, also confronted Witty, the UnitedHealth Group C.E.O., at a Senate hearing in May. In a statement, People’s Action leaders referenced endless hours on the phone trying to get medical care covered, and denials of coverage for lifesaving medication and surgery. A recent statement from the group, in response to Thompson’s death, read, “We know there is a crisis of gun violence in America. There is also a crisis of denials of care by private health insurance corporations including UnitedHealth.” They urged political leaders to “act on both.” UnitedHealthcare has the highest claim-denial rate of any private insurance company: at thirty-two per cent, it is double the industry average. And, though the shooter’s motive remains unknown, shell casings found on the scene had the words “deny,” “delay,” and possibly “depose” written on them, echoing the title of a 2010 book by Jay M. Feinman, “ Delay, Deny, Defend: Why Insurance Companies Don’t Pay Claims and What You Can Do About It ,” which by Thursday had leapt up one of Amazon’s best-seller charts. To most Americans, a company like UnitedHealth represents less the provision of medical care than an active obstacle to receiving it. UnitedHealthcare insures almost a third of the patients enrolled in Medicare Advantage, a government-funded program facilitated by private insurance companies, which receive a flat fee for each patient they cover and then produce their own profits by minimizing each patient’s care costs. Reporting in the Wall Street Journal has found that these private insurance companies, which cover more than a third of American seniors on Medicare, collect hundreds of billions of dollars from the government annually and overbill Medicare to the tune of around ten billion dollars per year; UnitedHealthcare has used litigation to fight its obligation to repay fees that were overpaid. In 2020, UnitedHealth acquired a company called NaviHealth, whose software provides algorithmic care recommendations for sick patients, and which is now used to help manage its Medicare Advantage program. A 2023 class-action lawsuit alleges that the NaviHealth algorithm has a “known error rate” of ninety per cent and cites appalling patient stories: one man in Tennessee broke his back, was hospitalized for six days, was moved to a nursing home for eleven days, and then was informed by UnitedHealth that his care would be cut off in two days. (UnitedHealth says the lawsuit is unmerited.) After a couple rounds of appeals and reversals, the man left the nursing home and died four days later. The company has denied requests to release the analyses behind NaviHealth’s conclusions to patients and doctors, stating that the information is proprietary. At the same time that news was breaking about the NaviHealth algorithm, the company was fighting—ultimately unsuccessfully—a court decision that it had acted “ arbitrarily and capriciously ” in repeatedly denying coverage of long-term residential treatment to a middle-school-age girl who repeatedly attempted suicide, and has since died by suicide. Several years ago, government investigators found that UnitedHealth had used algorithms to identify mental-health-care providers who they believed were treating patients too often; these identified therapists would typically receive a call from a company “care advocate” who would question them and then cut off reimbursements. Though some states have ruled this practice illegal, it remains in play across the country. There is no single regulator for a private health-insurance company, even when it is found to be violating the law. For United’s practices to be curbed, mental-health advocates told ProPublica, every single jurisdiction in which it operates would have to successfully bring a case against it. Thompson’s murder is one symptom of the American appetite for violence; his line of work is another. Denied health-insurance claims are not broadly understood this way, in part because people in consequential positions at health-insurance companies, and those in their social circles, are likely to have experienced denied claims mainly as a matter of extreme annoyance at worst: hours on the phone, maybe; a bunch of extra paperwork; maybe money spent that could’ve gone to next year’s vacation. For people who do not have money or social connections at hospitals or the ability to spend weeks at a time on the phone, a denied health-insurance claim can instantly bend the trajectory of a life toward bankruptcy and misery and death. Maybe everyone knows this, anyway, and structural violence—another term for it is “social injustice”—is simply, at this point, the structure of American life, and it is treated as normal, whether we attach that particular name to it or not. The Norwegian sociologist Johan Galtung coined the term “structural violence” in 1969, in a paper that offers a taxonomy of violence—ways to distinguish