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UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson fatally shot in Manhattan
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- neom 2y agohttps://www.reuters.com/world/us/unitedhealthcare-ceo-fatally-shot-ny-post-reports-2024-12-04/ https://www.reuters.com/world/us/unitedhealthcare-ceo-fatall... No paywall, same amount of detail (little) - looked around but not much detail generally in any of the outlets except there was an investor day, he was leaving a hotel, shot in the chest, deceased.
- impish9208 2y agohttps://archive.is/bUkGt https://archive.is/bUkGt
- sbelskie 2y agohttps://www.cnn.com/2024/12/04/us/brian-thompson-united-healthcare-death/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/04/us/brian-thompson-united-heal... > A gunman, who investigators tell CNN was waiting for some time before Thompson’s arrival, opened fire from 20 feet away firing multiple times, striking Thompson. This from CNN makes it sound like it could possibly be targeted, though there are very few details at this time and sometimes these things are misreported in the immediate aftermath.
- DebtDeflation 2y agoNYPD is calling it targeted. The assassin was waiting for him outside the hotel for awhile and had a bike stashed in a nearby alley to escape.
- tzs 2y agoGiven New York's notorious problem with bike thefts that doesn't seem like a wise escape plan.
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- prettyStandard 2y agoJust going to go out on a ledge here and guess that a loved one of the shooter died because of some insurance denial.
- xyst 2y agoVery likely. It was very likely planned in advance due today being “investor day”. A person with nothing to lose at this point. “ UnitedHealth Group (NYSE: UNH) will host its annual Investor Conference for analysts and institutional investors in New York City on Wednesday, December 4, 2024, beginning at 8:00 a.m. EST.” [1] [1] https://www.unitedhealthgroup.com/newsroom/2024/2024-11-26-uhg-to-host-2024-investor-conference.html https://www.unitedhealthgroup.com/newsroom/2024/2024-11-26-u...
- water-data-dude 2y agoI’ll just go ahead and drop this link about UnitedHealth’s use of deeply flawed models to deny coverage: https://arstechnica.com/health/2023/11/ai-with-90-error-rate-forces-elderly-out-of-rehab-nursing-homes-suit-claims/ https://arstechnica.com/health/2023/11/ai-with-90-error-rate...
- OutOfHere 2y agoIt's a major regulatory failure to allow insurance companies to deny any claims at all of items that have an FDA approved indication. Ideally, the insurance company should not be able to legally deny any FDA approved action that a licensed doctor has prescribed, with no exceptions. Insurance companies are not doctors, and they should not get to play doctor.
- oldpersonintx 2y ago[dead]
- impish9208 2y agoMy bet is that it’s someone that got stiffed by UHC themself or lost someone close to them. You only have to get prematurely released from the hospital because some representative over the phone says so once for you to see this system is incredibly broken.
- legitster 2y agoThere's not many cases in 2024 where people get denied hospital care because of insurance. Get stuck with massive crippling bills? Sure. Can't afford insulin? Likely. But if you are at the hospital and your coverage is denied, legally that's the hospital's problem.
- impish9208 2y agoThey won’t be overt about it, for obvious reasons. I can tell you with certainty though that they’ll do things like discharge you early, try to send you to another facility, etc even if that’s not the medically sound thing to do.
- legitster 2y agoWe must be talking about longer stays then. In my experience hospitals are not particularly quick to bill or even inform the insurance company. Last time my kid was in the hospital, the hospital didn't bill my insurance for 18 months on some items!
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- barryrandall 2y agoIt happens all the time in 2024, but it takes the form of pharmacy benefit managers arbitrarily forcing people off effective medications onto cheaper, less effective ones.
- berelig 2y agoNYT gift article: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/04/nyregion/shooting-midtown-nyc-united-healthcare-brian-thompson.html?unlocked_article_code=1.e04.IFoV.YvVgOxrMmPgo&smid=url-share https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/04/nyregion/shooting-midtown...
- tzs 2y agoIt's not working for me. First attempt said that the gift expired. Subsequent attempts just act like non-gift links without telling me that it is an expired gift link.
- bayarearefugee 2y agoI'd never condone or celebrate an act like this, but if we're supposed to just accept seemingly random gun violence as an unavoidable fact of life (as various politicians have proclaimed in recent years) health insurance CEOs are preferable to classrooms full of kids.
- coldpie 2y ago[flagged]
- OkayBuddy44 2y ago[flagged]
- philistine 2y agoYou know, Japan just recently had a gunman kill a very powerful person and then the country basically prosecuted the gunman but also completely vindicated them. One can dream.
- xyst 2y agoDisgruntled employee? Patient died or suffered lifelong disability due to denied claims and delay in care? Bankruptcy due to paying out of pocket medical expenses? all potential suspects that can wrap the world, and more. UNH CEO reaped what he sowed. To be honest, this is unlikely to do anything in the long term. In the short term, dip in UNH stonk, but recover over next quarter. Next cookie cutter CEO to be installed will just continue the same shit. Will probably demand 24/7 security paid for by company. Costs subsequently passed down to the unfortunate people that have to pay for their dogshit insurance policies.
