An Open Letter To Ransomware Hackers Attempting to Extort United Healthcare

It won't be easy

Dear Cybercriminals,

I understand your ransomware schemes have brought in, globally, around 1.1 billion dollars…

By the way, thank you for reading The Frontier Psychiatrists. This is a satire/real health-themed publication. Try to keep up. Yes, that is a lot of money to me. It is a lot of money for most people. Here is the thing about the UnitedHealth Group….they make more money the longer this goes on, not less. If you’d like to know how I’m covering the story, you can read this article. Or this one. Or this one.

I know, I know. It’s counterintuitive. Let me explain:

Change Healthcare is part of Optum, part of UnitedHealth Group. The Department of Justice, back in the 90s, made it clear to UHG that they could no longer acquire more health insurance businesses without running afoul of health insurance antitrust rules. To keep growing, they would have to get into other lines of work. They needed to start growing by “vertical integration”—they built “Optum.” This is the wholly ow…