between the forms that violence can take. It can be physical or psychological. It can be positive, enacted through active reward, or negative, enacted through punishment. It can hurt an object, or not; this object can be human, or not. There is either—Galtung notes that this is the most important distinction—a person who acts to commit the violence or there is not. Violence can be intended or unintended. It can be manifest, or latent. Traditionally, our society fixates on only one version of this: direct physical violence committed by a person intending harm. The pretty girl killed by a boyfriend, the C.E.O. shot on the street, the subway dancer strangled by the ex-marine. You don’t even need a human object—people are generally more troubled by the Zoomers throwing soup at paintings in a weird bid to raise attention about climate change than by the more than ten thousand farmers in India who die by suicide every year in part because of the way erratic and extreme weather renders their debts insurmountable. If one were to, hypothetically, blow up an unoccupied private jet in protest of the fact that the wealthiest one per cent of the global population accounts for more carbon emissions than the poorest sixty-six per cent, this would be seen by many people—like Thompson’s murder, and unlike the tens of thousands of human deaths per year already caused by climate change—as a sign of profoundly alarming social decay. On this point, though, everyone’s really in agreement. It’s just a matter of where you locate the decay—in the killing, or in the response to it, or in what led us here. The only way to end up in a situation where a C.E.O. of a health-insurance company is reflexively viewed as a dictatorial purveyor of suffering is through a history of socially sanctioned death. A person who posted on Reddit’s r/nurses forum, whose profile describes her as an I.C.U. nurse, wrote, “Honestly, I’m not wishing anyone harm, but when you’ve spent so much time and made so much money by increasing the suffering of the humanity around you, it’s hard for me to summon empathy that you died. I’m sure someone somewhere is sad about this. I am following his lead of indifference.” Reading this, I thought about the statistic, from 2018, that health-care workers account for seventy-three per cent of all nonfatal workplace injuries due to violence. Nurses, residents, aides, specialists—they are asked to absorb the rage and panic induced by the American health-care system, whose private insurers generate billions of dollars in profit and pay executives eight figures not despite but because of the fact that they routinely deny care to desperate people in need. Of course, the solution, in the end, can’t be indifference—not indifference to the death of the C.E.O., and not the celebration of it, either. But who’s going to drop their indifference first? At this point, it’s not going to be the people, who have a lifetime of evidence that health-insurance C.E.O.s do not care about their well-being. Can the C.E.O. class drop its indifference to the suffering and death of ordinary people? Is it possible to do so while achieving record quarterly profits for your stakeholders, in perpetuity? Thompson’s death resurfaced some unsavory details about his industry. We learned, for instance, that Thompson was one of several UnitedHealth executives under investigation by the D.O.J. for accusations of insider trading. (He had sold more than fifteen million dollars’ worth of company stock in February, shortly before it became public that the Department of Justice was investigating the company for antitrust violations, which caused the stock price to drop.) A new policy from Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield also went viral: the company had announced that, in certain states, starting in 2025, it would no longer pay for anesthesia if a surgery passed a pre-allotted time limit. The cost of the “extra” anesthesia would be passed from Anthem—whose year-over-year net income was reported, in June, to have increased by more than twenty-four per cent, to $2.3 billion—to the patient. On Thursday, the company withdrew the change in response to the public outrage, if only in Connecticut, for now. It’s hard not to be curious about what, if anything, might happen to UnitedHealthcare’s claim-denial rates. I was at a show in midtown Manhattan on Thursday night, and when the comedians onstage cracked a joke about the shooter the entire place erupted in cheers. ♦ New Yorker Favorites The best albums of 2024. Little treats galore: a holiday gift guide . How Maria Callas lost her voice . Two teens went to prison for murder. Decades later, a juror learned she got it wrong . An objectively objectionable grammatical pet peeve . What happened when the Hallmark Channel “ leaned into Christmas .” Sign up for our daily newsletter to receive the best stories from The New Yorker .

