Blue Cross Blue Shield, in the quiet of the night, came up with this rule that is, if you’re going to have surgery, you can only have so much anesthesia and then you’re going to have to pay for it out of your pocket or the doctor’s going to take the loss by keeping you under anesthesia. It doesn’t make any difference if you have brain surgery, if they’re replacing your hip joint, whatever it is, if you wake up, too bad.
Transcript:
*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.
Mike Papantonio: Blue Cross Blue Shield, the anesthesia case. I think they’ve reversed their position, but to me, this is an unbelievable story. They tried, in the quiet of the night, they came up with this rule, and that is, if you’re going to have surgery, you can only have so much anesthesia and then you’re gonna have to pay for it outta your pocket or the doctor’s gonna take the loss by keeping you under anesthesia. It doesn’t make any difference if you have brain surgery, if they’re replacing your hip joint, whatever it is, if you wake up, too bad. And so pick the story up.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. They basically want to make it like paid parking, where every 15 minutes you gotta pay the meter to stay under anesthesia, which by the way, is just one of the most sociopathic things I think I’ve ever seen this.
Mike Papantonio: Excuse me. Isn’t it 15 minute increments? They literally have it down to 15 minute increments on how they do this.
Farron Cousins: And they base it on their formulas. Not the formulas of a doctor who says, listen, I’ve done this surgery 500 times. I know it takes me four hours to do it. You’re only giving him two and a half hours of anesthesia., That ain’t gonna cut it. He’s gonna wake up halfway through and they said, well, that’s your problem. That’s not our issue.
Mike Papantonio: Well, I hit, you know the case that I handled up in Alabama, matter of fact, we just settled last year. It was against Blue Cross Blue Shield, settled it for several billion dollars. And what ended up happening there, they were doing things like, there was a long history of people that were, they keep records of this, people who they believe died directly related to their failure to pay for a procedure. You have cancer, they say, ah, I don’t know if we’re really gonna pay for this kind of cancer and the person ends up dying. There’s lists of them. Okay. That’s one thing they do. The other scam is to put all these hidden costs into what you’re paying every month without ever knowing what you’re paying for. The other scam is to completely communicate directly with the doctor, telling the doctor or the doctor’s office, not you, that they may not pay for the procedure. There’s no communication with you. It goes to the doctor. They insulate themselves that way. It’s the most corrupt industry in the country. I’ve been, as you probably, you know, I’ve been going to trial against insurance companies my entire career. It is the most corrupt, unregulated industry in this country that is stealing us blind and killing people. This is an example of, isn’t it?
Farron Cousins: Well, and then, people wonder why is there so much sympathy when somebody murders a CEO for the murderer, as opposed to the CEO. I mean, this is why. And look, that whole story too, which ties into this, obviously, it reminds me of a segment you and I had done, God, 10 years ago, and I can’t remember the name of the index, but we talked about the index that shows how much people will take before you hit that period of social unrest.
Mike Papantonio: Yes.
Farron Cousins: And it showed that the United States was right on the cusp.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. They were like eight on a scale of ten.
Farron Cousins: And so, I think that incident that we saw with the United Healthcare CEO, that was part of that. That individual may not be representative of the entire country, but for that person, the index hit 10. And not excusing what they did by any stretch, you don’t kill people.
Mike Papantonio: Well, no. There’s no excuse. But you know what? It was a jury rebellion. The problem is, the problem with the insurance company on this particular case, Blue Cross Blue Shield, their defense is, there was just a misunderstanding is absurd. It’s absolutely crazy and absurd, but that was their position. People didn’t understand what we were really up to. Well, no, we did understand. You wrote it down. We saw the policy. Doctors talked about it. You’re lying again. And so they are freaked out by it.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. There’s no, the amount of sympathy that we see for the alleged shooter really shows how much just people across this country hate the health insurance industry and it truly is quite shocking to see that almost.
Mike Papantonio: This guy was not, he’s not really a sympathetic character. Okay. He’s a.
Farron Cousins: Silver spoon.
Mike Papantonio: Wealthy, silver spoon, elite with Ivy League education, had everything he wanted.
Farron Cousins: Valedictorian.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. I mean, he grew up in a perfect home with multimillionaire parents who gave him everything he wanted. He is not a sympathetic character at all. But I think people are giving him a break because they hate the insurance industry so badly.
Farron Cousins: Right.
Mike Papantonio: Nothing you can do about that.
