UnitedHealth overcharged cancer patients for drugs by over 1k%
UnitedHealth overcharged cancer patients for drugs by over 1k%
The report is the latest indictment of America’s broken healthcare system.
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What is "1k%?"
1000%
Why are people struggling with this so hard?
Because it's a stupid, non standard way to say it. I understood it fine but I still thought it was a needless abbreviation.
Formatting of the number changes the way people interpret it. Which looks larger from a quick glance 1k or 1,000? You're 1h% correct, it's totally needless, makes it less clear and honestly was probably done intentionally.
K = kilo, which stands for 1000. It's extremely standard. Saying it's stupid is like saying $ or π or & or # or % is stupid.
1k is a common way to shorten 1,000. And 1,000% is an acceptable way to say 10x. But 1k% is definitely a stupid abbreviation that nobody uses.
Non standard. That is all.
Why are you not upset by it?
Because the meaning is obvious?
It’s literally the stupidest possible way to write it
Not when M% exists
It’s literally the stupidest possible way to write it
Nah.
For example:
"UnitedHealth overcharged cancer patients for drugs by over 1,000,000,000μ%"
would be even more stupid and I'm sure using something else than base-10 would yield its very own class of stupid.
Stupidity is probably boundless.
Okay. I don't typically get that caught up in the formatting of a number if the meaning is clear. 1k means 1000 in basically every context, and a unit indicator doesn't make it more confusing to me. Are you likewise baffled by something being written as "1km"?
I have literally never seen k used in percentages before. Km is common, as is using it if you’re writing out LARGE numerical values (10k or above).
I’m not saying it’s difficult to understand. I’m saying it looks stupid.
Alright. And you felt the need to express that you thought it looked stupid to a person saying the meaning was clear to them, so they weren't upset?
Do you get why someone might think the meaning wasn't clear?
If it was your first time seeing the prefix used that way, and the meaning was immediately clear despite not being your style, why do you care?
Yeah, I really care about this, I’m literally losing sleep /s
God forbid I back up some folks on social media and say I agree with them
You were backing someone up? I responded to someone asking how people weren't upset and you replied about how it's the worst. Telling someone they're wrong for not being irritated by something kinda feels like you care.
But % is not a unit.
A percentage is a dimensionless number, but percent is still a unit. Just think about how you use it. Something can increase by 5 students, or it can increase by 15%.
Regardless, is "m" standing for a concrete measure and ”%” for a proportional one really the source of since confusion and anger? What about db, or decibel? It's a measure of the ratio of quantities on a logarithmic scale, and is regularly applied to sound, electricity and other values. Is it as confusing?
In all your examples, k is a prefix to the unit. You can have 1 km, or 1 kdB. But there's no such thing as a kilopercent and that's not how it was used in the title. It was the common informal shortening of 1000 to 1k. So it wasn't 1(k%), it was (1k)%. Which is an odd combination. It's not confusing, everyone understood what was meant, but it's still stupid and unnecessary.
Okay. And as I said, I don't really get hung up on number formatting if the meaning was clear.
If it's not confusing, and it was understandable, why in hell do you care enough to argue about it even if it wasn't the style you'd prefer?
There's also "no such thing" as a decibel, since a bel is also not an official SI unit. Yet we all understood what you meant when you said kilodecibel (instead of the more formally proper "hectobel") despite it not being an SI unit and being two si prefixes attached improperly.
I fail to see the meaningful distinction between one thousand-percent and one-thousand percent. I agree that they used a common abbreviation for a number. I just don't actually care, which is what I said to the person incredulous that someone could not be upset.
Solve for x
10x what they should've paid
Yeah 1000% is 10x but they were charged 11x what they should have paid. Overcharged by (over) 10x.
11 times what they should have paid unless you think that “overcharging by 100%” would be charging exactly the right price or if you feel that all medication should be
freesomewhat cheaper. Or more expensive. Whichever way the math works for that.They were charged 11x what they should have paid. they were overcharged 10x, because they would still have been expected to pay the original (1x) charge.
The 1k% refers to the overcharge, so they are technically correct.
Ah I suppose so.
Like everyone else here, I also hate this use of a percentage.
It’s better than “0.01 cents” used to mean “1 cent”
I don't think "0.01 cents" ever meant 1 cent. $0.01 or 0.01 dollars would be 1 cent.
Yeah, about that. Bit of a throwback but: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MShv_74FNWU
1 * 10^3