In a recent appearance at the New York Times DealBook Summit, Jeff Bezos , executive chair of Amazon Inc. , revealed his simple yet effective strategy for the company’s ongoing success . What Happened : Bezos stressed the significance of concentrating on “a few things” to ensure the $2.32 trillion company remains on the right path. These crucial factors include pinpointing big ideas, implementing rigorous execution against these ideas, and fostering the next generation of leaders. Bezos said there are three elements that can help anyone get ahead. "Big leaders have to identify big ideas. They have to enforce tough execution against those big ideas and they need to grow the next generation of leaders," he said at the summit and as quoted by CNBC. Bezos, who relinquished his role as Amazon’s CEO in 2021, is currently aiding CEO Andy Jassy and the leadership team in preserving their success. Also Read: Costco Founder’s Chat With Bezos Over Coffee Helped Save Amazon Their main concentration is on artificial intelligence (AI), including Nova, Amazon’s generative AI model that was launched on Tuesday. Bezos highlighted the vast potential of AI, stating, “We’re literally working on a thousand [AI] applications internally,” suggesting that AI has the capacity to enhance and infiltrate every aspect of life. Why It Matters : Bezos’ strategy for Amazon’s success is not only simple but also effective. By focusing on a few key areas, the company can ensure it stays on track and continues to grow. The emphasis on AI, in particular, shows that Amazon is looking to the future and is ready to innovate and adapt to new technologies. This forward-thinking approach is likely to play a crucial role in Amazon’s continued success and growth. Read Next Jeff Bezos Swears By This One-Hour Rule For Success — Now Neuroscience Backs It Up This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors. © 2024 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.FULL LIST: Nigerian pastors who gave correct political prophecies in 2024Former Nebraska head coach Scott Frost has landed his first college job since his time with the Huskers, and it's a familiar location. Frost is set to take over at UCF, the program he coached from 2016-17 before heading to Nebraska, according to multiple reports. 247Sports and The Orlando Sentinel reported the news Saturday. Previous reports indicated that UCF was down to two candidates, Frost and UNLV head coach Barry Odom, in its quest to replace the fired Gus Malzahn. The Knights chose to reunite with Frost over the 48-year-old Odom, who led UNLV to a 10-win season this fall. Frost rebuilt a UCF football program coming off a winless season into a six-win squad, then a 13-0 team during the 2017 season which stands as the best in UCF's program history. Frost had been out of the college game since his firing at Nebraska in September 2022. He compiled a 16-31 record at his alma mater, completing four losing seasons before being fired three games into the 2022 campaign. The former Nebraska head coach's first job since was with the Los Angeles Rams this fall, where he briefly worked as an analyst. Having failed to rebuild at Nebraska, the 49-year-old Frost now returns to the school where he thrived as an up-and-coming offensive coach.

Article content It doesn’t happen too often, but you know when you get the feeling that something is notably different than anything you’ve experienced before — and that you kinda really like it? Recommended Videos Nothing like leaving your inhibitions on shore and sailing away feeling fun and free. That was the vibe I had as I wandered the decks of the Valiant Lady, familiarizing myself after boarding Virgin Voyages’ second of three “lady ships” in its fleet, which expands to four later next year. It wasn’t just the design and decor, though playful names like Lick Me Till ... Ice Cream for the ice cream parlour certainly set a tone. It was more the demeanour and expressions of both my fellow passengers, or “Sailors” in Virgin Voyages lingo, and the crew. It was like everyone was letting loose and feeling free to be themselves without any constrictions due to what the children would think — because on Virgin Voyages, it’s 18-plus only, baby! And these adults were ready to let loose and have a good time — so, in other words, it was just the right jam for a long-weekend getaway for me and my big sister. That air of freedom is exactly what Virgin Voyages executives were going for when they launched the first ship in 2021. Our cruise was a “Celebration Voyage,” and the ship guests included execs all the way up to Virgin Group founder Sir Richard Branson himself. It was a telling eye-opener to the company watching these corporate honchos mingle with Sailors like regular people and not the billionaire Branson is. Virgin Voyages CEO Nirmal Saverimuttu says they chose to build a culture that could sustain itself at sea and that started with encouraging the crew to be themselves instead of regulating how they interact with Sailors. “Our crew is the most important part of this, we need them to shine, and our job is to make them shine, so how can we invest in our crew?” he told passengers during an open forum. They decided to make the crew — who on our ship came from about 82 countries — feel at home by giving them access to free WiFi, better food, and paying for their uniforms, travel and pre-employment medicals. “I think what you see when you come on board is there’s a unique feeling from day one which feeds into the Sailor experience, and I do believe it comes from that crew experience and making sure they