I don't understand. I thought the great benefit of privatized healthcare was that it was not rationed - yet she was denied medication? How perplexing. /s

I know this was tongue in cheek, but the truth is that all healthcare is rationed. It's just that in a capitalism-obsessed culture the mainstream belief is that rationing on economic lives is somehow better than doing so based on efficacy.

To top this all off, "United Healthcare’s attempt to save $2,000 cost over $1 million in health care costs over the past year."

To save a small amount of money, they ended up spending way more money and killing the patient.

I wonder if having both private health insurance and medicare actually worked to her detriment here. Both assuming the other would pick up the tab for the expensive antibiotic but then neither did.

And under UHC the doctor wouldn't have even suggested the expensive drug.

Why would the doctor change her recommendation of an appropriate drug based on who was paying for the insurance?

Kickbacks, direct and indirect