Funbag #9 - Five Weeks Of Sanity Remaining Edition
UnitedHealth Group continues to dig themselves into a larger hole; RFK Jr's vetting for HHS is run by a polio vaccine opponent; and thoughts on the holidays
Much like the dead carcass of an unfortunate animal that blundered into oncoming traffic, UnitedHealth Group is lying in the metaphorical road of the media, smelling godawful, rotting by the day. As fate would have it, just two days before Brian Thompson met his untimely end, ProPublica had emailed them for comment on their new exclusive: how United Healthcare, under Thompson, and OptumRX, their pharmacy arm, were systematically removing providers of autism care from their “in-network” coverage and challenging the “medical necessity” of medications to help children with autism.
ProPublica first tried to get an on-the-record conversation a full month before sending the email. They were stonewalled, until today, when UHG decided to take a new line: bereavement.
I’m not sure what is more insulting: the idea that this behemoth corporation is too sad to discuss a topic that they were first asked about a month before Luigi Mancione whacked their CEO, or that this story, affecting the care of thousands of children, is somehow “not urgent” enough to merit comment. As someone whose youngest brother is very deeply on the spectrum and requires Medicaid-provided home care as a 35-year-old, this is deeply, deeply offensive. Using the murder of your CEO as cover for not commenting on a policy he oversaw while at the same time claiming it isn’t important enough to comment on is the most grotesque behavior imaginable. JP Morgan was by many accounts a deeply unpleasant asshole to be around, but he knew enough to not behave in this fashion. Andrew Carnegie paid for archaeology and built libraries. John Rockefeller handed out dimes, which sounds like a joke today, but a dime in the late 19th century was roughly equivalent to $5 today.
Today’s barons do not believe in social responsibility. Jeff Bezos continues to work on his ridiculous dick-shaped rocket for personal space travel. Elon Musk is building a second age of apartheid on Twitter. Larry Ellison funds his daughter’s movie producing career and the worst politicians you know. Everyone running a health insurer has been engaged in the very worst behavior possible, doing their damnedest to bankrupt people who simply want the care that they paid for. The social contract has been well and truly broken, and that is going to result in more Luigi Mangiones. Is it good? No. It’s not good—it’s a larger step on the road to societal collapse. Whether they want to admit it or not, these robber barons are part of society, and they would do well to remember that.
Late Edit: Jay Willis is a respected legal reporter, and he posted on BlueSky about his battle with United HealthCare this week over coverage. How more people haven’t chosen violence dealing with Kafkaesque insanity like this is beyond me.
“We’ve approved a place for you to drive to, but they aren’t allowed to do anything there. And if you want us to allow them to do something, you have to do this other thing for six weeks, which we’ve helpfully stopped paying for. Good luck!”
HHS applicants are being vetted by an attorney that is friends with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—an attorney who tried to get the polio vaccine revoked.
Aaron Siri, a name most people have probably never heard of, but who is a big name in the anti-vaccine world, has been vetting appointees to Health and Human Services. It cannot be said loudly enough how alarming this is. Mr. Siri, like RFK Jr., has said publicly that they will not revoke approval of longstanding vaccines, merely that they would remove federal requirements for certain ones. In their legal cases, however, the duo has challenged not vaccine mandates but repeatedly, vaccine approvals. Siri is lead counsel for a major anti-vaccine group that has gone so far as to petition courts to invalidate the polio vaccine.
Both Bobby Kennedy Jr and Aaron Siri are too young to remember polio, but there are many in this country who do remember. The last survivor of the pre-vaccine days, who spent decades inside an iron lung, died only this year. Much like civil rights, which people believe to be part of some distant, hazy past, polio is one of the most dangerous infections known to man. The reason it disappeared was because of the development of a vaccine and by the mandate that it be taken, so as to prevent the regular epidemics that took place every summer and that would force whole communities to quarantine. Polio can do everything from causing permanent paralysis to death. It is extraordinarily vital to not allow it to gain a foothold once more.
And yet, some of the new Republican senators, like Jim Banks of Indiana, think “the country is ready for a debate about vaccines.” There may be no greater sign about the death of expertise and the supremacy of dangerous ignorance. If the Senate allows these crackerjacks through confirmation, with its many members whose lives predate the vaccines for polio, measles, etc, then the world should respond by refusing us travel rights. It may be the only thing that gets the message across—we cannot allow this wanton stupidity to destroy civilization. It’s been bad enough that measles and pertussis (whooping cough) have been breaking out sporadically over the past decade because of the “do your own research” crowd (who never seem to find any research except that fitting their preconceived notions, and which never seems to adhere to any sort of rigourous standards for validating their findings). If polio comes back, what’s next, smallpox? Do people really want to wait until their loved ones look like they are extras in 28 Years Later?
Someone needs to tell Donny Dementia that nobody wants to be president of a fallen nation. Appeal to his vanity. Kick out these unqualified idiots now.
How do you celebrate holidays when you know the next year is going to be awful?
It’s a good question, one I’ve spent the past few weeks pondering. What I’ve decided upon is that if things are going to get bad, then I need to enjoy the moment while I’m still capable of it. I will eat the food and drink the liquor. I’ve made my home festive for Christmas and I will spend time with the in-laws and my family, talking and laughing and enjoying the moment. If bad times are ahead—scary, even dangerous ones—I don’t want to face them knowing I didn’t enjoy good times and normalcy while I still could.
I spent months this year warning about the dangers if we elected Trump again, and the last six weeks talking about them. Even most of this week’s Funbag has touched on additional dangers—but it is vital we retain the ability to experience love, family, friendship, and happiness. Holding onto those things in the face of difficulty or even horrors gives us something to fight for. If we let them fall, and succumb totally to the darkness, then we will never find our way back to the light.
I’ll probably write a couple additional pieces, but this will be the last Funbag of 2024. Thanks for reading.