feel seen and heard,” Saverimuttu said. As for Sailors, he said execs mapped out about 300 different touch points of the customer journey and then focused on the areas where they believed they needed to excel while also matching the “brilliant basics” of other cruise lines. Plus, sailor feedback also has a big role. “We read your social forums, we see what you want, and I think as a brand we are never afraid to get stuff wrong and improve,” Saverimuttu noted. “The brand has been co-created with our crew and our Sailors, and I think that’s why it is the product it is today.” The relaxed feeling also extends to the officers, as the captain and leadership don’t wear stripes — intentionally, to not be hierarchical. In that vein, instead of a cruise director they have 12 “Happenings Cast” members with titles like the Hostess, the Foodie and the Artist who run the onboard activities, of which there are plenty for the 2,762-passenger capacity ships. The signature event each voyage is Scarlet Night, a “celebration of the fabled love between the mysterious Goddess of the Sea and the Sailor who won her heart.” There’s no formal dress code on board but packing some red threads isn’t a bad idea — but if you don’t, no worries either, there’s not a lot of judgment happening on Virgin Voyages. (TIP: Leave any uptightness you have at home as this cruise line isn’t the place for it!) Same goes for the PJs party night — wear some out in public or don’t, it’s up to you. The entertainment on board isn’t typical — which fits with the Virgin brand. No Broadway-style shows here — we had jaw-dropping acrobatic performances of Romeo and Juliet, plus live music and a comedian (who happened to be from Ontario, natch!) In addition to the bars and nightclub, for fun indoors there are slots and tables in a casino, board games aplenty, a vintage arcade with such gems as Donkey Kong and Stargate, Japanese-style karaoke rooms, and organized games like bingo where “finding the G spot” jokes were aplenty. Or, if you’re looking for a souvenir that you’ll never lose, you can book an appointment with Squid Ink, the first-at-sea tattoo and piercing parlour. The staff was handpicked by Lou Rubino Jr., an industry legend behind World Famous Tattoo Ink and Freshly Inked Magazine, so the lines at sea should be smooth. Outdoors, we spent every day in the hot tub or pool, spaces designed for either just relaxing or having fun and making new friends. “One thing we always say is that everyone is welcome here,” chief marketing officer Nathan Rosenberg told us. And you could truly see that on the pool deck with the diversity of the passengers partying together. As for the food, there are 20-plus eateries included with the fare and no traditional cruise buffets. Execs wanted a different experience and cuisine in each and hired people into the restaurants based on their attitude and then trained them. With menus at some of the sit-down restaurants (which you make reservations for and are served made-to-order food) curated by Michelin star chefs, Branson told us the aim is to “treat people to a really special night out.” “We want people to feel like they’ve gone to the best restaurant in New York or the best restaurant in London or L.A. and to have a variety of choice,” he said, adding massive lineups for buffets are “one of the worst things about big cruise companies.” We really enjoyed the food and experience at Gunbae (which means “cheers”), the first-to-sea Korean BBQ. Our server Wanni had us laughing with soju drinking games (alcohol is extra) while she cooked up our delicious meal at our table served in a family and sharing style. At the unique concept The Test Kitchen, the menu only tells the main ingredient of each course and then you get the explanation as it’s being served. Michelin star chef Matt Lambert followed the technique of Auguste Escoffier for the exquisite dishes that will challenge your palette. The many other options include specialty restaurants Extra Virgin Italian eatery, Pink Agave with Mexican dishes, The Wake steak and seafood house, and North American cuisine at Razzle Dazzle. To balance all the delicious food choices, wellness is another aspect Virgin Voyages offers on board in plentitude. Group fitness classes like “90s Boy Band Dance Class, a larger-than-life boy band choreography session” are included and B-Complex gym has both cardio and strength-training sections. There’s also an outdoor running track, court and random workout spaces around the decks when you feel the need to do chin-ups. And when it’s time to sleep it off, there are 1,404 modern and hi-tech cabins and suites — 86% of which feature the cruise line’s signature Sea Terrace hammock for yet another photo for the ‘Gram. At the end of our voyage, we walked off feeling like this was a unique experience. A morning message in the cruise app one day aptly summed up the Virgin Voyages vibe: “Come together, get sparkly and let your most inspired curiosities bubble to the top of today’s experiences.” IF YOU GO Virgin Voyages has an exclusive offer for Canadians if you book before the end of 2024 to travel through the end of 2025. The deal: 50% off a Sea Terrace for two (that means the second Sailor sails free) plus up to $300 in bar tab depending on the length of the voyage. Go to virginvoyages.com to book and use Access Key CAEXCLUSIVE at checkout. Note: Currency used must be in CAD. Travellers must add details for both Sailors during the booking process. Canadians must bring proof of residency to the ship. cmcleod@postmedia.comA campground is expanding with 43 new hotel rooms and 18 