Coppola’s 1997 ‘Rainmaker’ Film Foretold Healthcare’s ‘D’ Word Today — “Deny claims for a year, and most people give up”
Deny. Delay. Depose.
Kicking off with “deny,” those three words, have been in the news a lot these days, with regard to the tragic shooting of a UnitedHealthcare executive, It also refers to the well-known insurance system tactic of “deny, delay, defend” when warding off claims from patients. And, while they do that, apparently “68,000 Americans needlessly die each year so that insurance company execs can become multimillionaires.”
In Francis Ford Coppola’s heartbreaking and eye-opening award-winning movie, The Rainmaker, Matt Damon heroically stars as a neopyhte lawyer, who’s just passed the bar exam, taking on a fraudulent insurance company in a multi-million dollar lawsuit. And, to set the table, Roy Scheider, who plays the insurance company’s insouciant CEO, once reported that director Coppola told him how to play the character: “You’re the devil, that’s who you are.”
In the 1997 movie, the main claimant’s mother poignantly reads the insurance company’s denial letter aloud in court: “On seven prior occasions, this company has denied your claim in writing. You must be stupid, stupid, stupid.” Then a whistle-blower and former insurance company employee also says on the witness stand: “The (Healthcare) company was playing the odds — DENY claims for a year, and most people give up.” Indeed, Damon’s character eventually uncovers a scheme that the fictional company (Great Benefit) ran to deny payment to every insurance claim submitted, regardless of its validity.
Deny. Deny. Deny.
This movie, which was released almost 30 years ago, encourages the consumer to exercise a heightened level of awareness and understanding of “caveat emptor” during any interactions with health care professionals at all levels. In fact, Coppola’s movie resonates even more these days with consumers increasingly losing the battle against the healthcare insurance industry.
•Thoughts And Prayers Are Out Of Network’: The Cold Online Response To An Insurance Executive’s Killing
Reacting to the CEO’s recent shooting, the Guardian newspaper wrote: “…the death of UnitedHealthcare’s CEO unleashed an eruption of anger from people mistreated, or untreated, by the US’s rapacious medical industry and even a grim schadenfreude from some at Thompson’s death. Hundreds of thousands of Americans are driven into bankruptcy every year by medical debts, with many of them losing their homes. Thousands die because insurance companies find reasons not to pay for treatment, including UnitedHealthcare, which denies about one-third of claims.”
And, some regular headlines over the past few years since Coppola’s movie have read:
•Medical bills account for 40% of bankruptcies — (NIH)
•A Nobel Prize-winning physicist sold his medal for $765,000 to pay medical bills
•Medical Bankruptcy: Still Common Despite the Affordable Care Act
•Nearly Half of Insured Adults who had Insurance Problems were Unable to Satisfactorily Resolve Them
And, then there’s this story from the frontlines, just a small story but its message is clear. An associate of mine, Michael, recently told me this story: “Celebrating murder is not a part of a sane society. It is important, however, to take note of the enormity of the reaction to this one death, to see how it has uncovered what is so wrong with the current system, and to acknowledge the thousands of deaths that allowed this man to earn big bonuses and a big salary and to take good care of his progeny. I met a man sitting on pieces of cardboard with his beautiful children in a tiny mall in LA. He and I were dressed in a similar way. He could’ve been in my class at school. He was in the street, begging for money. I asked him what was wrong and he told me he’d sold his house to pay for his mother’s chemotherapy, that she’d died anyway, and now his children had nowhere to live.”
Taking that a step further to a personal story — a dear pal of mine was talking to his doctor about his wife getting chemo, and Harry enquired about paying for the procedure by himself. The consulting doctor quipped that if he wanted to go bankrupt, go ahead, because each chemo session (of four) was going to cost $20K each. It’s mind-boggling. Luckily, his wife, a retired teacher, is still covered…for now.
Another associate, Simon Allen. who literally recently had surgery under the “Affordable Care Act” insurance program, fears even worse when the new US administration comes into power in January 2025: “When this f••ker finally eliminates the ACA and the provision that says that insurance companies can’t deny healthcare to anyone with a pre-existing condition then, with my health conditions, I AM DEAD MAN WALKING! So, all the f••kers who voted for him quite literally signed off on my death warrant for 3-dollar eggs and 2-dollar gas. So, f••k them! I’m more worried about me right now.”
The reality is that a Pandora’s Box has been blown up — a hornet’s nest of fear and moral outrage, and possible more violence, along with questions about the value of human life on all sides of the ledger.
Of course, in places like nearby Canada, there’s a program called universal healthcare — it ain’t perfect, but thousands don’t die because they’re denied healthcare. And, here in the US, we’re left with one significant human flaw, the three-pronged monster of greed, selfishness and narcissism, and that word, over and over…deny, deny, deny.
Check out Simon Allen Soccer, for the “bright side of life,” and also the trailer for The Rainmaker, the award-winning movie, directed by Francis Ford Coppola.
