UnitedHealth and Corporate Wrongdoing: Triple Jeopardy for Employees

It’s no coincidence that the business model behind the recent revelations of UnitedHealth Group defrauding Medicare is eerily familiar. They have managed to combine the toxic demand to succeed at all costs found at Wells Fargo with the heartless teachings of shareholder over stakeholders from the Harvard Business School. Meanwhile, Republicans in Congress look to gut the Affordable Care Act citing increased costs, never realizing what is contributing to those rising prices. There’s just one word for that—sick.

Benjamin Poehling, the former finance director at UnitedHealth, alerted the Justice Department to this when he realized that billions of taxpayer dollars have been stolen by big insurance companies that have been bilking the system. Now the Justice Department is suing his former employer, UnitedHealth Group, and plans to investigate other companies who are also Medicare Advantage participants.

Medicare Advantage, which is the program that’s been swindled, was supposed to be the solution to the $13 trillion funding gap in Medicare.  It was instituted by Congress to fix the gap by turning it over to the insurance companies with the expectation that they provide better care for a lower price. At this point the only ones benefiting are the insurance companies. According to the New York Times, UnitedHealth has reaped some $3 billion in profit over five years from Medicare Advantage. We still don’t know how much other insurance companies may have stolen.

As in all of these whistleblower cases, this puts employees in a terrible position. Comply and you become a crook and if caught, will be fired and possibly prosecuted. Refuse to comply and you’ll be fired. Become a whistleblower and risk your career and possibly your health and well-being. You’d think an insurance company would recognize behavior that puts people at risk. 

Why Being a Revolutionist is Critical Now

The image may forever be seared into the collective consciousness—Republican members of the House boarding buses to the White House to have a beer to celebrate passage of the American Health Care Act of 2017. Never mind that the AHCA has an enormous list of pre-existing conditions that unconscionably includes cesarean section and PTSD brought on by sexual assault, or that it makes it possible to charge people over 50 more than five times the rate of younger people, or that it included an exemption for Congress. And ignore that in their zeal to defeat the national healthcare safety net created by an African-American president, many Republicans admitted to never having read the thing or that they refused to wait for the cost estimates from the Congressional Budget Office. Just remember this: This may be the moment when the average American becomes a revolutionist.

As someone who has been a revolutionist for psychologically healthy, safe and fair workplaces for almost a decade, it gives me hope to see Americans fired up. It’s this energy that I hope to direct to employment issues, which differ from your rights as a citizen in an important way—the freedom of expression that you are guaranteed under the Constitution does NOT apply to the workplace.  This is why keeping an eye on workplace issues is extremely important—the man currently in the White House wants to run the government like one of his workplaces.

Examples of how employees lack rights abound. Donald Trump’s friends at Fox News continue to be in the headlines with new lawsuits and federal investigations due to sexual harassment and gender discrimination allegations. Most of the women who were harassed had no recourse at work. One of the most pernicious aspects of the culture at Fox News is the practice of human resource departments to encourage employees to come forward then use that information to facilitate retaliation. As I discuss in From Bully to Bull’s-Eye: Move Your Organization Out of the Line of Fire, this is far from unusual. I would even argue it’s the norm; in toxic workplaces human resource departments are part of the problem, not part of the solution. Far too often they suffer from what I call “Sean Spicer Syndrome”—zero credibility, zero courage.

One of the most egregious examples of employees lacking rights at work come from Wells Fargo. I’ve written a lot about the bank’s improprieties and I’m not fooled by the assurance of its new CEO, Timothy J. Sloan, that retaliation against whistleblowers won’t be tolerated. Or, according to a recent New York Times article, that it’s “critically important” that all employees feel safe at Wells Fargo. It does nothing for the employees who were fired for reporting the bank’s abuses and then show up only as a footnote in a 110-page report by an outside law firm. In order for there to have been abuse at the levels that took place and the whistleblowers silenced, the exploitation by Wells Fargo had to be deep and systemic.