homes, all built by a massive 3D printer. Leaders from two of the nation's top construction trade groups told Fox News Digital they are looking forward to the new Trump administration with hopes their industry will be burdened by fewer regulations and policies enacted under President Biden that they said stymied additional growth in their sector. On Monday, the Biden administration touted the addition of 1.6 million new construction and manufacturing jobs. However, Ben Brubeck, vice president of regulatory affairs for the Associated Builders and Contractors, cautioned that beneath this seemingly big announcement, "the growth can be much better if we're in the right economic and policy environment." Brubeck said his association's members have broadly indicated disappointment at the opportunities available to them under various Biden administration programs, including the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IJA), the CHIPS and Science Act (CHIPS), the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). "We survey our members on a pretty regular basis, and the number of members who reported participation in the IJA- and CHIPS- and IRA- and ARPA-funded projects has been pretty — it's been low," Brubeck said. "It's been less than expected." WHITE HOUSE INSISTS BIDEN, HARRIS HAVE ‘ONE OF MOST SUCCESSFUL ADMINISTRATIONS IN HISTORY’ DESPITE 2024 LOSS Carpenters frame a roof on a new home under construction in Nesconset, N.Y., Feb. 6, 2018. (John Paraskevas/Newsday RM vis Getty Images) Brubeck pointed to the fact that it has taken a long time for the money from these programs to be disbursed due to burdensome regulations, such as permitting requirements. He also pointed to oppressive labor policies, such as project labor agreements and increased borrowing costs as other elements that have added to less growth than could have been seen otherwise under President Biden. Brian Turmail, the vice president of public affairs and workforce for the Associated General Contractors of America, also noted the failure of Biden's major construction investments due to regulations and review processes. BIDEN ADMIN AIMS TO PUSH TOWNS, CITIES TO ADOPT GREEN ENERGY BUILDING CODES: ‘VERY SUSPICIOUS’ President Biden speaks with members of Ironworkers Local 5 after signing an executive order on project labor agreements at the union's training hall Feb. 4, 2022, in Upper Marlboro, Md. (Getty Images) "Our analysis is [the Biden administration] kind of got in their own way affecting the market, because they couldn't help themselves but to put in so many kinds of social and environmental rules on top of their funding that they slowed down the progress they so desperately wanted to see," Turmail said. He also pointed out that the administration "put a lot of new strings" on semiconductor plant construction that has stymied growth. Turmail and Brubeck said they have hopes growth in the construction sector will ramp up under the Trump administration as companies manage their way through federal requirements enacted under Biden and see others potentially rolled back. I HAD A JOB ON THE KEYSTONE XL PIPELINE UNTIL BIDEN FIRED ME TO SATISFY CLIMATE EXTREMISTS President Biden was widely criticized for his "garbage" remark about former President Trump's supporters. (Getty Images) "The irony is that, by the time President Trump comes back into office, we do anticipate a big bump up in infrastructure construction," Turmail said. "Because all those projects where they've announced funding over the last two to three years will finally clear their environmental hurdle and begin construction." CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP "Our federal contractors are completely on the sidelines right now for these large-scale projects, and this all started at the beginning of the year in January," Brubeck added. "So, they're really excited for the potential of regulatory relief on the horizon as a result of the Trump administration coming in." The White House did not provide Fox News Digital with an on-the-record comment in time for publication.Major League Soccer Champions

In the past few weeks, one thing has become crystal clear in America: The public outrage after the assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson exposed a seething fury over the health insurance racket. No amount of media finger-wagging at public perversity or partisan attempts to frame Luigi Mangione’s act as a statement from the left or right can hide the reality: The people, from all sides, are livid about the healthcare system—and with good reason. In the 21st century, Americans have expressed their view that healthcare is deteriorating, not advancing. For example, according to recent Gallup polls , respondents’ satisfaction with the quality of healthcare has reached its lowest level since 2001. Key point: Americans in those polls “rate healthcare coverage in the U.S. even more negatively than they rate quality.” Coverage is the core failure, driven by the insurance industry’s profit-first approach to denying care. It’s a textbook case of “market failure.” Instead of healthy competition lowering prices and improving services, what we have is an oligopoly that drives up costs and leaves millions uninsured. So here we are, regardless of politicians’ rosy narratives or avoidance of the topic. Politicians on both sides of the aisle should be motivated to take on this scandalous state of affairs, but, as journalist Ken Klippenstein pointed out , presidential nominees Kamala Harris and Donald Trump barely acknowledged healthcare, mentioning it only twice, between