‘An Arm and a Leg’: Attack of the Medicare Machines
Covering the American health care system means we tell some scary stories. This episode of “An Arm and a Leg” sounds like a real horror movie.
It uses one of Hollywood’s favorite tropes: machines taking over. And the machines belong to the private health insurance company UnitedHealth Group.
Host Dan Weissmann talks to Stat News reporter Bob Herman about his investigation into Medicare Advantage plans that use an algorithm to make decisions about patient care. The algorithm is owned by a subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group.
Herman tells Weissmann that some of UnitedHealth’s own employees say the algorithm creates a “moral crisis” in which care is unfairly denied.
Scary stuff! Such reporting even has caught the eye of powerful people in government, putting Medicare Advantage plans under scrutiny.
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This is original content from KFF Health News, a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF — the independent source for health policy research, polling, and journalism. It is reprinted here with permission.
