2/ Algorithmic Denials: Inside UnitedHealthcare's Killer AI System

Inside the automated system that denied one in three insurance claims under CEO Brian Thompson's leadership. Through exclusive documents and expert analysis, this episode reveals how UnitedHealthcare's AI denial algorithm doubled rejection rates from 10.9% to 22.7% after implementation, while company profits soared to $16 billion in 2023.

As investigators build their case against Luigi Mangione, we uncover the devastating stories of patients caught in a system where algorithms make life-and-death decisions. From a mother battling stage 4 breast cancer who maxed out her coverage to a four-year-old denied a life-saving hospital stay, this episode exposes how automated healthcare denials may have created the perfect storm that led to America's most controversial murder case.

Episode blog and sources:⁠ ⁠jonnyllama.com⁠⁠

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Keywords: Luigi Mangione, jury nullification, terrorism charges, UnitedHealthcare CEO murder, legal analysis, criminal justice, historical precedents, public support, hung jury, legal defense

This investigation is still developing. New evidence emerges daily. Subscribe now to follow this story as it unfolds.

On a book review website earlier this year, a user named 'Luigi (LN mangione)' gave Ted Kaczynski's youna bomber manifesto four stars.

In his review, Mangione wrote about corporations: They have zero qualms about burning down the planet for a buck, so why should we have any qualms about burning them down to survive?

From Talkocast Studios, this is Delay Deny Depose.

On the last episode we walked through the six minutes that changed American healthcare forever - the assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson outside the New York Hilton Midtown.

Five days after that shooting, investigators have arrested 26-year-old Luigi Mangione at a McDonald's in Altoona, Pennsylvania.

But what they found in his possession - a three-page manifesto and a spiral notebook filled with detailed plans - suggests this story goes far deeper than a single murder. This episode, we dive into what drove a brilliant Ivy League graduate to murder, and how it connects to an automated healthcare system that affects millions of Americans.

In April 2021, as Brian Thompson took over as CEO of UnitedHealthcare, the company implemented what they called Machine Assisted Prior Authorization.

The promise was to cut review times by 6 to 10 minutes per case.The reality is denial rates for post-acute care would jump from 10.9% in 2020 to 22.7% in 2022.

Mangione's writings, obtained by ABC News, addressed to the "Feds," said, "I do apologize for any strife of traumas but it had to be done. Frankly, these parasites simply had it coming."

According to Detective Joe Kenny, the suspect had everything planned. Multiple fake IDs, including a fraudulent New Jersey ID matching the one used to check into the New York hostel before the shooting.

But as investigators dig deeper, they find something else - a spiral notebook. Inside: detailed notes and to-do lists that, according to Mangione's letter to police, 'illuminate the gist of it.

Friends say Mangione had disappeared months before the shooting. Nobody has heard from you in months, one wrote in October. I don't know if you are okay or just in a super isolated place, wrote another in July.

Full transcript at jonnyllama.com

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