them, in their convention speeches. “This is the first election in my adult memory that I can recall healthcare not being at the center of the debate,” Klippenstein remarked, recalling Biden’s 2020 nod to the public option and Bernie Sanders’ strong calls for universal healthcare in 2016. Meanwhile, Americans are crushed by skyrocketing premiums, crippling medical debt, and denial of care that devastates millions of lives. It should be no surprise that frustration has reached a boiling point, igniting a fierce, widespread demand for real, systemic change. Ordinary people are clear that insurance companies don’t exist to protect their health, but to protect and maximize profits for shareholders. Economist William Lazonick points out that we have every right to expect quality at a fair price, noting that a good health insurance policy should ensure accessible care with the insurer covering the costs—something a single-payer system could deliver. “A for-profit (business-sector) insurer such as UnitedHealthcare could make a profit by offering high-quality insurance,” Lazonick told the Institute for New Economic Thinking, “but they have chosen a business model that seeks to make money by denying as many claims as possible, delaying the payment of claims that they cannot avoid paying, and defending their positions in the courts, if need be.” This is capitalism run amok. And the profits are rolling in. Lazonick notes that in 2023, UnitedHealthcare enjoyed an operating profit margin of 8% on revenues of an eye-popping $281.4 billion, insuring 52,750,000 people, which equals revenues (premiums) of $5,334 per insured. The insured, meanwhile, pay not only the premiums, but deductibles, copays, and things like surprise billing. He argues that while the cost of medical care is artificially inflated, health insurers strategize to keep costs in check by enrolling young, healthy people—a windfall provided by the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate, which forced consumers into the system while allowing insurers to keep operating as usual, engaging in their profit-maximizing schemes. In his view, the inflated costs of medical care are partly thanks to financialization—a process where healthcare companies prioritize financial strategies like stock buybacks and dividend payouts over actually improving patient care, investing in useful innovations, or lowering premiums. Alongside his colleague Oner Tulum, Lazonick has shown that the biggest health insurance companies have been on a stock buyback binge, padding their profits and lining the pockets of executives and shareholders : classic Wall Street greed in action. They note that of the top four companies by revenues over the most recent decade, UnitedHealth, CVS Health, Elevance, and Cigna, average annual buybacks were a stunning $3.7 billion. “Ultimately, the manipulative boosts that these buybacks give to the health insurers’ stock prices come out of the pockets of U.S. households in the form of higher insurance premiums,” they write. It’s easy to see why health insurance executives are obsessed with stock buybacks. Lazonick and Tulum point out that from 2000 to 2017, Stephen J. Helmsley, the CEO of UnitedHealth Group, raked in an annual average of $37.3 million—86% of it coming from stock-based compensation. His successor, Andrew Witty, wasn’t exactly slumming it either, pulling in $17 million a year (79% stock-based) between 2018 and 2023. And then there’s the assassinated Brian Thompson, former CEO of the UnitedHealth subsidiary UnitedHealthcare, who bagged $9.5 million a year (73% stock-based) from 2021 to 2023. It’s a deadly scam, to be sure—inflate the stock price with buybacks, fatten the paychecks for executives (not rank-and-file employees), and deny patients the care they need. Lazonick observes that the more profits that UnitedHealth Group makes, the more extra cash is available to distribute to shareholders as dividends and buybacks, “and, generally, the higher the stock price, the potential for higher top executive pay.” The unpleasant reality, according to him, is that “given UHC’s predatory business model, Thompson was incentivized by his stock-based pay to rip off customers, and he ascended to the United Healthcare CEO position because he was good at it.” Perhaps this helps explain why many Americans are not exactly mourning his passing. The roots of this mess trace back to the neoliberal, market-driven ideology that underpins the system. Neoclassical economics, the theory behind this philosophy, is all about maximizing profit and trusting the market to sort things out—like some magical invisible hand. In reality, it’s a blueprint for inequality: The rich, like insurance CEOS, get richer, and everyone else is subject to exploitation. Healthcare is a perfect example of why this system doesn’t work. When you turn human health into a business, where access is determined by how much you can pay, only the wealthy can count on top-notch, reliably available care. The fundamental contradiction at the heart of the U.S. system is simple: health is treated as a commodity, not a human right. This current system make sense to the economists still clinging to their outdated, flawed neoclassical principles, but for regular folks? It’s crystal clear: our system is untenable. The myth that the U.S. health insurance system runs efficiently in a competitive market is just that—a myth. In reality, a handful of for-profit insurers dominate, focused not on providing care, but on extracting profits. It’s a textbook case of “market failure.” Instead of healthy competition lowering prices and improving services, what we have is an oligopoly that drives up costs and leaves millions uninsured. Let’s go over three examples of this failure. 