 He states that it's not medically necessary treatment. That was an internal phone call between two United healthcare workers. They're laughing about denying someone's insurance claim. We're Republica, a nonprofit newsroom, and we investigated. The person they're laughing about is Chris McNaughton. He was in college when he was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis, a chronic autoimmune disease. It took him a really long time to find meds that put his disease into remission. But when he finally did, United flagged Chris's case as a high dollar account. Ultimately, United said it wouldn't pay for his medicine because it was not medically necessary. When I started that treatment, I think I had literally failed every other ulcerative colitis medication. So it would almost seem that it was the very definition of medically necessary and that nothing else had worked. When United turned down Chris's claim, his medical bills were running nearly $2 million a year. So Chris did something few people ever do. He sued. He was able to get his claim file and questioned United representatives under oath. He was shocked by what he learned, like that a United doctor had literally cut and pasted a denial language from a nurse's notes. That's under R&N recommendation. I usually copied that and pasted if I agree. That doctor said he's done over 10,000 denials for United and he didn't usually look at the medical records. He just signed his name. Chris's records revealed another United doctor who actually agreed with Chris's physician was ignored. United had paid for that doctor's opinion. But when the company didn't like what it saw, it buried that report. Chris also got emails and audio recordings like the one at the beginning of this video. It's hard to feel that they're really worried about your safety when there are emails that are celebrating the fact that your treatment was denied. In the end, Chris's medications were paid for by insurance. United said in a statement that the company's guiding concern was always his wellbeing. We aren't done reporting. If you have information about insurance denials you can share, get in touch with us. And if you're interested in appealing your own denial, learn how to request your insurance claim file at propublica.org slash claim my file.