Blue Cross of Louisiana doesn't give a shit about breast cancer: They owe $421 million for denying 91% of charges for breast reconstruction.

mamot.fr/@pluralistic/11432635…

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Cory Doctorow

2025-04-12 18:15:21

A jury has ordered Blue Cross of Louisiana to pay $421m to a hospital specializing in a much sought-after type of breast reconstruction, primarily for cancer survivors. The insurer "preapproved" surgeries for thousands of patients, but then held back 92% of the payments it owed, with CEO Steven Udvarhelyi insisting that "authorization never says we’re going to pay you":

documentcloud.org/documents/25…

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Steven Udvarhelyi Deposition

^{www.documentcloud.org}

Hey look at this

* Deliberately Polluting the Death Master File Violates the Fair Credit Reporting Act creditslips.org/creditslips/20…

* Friend of a Friend Finder web.archive.org/web/2005030523…

* The IP Laws That Stop Disenshittification jacobin.com/2025/04/ip-anticir…

4/

#20yrsago In decline: TV, radio, newspapers, books, mags longtail.typepad.com/the_long_…

#20yrsago Collapsing US dollar explained web.archive.org/web/2005041305…

#20yrsago YOUR FAILED BUSINESS MODEL IS NOT MY PROBLEM sticker/tee design web.archive.org/web/2009081410…

#15yrsago Hitting computers with rocks: the history of publishing web.archive.org/web/2010041012…

#15yrsago UK MPs call for ID cards and surveillance, but demand privacy for themselves web.archive.org/web/2010041505…

5/

#15yrsago America blackmails the world on ACTA transparency web.archive.org/web/2010041518…

#15yrsago Nasty, Brutish and Short: wonderful animal behavior science-stories memex.craphound.com/2010/04/12…

#5yrsago The power of collaborative note-taking pluralistic.net/2020/04/12/mam…

#5yrsago AMC is going bankrupt pluralistic.net/2020/04/12/mam…

#5yrsago Foxconn's potemkin "Innovation Centers" pluralistic.net/2020/04/12/mam…

#5yrsago Trump and the Rapture Right pluralistic.net/2020/04/12/mam…

6/

#5yrsago LA begins randomized covid testing pluralistic.net/2020/04/12/mam…

#1yrago No, "convenience" isn't the problem pluralistic.net/2024/04/12/giv…

7/

Yesterday's threads: Zuckerberg in the dock; and more!

mamot.fr/@pluralistic/11432046…

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Cory Doctorow

2025-04-11 17:16:38

Today's threads (a thread)

Inside: Zuckerberg in the dock; and more!

Archived at: pluralistic.net/2025/04/11/it-…

#Pluralistic

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Pluralistic: Zuckerberg in the dock (11 Apr 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

^{pluralistic.net}

My last nationally bestselling novel was "The Bezzle," an ice-cold revenge story of high-tech finance crime starring the forensic accountant Martin Hench.

us.macmillan.com/books/9781250…

Signed copies from Chevalier's Books:

chevaliersbooks.com/product-pa…

--

My latest nonfiction book is "The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation" from Verso Books:

seizethemeansofcomputation.org

Signed copies available from Book Soup:

booksoup.com/book/978180429124…

Both are national bestsellers!

9/

Book details - Macmillan Publishers

New York Times bestseller Cory Doctorow's The Bezzle is a high stakes thriller where the lives of the hundreds of thousands of inmates in California’s pris...

^Macmillan

My ebooks and audiobooks (from Tor Books, Head of Zeus, McSweeneys, Beacon, Verso and others) are for sale all over the net, but I sell 'em too, and when you buy 'em from me, I earn twice as much and you get books with no DRM and no license "agreements."

craphound.com/shop/

10/

Upcoming appearances:

* #Pittsburgh: Picks and Shovels at White Whale Books, May 15
whitewhalebookstore.com/events…

* #Pittsburgh: PyCon, May 16
us.pycon.org/2025/schedule/

* #PDX: Teardown 2025, Jun 20-22
crowdsupply.com/teardown/portl…

* #PDX: Picks and Shovels at Barnes and Noble, Jun 20
stores.barnesandnoble.com/even…

* #London: How To Academy with Riley Quinn, Jul 1
howtoacademy.com/events/cory-d…

11/

Upcoming appearances (cont'd):

* #Manchester: Picks and Shovels at Blackwell, Jul 2
eventbrite.co.uk/e/an-evening-…

* #Manchester: Co-operatives UK Co-op Congress keynote, Jul 3
uk.coop/events-and-training/ev…

* #NewOrleans: DeepSouthCon63, Oct 10-12, 2025
contraflowscifi.org/

12/

Recent appearances:

* The Voice of Canadian Humanism
open.spotify.com/episode/7uuwd…

* Intelligent Machines (TWiT)
twit.tv/shows/intelligent-mach…

* The Political Orphanage
player.fm/series/the-political…

13/

You can follow these posts as a daily blog at pluralistic.net: no ads, trackers, or data-collection!

Here's today's edition: pluralistic.net/2025/04/12/pre…

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I'm on a 20+ city book tour for my new novel *Picks and Shovels*.

Catch me in #PITTSBURGH on May 15 at WHITE WHALE BOOKS:

whitewhalebookstore.com/events…

And in #PDX on Jun 20 at Barnes and Noble:

stores.barnesandnoble.com/even…

More tour dates here:

martinhench.com

eof/