Although Mangione fans apparently regard murder as palatable, potent medicine for a diseased system, I have bad news for them. Mangione’s alleged choice was much more infected than the ills of corporate healthcare. Murder creates human suffering, unlike corporate healthcare.¹ An irony not to be ignored, the alleged murderer’s actions replicated a sick system, by failing to fix the root of the problem.

Corporate healthcare doesn’t originate suffering, although it may prolong it with a coverage denial or contaminated incentives.

For instance, since doctors are compensated based on number of patients in a covered procedure code rather than patient success, in-network doctors don’t have financial incentive to invest time in a unique case. Doctors are financially incentivized to prescribe or refer and dismiss. This doesn’t work for patients like me.

I’m too familiar with the abysmal black hole of wasted time from condescending (and more critically, materially wrong) in-network doctors, zany billing disputes, and absurd denials of coverage. My experience with corporate healthcare pushed me into ideologically hostile territory – but, ideologically hostile, only.

Corporate healthcare wasn’t interested in understanding my unique symptoms. Instead, some in-network doctors and my health insurer chose mindless methods to close my file (prescriptions without a diagnosis; dismissal of consistent symptoms, despite evidence of a bigger problem; standard drugs; standard surgery; surprising denials). Corporate healthcare didn’t lead to good health for me. I had to go to unreasonable lengths to advocate for myself, research and persevere to uncover the root cause of my symptoms.²

For me, health insurance efficiently manufactured uncertainty, confusion, inconsistency and indignation, rather than financial clarity or timely resolution. The practical absence of financial consent in US healthcare negates medical informed consent, in my opinion. For instance, if you’d known your insurer was going to deny a $60,000 + medical cost, which it previously approved, this may have impacted your chosen treatment (yes, this happened to me; the hospital finally waved the bill). Patients aren’t empowered to make good decisions, when the financial component is uncertain. For the most empowered, informed choice: each patient should be able to weigh the risks and benefits of illness, treatment and costs. No one is just another patient.

Although corporate healthcare and the alleged murderer haven’t fixed the root cause of biological or institutional disease, Mangione’s alleged choices were worlds worse, by intentionally creating and leveraging human suffering to prove his point. Human life was a footnote to an ideal.

1. “Corporate healthcare” here is limited to health insurance and health providers, not companies selling a tangible product (pharmaceuticals, medical devices, medical treatment). Of course, bad companies exist, who conceal and profit from their disease-causing products. Those companies, and the individuals in them, should be prosecuted under the law. ↩︎
2. To understand my health trek, part 1 of my series, How to Navigate Endometriosis in an Unhealthy Medical System, is here. This series provides practical insights to empower your health decisions, despite a diagnosis dilemma, medical bill madness, and post-surgery disappointment. ↩︎