That is why I take being a revolutionist so seriously and you should, too. Fighting on against depressing odds is difficult, but we don’t have the luxury of sitting back. Trump has tried to silence the press, boost religious extremists and roll back protections for the LGBT community, in addition to that outrageous bill that masquerades as health-care reform. But it’s not over. Not only does the AHCA still need to pass in the Senate, but 2018 midterm elections are coming up quickly. Use your anger to fuel your resolve to resist. Record donations yesterday poured into sites that will fund Democratic candidates in 2018. There are marches planned, including the June 11 Equality March for Unity and Pride in Washington, DC. I predict we will see record crowds for Pride around the world this year. As my 98-year-old mother, a veteran of the Dutch underground during World War II told me, “you don’t want to feel as you grow older that you should have done more.” Take action now.

Photo credit: CSPAN

A License to Exploit

The Trump administration seems to be taking a page out of the illusionist’s handbook as the president sends outrageous middle-of-the-night tweets about his predecessor to distract us from dismantling protections for American workers. The latest don’t-blink-or-you’ll-miss-it tactic was Congress lifting President Barack Obama’s executive order called the Fair Play and Safe Workplaces rule that kept companies with poor safety records from competing for government contracts if they didn’t agree to fix their problems first. This may seem like a sane provision to ensure the kind of psychologically healthy, safe and fair workplaces I wrote about in From Bully to Bull’s-Eye: Move Your Organization Out of the Line of Fire. However, most Republicans in Congress didn’t agree—the executive order was overturned 49 to 48. It seems fairly certain that Trump will sign the repeal.

It’s additionally unsettling that Congress used the rarely invoked 1996 Congressional Review Act to eliminate it, meaning that it can be revoked with a simple majority vote and can’t be reinstated by executive order by another president—to be reinstated it would have to be passed by Congress as a law.

There’s no doubt why the Fair Play and Safe Workplaces rule was necessary. According to a staff report from the office of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), 66 of the government’s 100 largest contractors have violated federal wage and hour laws. In addition, a third of the largest OSHA penalties have been imposed on federal contractors. This affects a huge number of employees: The Washington Post estimates that companies with federal contracts employ 1 in 5 American workers. Clearly by fulfilling the wish list of private interests Congress has granted an open license to exploit working Americans—the very people Trump promised to champion while on the campaign trail.

And all of this is being done at breakneck speed and deflected by sleight of hand. What’s the rush? I suspect Trump and the Republicans are hurrying to fulfill their agenda before the American people rise up and put them out of power. We can only hope that happens before truly serious damage is done.

Photo credit: BIGSTOCK

Predicting What Trump Will Do Next

We keep reading in the media about the utter unpredictability of Donald Trump, but I say this is nonsense. From my study of bullies and how bullying works, I know exactly what he’s going to do next. But first, let me give you some background.

Over the years I’ve become something of an expert on adult bullies—I was one early in my career until a wise supervisor set me straight, later on I sadly confess I was at times a bystander to bullying. I’ve been the victim of bullying so severe I was diagnosed with a form of PTSD, and today I’m an advocate for victims of bullying. I’ve dedicated my career to preventing and ending bullying in the workplace, which has inspired two books as well as my foundation’s current partnership with the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence and our joint Emotion Revolution in the Workplace initiative.

So I can reasonably declare that I’ve learned how bullies work. They are masters of manipulation, deflection, deception, deceit and denial and no one is better at bullying than Donald Trump. Bullies are particularly dangerous when their back is against the wall and the growing agitation about Trump’s connection with Russia is going to have his back against the bricks very soon. The onus is on Congress and the Republicans to force disclosure before the inauguration because it will be easier to prevent Trump from being inaugurated than to try to impeach him afterward. My prediction is if that happens he will do everything he can to maintain his power and control.  He will abuse the power of the presidency up to and including drastic things like martial law.

We only have one week to prevent this disastrous occurrence and I’m deeply concerned. I shared that concern in December when I wrote about my 97-year-old mother who was in the Dutch Resistance in World War II and whose greatest regret was that she didn’t do more to save the victims of the Nazis. That’s why I’m urging you to do what you can and inundate your representatives to demand full disclosure. Don’t let Trump and his people shut you down. Make your voice be heard before it’s too late. America’s future depends upon it.    

Credit: BIGSTOCK