1. Information Asymmetry : In a real competitive market, you’d have clear, straightforward information to make good choices. But in the U.S. health insurance system? Not happening. Insurers deliberately obscure policy details, leaving you to guess the true costs and coverage—even the percentage of claims denied. This gives them all the power while you’re stuck with confusing, impenetrable contracts. They know exactly what they’re doing—and it’s not about helping you. Say you’re self-employed and stuck buying private insurance on the Health Insurance Marketplace. You don’t qualify for subsidies, so you figure the best you can do is a silver plan with a $1,000 monthly premium. It’s steep, but at least it lists a $45 co-pay for an in-network doctor visit—and it’s got to be in-network because the plan won’t cover a dime of out-of-network care. You sign up for the plan, and then you go to the doctor for a respiratory infection. Surprise! You’re hit with a $200 bill. Why? Because co-pays only apply after you meet your $2,200 deductible—that was in the fine print. At this point, avoiding the doctor sounds like the best plan. But wait, isn’t the Health Insurance Marketplace a government-driven system? How could it be so unfair and deceptive? Well, it isn’t exactly a government-driven system. The Marketplace is government-run in name, thanks to the Affordable Care Act, with the feds running HealthCare.gov—but let’s be clear: It’s controlled by private insurers. The government sets some rules, but the real power lies with for-profit companies pulling the strings. What’s sold as a consumer-friendly system is really just a cash cow for the insurance industry. 2. Adverse Selection : Let’s go back to that self-employed person hit with a $200 doctor bill. The next time they get sick, they decide to skip the doctor—why risk a bigger bill? The insurance companies love this—they don’t have to pay a thing while you must keep paying your premium. This is adverse selection in action. Healthy people forgo care to save money, while the sick are stuck with costly plans. Insurers raise premiums, pushing even more people out of the system. The result? A vicious cycle where prices keep climbing, and care becomes harder to access. 3. Externalities : The U.S. health insurance system’s failure to provide universal coverage creates what economists call “negative externalities.” Our self-employed person who didn’t go to the doctor to save money has ended up in the emergency room, where the costs quickly balloon. What started as a simple issue becomes a preventable hospitalization, driving up healthcare costs for everyone and straining public health resources. These added costs don’t just hit the individual—they’re a drag on society as a whole, with taxpayers and the healthcare system picking up the tab. And on top of it all, the person has missed work and spread their illness to others, amplifying both the social and economic damage. If you want to see information asymmetry, adverse selection, and externalities really come together, look no further than Medicare Advantage , which economist Eileen Appelbaum plainly calls a “scam” —and one that is liable to expand under Trump’s second term. As Appelbaum explains, Medicare Advantage is neither Medicare nor is it to anyone’s advantage except insurance companies. Medicare Advantage is actually a private insurance program that is sold as an alternative to traditional Medicare, advertised to combine hospital, medical, and often prescription coverage, and offer perks such as gym membership coverage. It was originally created in 1997 as part of the Balanced Budget Act under President Bill Clinton to allow private insurers to manage Medicare benefits with a focus on cost control and efficiency. Proponents claim that privately-run Medicare Advantage plans, which now enroll over half of all people eligible for Medicare , offer good value, but Appelbaum notes this is only the case if you manage not to get a chronic condition—you’d better not get cancer or get too sick. A 2017 report by the Government Accountability Office found that sicker patients not only don’t benefit from these plans, they are worse off than they would be under Medicare, barred from access to their preferred doctors and hospitals. Appelbaum notes that the Medicare Advantage program is really a patchwork of private plans run by for-profit companies that rake in billions in taxpayer subsidies while finding new ways to deny care—like endless preauthorizations and rejecting expensive post-acute treatments. Unlike traditional Medicare, which directly pays for services, these private insurers are paid per subscriber, boosting their profits by upcoding and cherry-picking healthier clients. The result: Taxpayers lose $88 to $140 billion a year. But what a boon to the insurers: Appelbaum notes that they now make more from Medicare Advantage than from all their other products combined. In a 2023 report, Appelbaum and her colleagues noted that recent evidence reveals that Medicare Advantage insurers have been denying claims at unreasonably high rates, particularly for home health services. They point to a 2022 report from the Office of the Inspector General for the U.S. Health and Human Services, which found that in 2019, 13% of prior authorization requests for medically necessary care, including post-acute home health services, were denied despite meeting Medicare coverage rules. These services would have