- impish9208 2y ago> Next cookie cutter CEO to be installed will just continue the same shit. Will probably demand 24/7 security paid for by company. He probably already had a security detail (obviously not good). For someone at his level, his bespoke life/whatever insurance most likely requires it.
- xkqd 2y ago> Next cookie cutter CEO to be installed will just continue the same shit. Maybe, but what lays outside their door will always haunt them. There’s no replacement that won’t have this in the back of their mind, and I suspect this is sort of the point. From the killer’s perspective, this was probably the best case outcome. The worst case? The decision makers of these companies fear every day. And you know what? Everyone thinks twice when they recognize danger.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- shishy 2y agoI know it's like this but still so depressing this is the best we can do in America. Utterly garbage way to manage a core function of society.
- xkqd 2y agoI’m not sure I follow. What’s uniquely American about killing decision makers? Especially morally questionable individuals? Yeah, it’s a garbage way for society to operate but this is an expression of the human condition. If anything this is a level of action I wouldn’t expect from America.
- shishy 2y agoMy comment was about healthcare insurance, not the CEO getting shot
- bearjaws 2y agoAppears to be a targeted shooting, curious to see what the motive is. Undergoing treatment and having to deal with insurance can put people in a dark place. Even if it's just an accidental injury putting you in medical debt, it can feel like the end of your life. I'll never forget getting denied neulasta while on my last round of chemo and having to pay $21,000 out of pocket until we argued it with insurance. I wouldn't go as far as murder, but I can only imagine others would.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- telgareith 2y ago[flagged]
- marky1991 2y agoMurder is wrong and should never be celebrated. Even if you thought someone were evil, murdering a person is inherently evil. What line of thinking led you to make this comment? Do you disagree with any of my positions? If yes, which and why?
- baggy_trough 2y agoMany of the people commenting on this story have diseased souls.
- wnoise 2y agoThis is true, but only by definition of murder as a wrongful killing. There are plenty of killings that aren't murder.
- marky1991 2y agoIn a country of law, the law determines what a wrongful killing is, not a mob and not a line gunman. This is a wrongful killing, guaranteed.
- relbeek 2y agoDo you really think that murdering the CEO is going to spin off massive reform of US Healthcare? That’s the only way I could see anyone thinking this is “good”.
- fakedang 2y agoWon't spin off reform, and in all likelihood, is just going to result in Fortune 500 companies doing unethical shit to begin budgeting for armed protection for their top brass.
- auntienomen 2y agoCNBC reports that the gunman used a silencer. Wtf?
- mikeyouse 2y agoAnd had been waiting outside for him for at least 20 minutes... certainly targeted.
- alchemist1e9 2y agoAnd maybe silenced? seems like professional hit from details so far.
- busterarm 2y agoIt's still slightly impressive. The lobby of that hotel takes up half a city block and has many entrances and exits. There are lots of ways to get in that are not necessarily the front door. If I were approaching this professionally I'd be waiting near the check-in desk or elevators.
- cogman10 2y agoWe can't know that. There are plenty of avenues for a citizen to get a silencer, long range rifle, and places to train.
- eschneider 2y agoDo a search for 'UnitedHealth uses faulty AI to deny elderly patients' and see what comes up. I'm not saying this is deserved, more that I'm surprised it's taken this long for someone to just up and execute an insurance CEO.
- cnst 2y agoI read the title as "finally shot" before my morning coffee. ("Finally", not "fatally".)
- MichaelZuo 2y agoWell it’s very unfortunate for all Americans that rely on any healthcare company. Since they will all be increasing their rates soon to cover the expenses of 24/7 armed guards, armored vehicles, etc… Edit: Or a reduction in service quality to cover the new expenses.
- ToucanLoucan 2y agoAs someone who endured UHC for several years, I assure you there is no service quality to reduce. > How do they still have that many customers if their service was so bad? Because the people making the decision to purchase UHC services and using UHC services are two wildly different demographics.
- bilbo0s 2y agoTouché
- MichaelZuo 2y agoHow do they still have that many customers if their service was so bad? Do they have an effective monopoly in certain States?
- s1artibartfast 2y agoNo, they are a top tier health company that offers different options including premium healthcare. If you have 50 million customers, you will have some negative experiences.
- bottom999mottob 2y agoWhat a dystopian world we live in where oligarchs controlling anti-trust companies deny medical coverage [0]. Am I surprised this happened... [0] https://www.propublica.org/article/unitedhealth-healthcare-insurance-denial-ulcerative-colitis https://www.propublica.org/article/unitedhealth-healthcare-i...
- criddell 2y agoWhat do you mean by anti-trust company?
