It's not a "healthcare company."

The big news yesterday?

That lady who stowed away on a flight to Paris by getting past TSA and once on board the plane kept moving from toilet to toilet.

The second biggest story was about the search for the killer of Brian Thompson, CEO of United Healthcare.

The press keeps calling United Healthcare a “healthcare company”.

United Healthcare is not about healthcare. They are a paper moving company that gets in the way of healthcare and makes money by denying services recommended by an actual doctor.

Disclosure. Illinois retired teachers used to be covered by United Healthcare as our only subsidized Medicare Advantage option. Now we are with Aetna, another not-a-healthcare company that makes money by denying services that are recommended by an actual doctor.

Both of these companies have denied me prior authorization for procedures and treatments that my doctors prescribed.

Aetna and United Healthcare are not healthcare companies. They are anxiety and stress producing companies.

Another not-a-healthcare company, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield said Thursday that they are reversing a policy that was set to go into effect in February that would have limited anesthesia coverage during surgeries and other procedures, a change that had prompted a major outcry from the public once it became known.

The policy, which would have covered Anthem's plans in Connecticut, New York and Missouri, only made the news in the wake of the United Healthcare CEO assassination.

According to the original policy statement, Anthem had said it would pay only for anesthesia treatments for the length of time that a procedure or surgery is estimated to require based on the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Service's physician work time values. The insurer noted that claims for anesthesia "above the established number of minutes will be denied."

Anthem said it was backing away from the policy, and added there had been "widespread misinformation about an update to our anesthesia policy."

The only “misinformation” was that they kept the information under wraps for so long.

It was only in the wake of the killing of the United Healthcare CEO and the attention Anthem received in the aftermath, that it announced it was dropping that idea.

For the time being.