United Health Care Medicare Advantage is corrupt and harms patients and health care providers.

Here is a good video about United Health Care and it's corrupt operation of the health care system.

In my case, I was covered by United Health Care Medicare Advantage. I had a quadricep tendon tear in both legs. My orthopod did a repair in both legs on August 29th. I came out of surgery with a brace on each leg from hip to ankle at full extension with 0% flexibility and was told I would be immobilized like this for at least 6 weeks and then the braces would be flexed 30 degrees per month. I was bedridden. 

Navihealth who rations the United Health Care benefits visited with me on the 5th day after surgery and told me they were authorizing 21 days of stay in a rehab facility. They told me I had 36 hours to appeal their decision. When I appealed they granted me 2 more days and then I went self pay. I was discharged from rehab finally two weeks ago today on February 3, 2024 after 5 months in rehab. I essentially have had to learn to walk again and I still am limited to walking with a walker and quad cane for short distances. 

My rehab bill is now over $75.000 and it has bankrupted me. I have applied for Medicaid in Monroe County, New York State to, hopefully, pay my rehab bill since I have no funds of my own. The taxpayers who pay for Medicaid at the county, state, and Federal level, hopefully, will pay the bill which United Health Care should have paid while UHC profits billions of dollars per year. It's quite a scam which patients, their families, and the taxpayers pay the brunt of.

Meanwhile, Medicare Advantage plans have captured over 50% in 2024 of the Medicare population with their lure of free dental cleanings and Silver Sneakers programs.

As the naive little boy in me screams, "There ought to be a law against this kind of complex corporate corruption and bait and switch." And yet as P.T. Barnum supposedly said one time, "There's a sucker born every minute" of which group, I am at the head of the line.

The first step in social change is education and the provision of information. I have tried to explain the situation to my friends and their eyes glaze over. One of my favorite bumper stickers says "Reality is when it happens to you."