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Moderators delete Reddit thread as doctors torch dead UnitedHealthcare CEO (www.thedailybeast.com)

submitted 2 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

471 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Summary

Reddit’s r/medicine moderators deleted a thread where doctors and users harshly criticized murdered UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

Comments, including satirical rejections of insurance claims for gunshot wounds, targeted UHC’s reputation for denying care to boost profits.

Despite the removal, similar discussions continue, with medical professionals condemning UHC’s business practices under Thompson’s leadership, which a Senate report recently criticized for denying post-acute care.

Thompson, shot in what appears to be a targeted attack, led a company notorious for its high claim denial rates, fueling ongoing debates about corporate ethics in healthcare.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

You are absolutely right. Our current laws (and precedents) require CEOs and Directors to produce the best results possible for their shareholders. They can and have been sued for failing to do that. It effectively means they have to screw their employees and customers.

If corporations are people, then nearly all of them are sociopaths. The law requires it. (So it isn't surprising that the people who prove most effective at running them lean strongly in that direction as well.)

I'm not sure how far along it is, but the EU has been working on a change to their corporate laws that would require corporations to balance the good of their shareholders against other factors, such as their employees, their customers, and the public at large. Among other things, it would make them liable for how they deal, or fail to deal, with their companies' effects on climate change.

The EU has been steadily passing laws that actually help its citizens and provide protection against corporations. Those of us elsewhere in the world are also benefiting from their efforts. Being required to do the right thing in Europe often makes it less expensive to do it everywhere, than to make special efforts to exploit the areas where that is still allowed. The EU laws also encourage people elsewhere to push for better protections of their own.

The EU is far from perfect, but it gives me hope.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Our current laws (and precedents) require CEOs and Directors to produce the best results possible for their shareholders.

Same in America, and our politicians are almost withiut exception, completely corrupt after Citizens United...

The CEOs and Directors wrote the laws and paid legislators to pass them to make this 'conundrum' the case.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago

I agree with you that Citizens United has almost completely corrupted our political system, but the problem with corporate governance goes back a lot further. I'm not a lawyer, but I've read that the landmark case was against Henry Ford as the CEO of Ford Motor Company.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Our current laws (and precedents) require CEOs and Directors to produce the best results possible for their shareholders. They can and have been sued for failing to do that. It effectively means they have to screw their employees and customers.

There's no way to objectively determine what will produce the best results for shareholders. That's why CEO is a job in the first place.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/18/falsifiability/

But there's an even more fundamental flaw in the argument for the shareholder supremacy rule: it's impossible to know if the rule has been broken.

The shareholder supremacy rule is an unfalsifiable proposition. A CEO can cut wages and lay off workers and claim that it's good for profits because the retained earnings can be paid as a dividend. A CEO can raise wages and hire more people and claim it's good for profits because it will stop important employees from defecting and attract the talent needed to win market share and spin up new products.