In this interview excerpt, Speaker A criticizes U.S. health insurance companies for placing profit above patient health, acting as an unnecessary and powerful middleman that creates barriers to care. Speaker A, an entrepreneur, acknowledges the need for profit in business but argues that when it comes to human health, insurers have overstepped, using tactics such as lobbying and imposing burdensome prior‑authorization requirements that delay or deny treatments. Speaker B prompts the discussion, asking what specific concerns exist about the insurance system. The conversation highlights the perception that insurers have become a behemoth that hinders the doctor‑patient relationship rather than facilitating it.
They prioritize money and profits over health. And that's what insurances have done is they've sort of taken advantage of their role. We've got a broken system because they're there to help and they're not supposed to be there to add hurdles into treatments.
Let's talk about these insurance companies. When you say that they are the 3 middlemen or the ones, the biggest issues, what are some of the things that concern you the most about the whole insurance game? Because, you know, there's a lot of patients be like, and there's some doctors, probably more patients than doctors that are like, oh, insurance is great. Insurance should cover everything. What's your beef with them, if you will?
Yeah, my beef with them is that they don't. My beef with them is that they prioritize money and profits over health. And I think, again, as an entrepreneur myself, I understand the need to prioritize profits for your entrepreneurial venture. But the problem is when it comes to human health, it's a slippery slope. And that's what insurances have done is they've sort of taken advantage of their role and they've sort of really done a spectacular job from an entrepreneurial perspective of taking advantage and taking more control than what they should have and lobbying the right way, et cetera, et cetera. So what you have is just this really big behemoth in between the patient and the doctor that really shouldn't have the control that they have. And so one example that I'm sure everybody can identify with is, you know, something simple like the prior authorization. When a patient comes to a physician to get treatment or to get a test or to get a medication, and the insurance then makes it super burdensome to actually get that treatment or medication, then we've got a broken system because they're there to help and they're not supposed to be there to add hurdles into treatments. And that's what they are. They're, they're a hurdle.
