Thread regarding Cigna layoffs

@ee You aren't catching my meaning. Cigna could care less about what some board says. They are literally in the business of establishing cost of covering services and them still making money. Because that's exactly the business of insurance - practically the dictionary definition.

Pretty hilarious they can't get that right, even for a limited population of their own employees where the revenue from the premiums from that limited population is like shooting fish in a barrel.

Maybe all that's beside the point, though. When a company prematurely pulls back a highly publicized employee benefit - that company is trash.

@ec

Actually, the 5% number is pretty standard nationally and was established by various medical obesity boards around the country.
Not surprisingly, these boards are very much in favor of insurance coverage for GLP-1 meds. Any sane person could have quickly deduced that utilization would be closer to 20%.

Interestingly, women are taking the lioness’s share of these meds.

All GLP-1 users: ~2 women for every 1 man
Weight-loss GLP-1 users: ~3 women for every 1 man
Diabetes GLP-1 users: much closer to parity

It will be interesting to observe whether employers in male-dominated industries keep GLP-1 coverage at a higher rate than those in female dominated industries.

@eb Cool. So Cigna has terrible forecasting or didn't bring this to acutaries.

I wonder how much other coverage they plan to drop since they are sh---y at doing insurance things.

@e1

Cigna - and most other employers - are dropping it because their assumptions were based on 5% utilization. Actual utilization turns out to be 15-20%.

Employers are surprised to learn they employ fat people who want an easy button.

@e0 i agree they should skip the avocado toast and pull themselves up by their bootnstraps. Take on a 2nd job to pay for that 500k starter house.

@e1 Agree. Seems like the company’s word means absolutely nothing. Cannot believe anything they say at this point.

If I was a shareholder, I think that I would take the quarterly earnings calls with a grain of salt. Maybe a half a grain.

@dw Trick question - are you aware Cigna announced they would cover this for employees, then reneged? That's the topic at hand.

@dz The problem is that persons that have “arrived” have gotten conditioned and a bit spoiled for “the finer” things in life, while forgetting about the importance of the base staples to life to survive to be in your 80’s or 90’s. That is because many of them currently still relatively healthy so not thinking about future. Also, they tend to only “think of me” mentality, completely forgetting to think of and helping the elderly, which someday they will also be…maybe.

This younger generation thinks completely differently, selfishly, than generations of past. They don’t respect their elders, in any actionable helpful way. They are completely materialistic and very cutthroat competitive. And they only think of the here and now. They probably will never attempt to grow their own food for survival nor patch any holes in pants or sew a hole in a shirt. In short, I fear this upcoming generation is lost.

@dw I would not be surprised to find out that you spend $200 per month on playstation or xbox games. But save many lives, heaven forbid!

@dw If it means saving means saving thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of lives, and I am a middle class office worker that can afford it without it being that much of a burden to me and my family, then the answer is an abounding, YES, I am willing to pay an additional $200 in premiums.

Because we all age and all will be in same place as others. Someday, you will see that. At that point, it will be too late and you will no longer be in any financial position, nor position of any kind of power to make a difference in the lives of others nor yourself.

@dn

Are you OK with paying an extra $200/mo in premiums so that GLP-1s are available to your fellow insurance members?

Not a trick question. That’s about what the cost would be. If you’re willing to pay it…great.
I’m not OK with paying the extra.

@am Well, then they shouldn't have started doing so for employees only to abruptly stop later.

Seems pretty fu--ing elementary for a insurance company to forecast costs.

@ad

how about we don't pay any cancer treatments for heavy smokers? for a traffic accident if you were speeding? for a kid's broken arm due to mischief?

seems consistent to me...

@am Patent protections begin to expire between 2027 and 2034 so GLP-1 will get much cheaper in the next few years. And, regardless, this is a good investment to avoid other obesity related conditions that are much more expensive over a person's lifetime than the medication itself.

@ay Agree. These health insurance corporations could save millions of lives every year of they wanted. But for the corp executives and board of directors and shareholders, they do not want to because it flies in the face of them getting richer.

Which may sound overly dramatic but if we really think about it, that is tantamount to mu---r on a genocide scale.

If health insurance truly cared about “preventative maintenance” like they say, then they would be al for two things, GLP-1s and annual full body MRIs.

If they approved and paid for those two things alone, the percentage of persons reaching in their 90’s or even over 100, would exponentially increase.

But they won’t because “sick” people are more profitable.

Insurers cannot afford to have 15% of their membership on a $1200/mo forever dr-g.

This was announced month ago

Since when insurance companies cover GLP-1 for weight loss? If someone healthy goes to the doctor and asks to lose 30lbs to be fit into their clothes before pregnancy, will they prescribe GLP-1 to that person?

Yeah but think about what health insurance companies prioritize.... profits. So why would they want to encourage a product that quite literally has health benefits and lowers comorbidities? They probably lobbied to keep high sugar in all products and soda in schools for the same reasons - hook em while they're young.

How about stop eating junk food and exercise?

Cool