been covered under traditional fee-for-service Medicare. Though some denied requests were later approved, the delays jeopardized patients’ health and imposed administrative burdens. On top of that, a 2021 Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services study showed that over 2 million of 35 million prior authorization requests were denied, with only 11% appealed. Of those, 82% of appeals were successful, highlighting a high rate of incorrect denials. Appelbaum points out that, despite the similar names, Medicare and Medicare Advantage are worlds apart. Medicare is a trusted public program, while Medicare Advantage is really just private insurance that’s marketed to look like the real thing, luring people in with misleading ads and false promises. The goal of Medicare Advantage supporters is to replace traditional, publicly funded Medicare with private, for-profit insurers—pushing for market competition and cost-cutting at the expense of direct, government-provided healthcare. It’s a prime example of what happens when neoclassical economics gets its way. “It goes back to the Affordable Care Act,” she explained in a conversation with the Institute for New Economic Thinking. “The ACA introduced many beneficial reforms, but it also required Medicare to experiment with Medicare Advantage plans as part of a broader push for “value-based” care, where providers are going to be incentivized to skimp on your care.” She stressed that this isn’t just financially harmful for patients—it can be deadly. It’s not merely about denying care; it’s about using delaying tactics that put lives at risk: “Widespread delay is a serious problem—when someone has cancer, two weeks of delays waiting for coverage to be approved can be deadly.” The reality is that with value-based care, providers are rewarded for reducing costs, rather than being paid for the volume of services they deliver, which can encourage cost-cutting measures that potentially compromise care quality. And as to that much-touted competition that neoclassical economists insist will lower costs and boost efficiency among insurers—good luck finding an example of that. The administrative costs of private insurers are staggering compared to single-payer systems. According to a 2018 study in The Lancet , the U.S. spends 8% of total national health expenditures on activities related to planning, regulating, and managing health systems and services, compared to an average of only 3% spent in single-payer systems. The excess administrative burden in the U.S. is a direct consequence of having to navigate a fragmented system with multiple insurers, each with its own rules, coverage policies, and approval processes. Beyond the outrageous administrative costs, the U.S. healthcare system’s reliance on employer-based insurance is a relic of 20th-century policy decisions that are downright outdated in today’s gig economy. It ties access to care to your job, effectively locking out millions of gig and part-time workers, freelancers, and the unemployed. The notion that people can “shop around” for insurance plans like they’re picking a toaster is absurd when the stakes are life and death. The exorbitant cost of this flawed approach to healthcare is borne by society—through higher overall health spending, worse outcomes, and a public system buckling under the weight of the uninsured and underinsured. The system doesn’t just fail to provide equitable care; it deepens social and economic inequality. Health should be a public good, with care guaranteed for all—regardless of income, job, or pre-existing conditions. Many argue that the solution isn’t patching the system with small reforms but rethinking it entirely—or, as documentary maker Michael Moore recently put it, “Throw this entire system in the trash.” That means embracing models like single-payer, where the state ensures health for all and care is based on need, not profit. Until the U.S. abandons its current insurance model, we’ll remain stuck with a system that enriches a few while exploiting the many—and the many are well and truly sick of it. America is ready to say goodbye to the Grinches that operate 365 days a year. NOW READ: America's dark past and the key to stopping Trump's authoritarian ruleHe bought a KFC store in Australia for $100,000 in 1969. Today, his fast food company is worth over $3 billion

LEXINGTON, Va. (AP) — Leo Colimerio had 15 points in Queens' 81-78 win against VMI on Saturday. Read this article for free: Already have an account? To continue reading, please subscribe: * LEXINGTON, Va. (AP) — Leo Colimerio had 15 points in Queens' 81-78 win against VMI on Saturday. Read unlimited articles for free today: Already have an account? LEXINGTON, Va. (AP) — Leo Colimerio had 15 points in Queens’ 81-78 win against VMI on Saturday. Colimerio had seven rebounds and five assists for the Royals (4-5). Jaxon Pollard scored 13 points while finishing 6 of 8 from the floor and added eight rebounds. Yoav Berman had 12 points and shot 4 of 7 from the field, including 3 for 6 from 3-point range, and went 1 for 4 from the line. A 3-pointer by TJ Johnson got VMI within 77-76 with 8 seconds remaining, but Nasir Mann’s layup gave Queens an important three-point lead with 6 seconds left. Rickey Bradley, Jr. led the way for the Keydets (5-6) with 19 points and four steals. TJ Johnson added 17 points, six rebounds and three steals for VMI. Augustinas Kiudulas also put up 15 points. ___ The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar. AdvertisementGoogle is suing this US government agency; says as a matter of common sense ...