- 93po 2y agopresumably a company that is violating the intentions of anti-trust laws
- HDThoreaun 2y ago[flagged]
- schmidtleonard 2y agoIt's wild that we let insurance companies label government triage as "death panels" while for-profit denial innovation got a free pass.
- HDThoreaun 2y agoIndeed, the insurance companies deserve a ton of blame too. They rightly have death panels but use scare tactics to keep people away from gov health insurance that does the same. Still, theyre playing by the rules the gov came up with. Fee for service is a horrible healthcare strategy and insurance is forced into it.
- maxerickson 2y agoDo HMOs charge themselves fees?
- regularization 2y agoPropaganda of the deed? I guess suspects will be a list of people who have been paying into United Health Care insurance who thought they were covered, but got turned down, possibly for a terminal illness, for greater profits.
- matt123456789 2y agoI can write that query for you: > select * from subscribers
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- globalise83 2y ago"When they took everything he had, they left him with nothing to lose"
- behringer 2y agoGood thing for the shooter, that's probably 10s of thousands of suspects in the area.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- octokatt 2y agoAdding the ProPublica article which talks about United Healthcare specifically denying claims for terminal diseases for greater profits. https://www.propublica.org/article/unitedhealth-healthcare-insurance-denial-ulcerative-colitis https://www.propublica.org/article/unitedhealth-healthcare-i... edit: We do not know the shooters motivations, nor do I presume to know. But wanted to add a link for context to the above comment to show context for the statement.
- Teever 2y agoI'm really surprised that we don't see violent action like this from terminal patients who have nothing to lose.
- jeffbee 2y agoAlways seemed pretty strange to me that you can build and oversee an organization widely perceived (whether fairly or not) as evil, host what those evil-perceivers will view as Bad Rich Guy Conference in public, in a country where anyone can get as many guns as they want, and there isn't more violence like this. Seems like an unstable operating point for a society.
- toomuchtodo 2y agoThis is the comment that has been in my head since the news broke, and I feel like we are only at the beginning, like the pause before the first drop of a rollercoaster with the forward looking macro (political and economic tension, broadly speaking). Laws and rules only matter so long as we're all willing to believe they do.
- toomuchtodo 2y agoMatt Stoller does a far better job explaining than my comment did. https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/an-assassin-showed-just-how-angry https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/an-assassin-showed-just-h...
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- ryandrake 2y agoSame here. With as many guns and victims of corporate greed that we have, I'm actually pretty shocked that we don't see this happening as routinely as, say, school shootings. I wonder if we'd see slightly more ethical behavior from corporations if their C-level staff and board members had to routinely practice lock-down drills because they were getting offed once a week.
- Zigurd 2y agoKids can be more cruel than a health insurance company?
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- barblack 2y ago[flagged]
- Insanity 2y agoIs that not usually reserved for people with tech or tech adjacent contributions? EDIT: I know nothing about this person other than he was CEO of an insurance company, which I learned about 1 minute ago.
- monsieurgaufre 2y agoIt is, yes.
- xyst 2y ago[flagged]
- Eumenes 2y ago[flagged]
- rthrfrd 2y agoLaws are only as useful as the social contract they support.
- marky1991 2y agoWhat do you mean by this comment? Could you make your points explicit?
- ToucanLoucan 2y agoNot this commenter, but how I've often heard it expressed was we created the justice system as a better, more civilized alternative to putting people in holes just outside of town. At such a time the justice system stops working, as it increasingly seems to have RE: the rich, then we resume holes.
- marky1991 2y agoThis entire line of thinking just seems to be essentially advocacy for a return to that exact system. "Do what we want or we'll go back to random murder". I wonder if the original commenter would have put the same comment if the article were "man shoots his wife and her lover on discovery of adultery"
- ToucanLoucan 2y agoshrug I'm not an accelerationist, I do not want to live in any more historically significant times than I already have. That said, our systems continue to fail us at basically every turn so when I see stuff like this, I'm not surprised either. If you put people in a situation where they feel they have nothing to lose, you shouldn't be surprised when they start acting that way too. People demand justice, whether they're right to is a secondary concern, as is the methodologies they choose to seek it. Some become activists. Some become politicians. Some pick up guns.
- s1artibartfast 2y ago
- mistrial9 2y agowasn't there a data hack on a large scale previous to this?
- barryrandall 2y agoThat was Change HealthCare, a UnitedHealthCare subsidiary. The reaction to the news was similar.
- xyst 2y ago[flagged]
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- jredwards 2y ago[flagged]
- oceanplexian 2y ago[flagged]
- yyuugg 2y agoThis CEO, in particular, has almost certainly taken actions that resulted in preventable suffering and death. To some degree, that's the nature of running health insurance companies, but if he put profits ahead of patient outcomes, I think we could have a very reasonable discussion on the morality of letting people die at scale vs murder.
- s1artibartfast 2y ago[flagged]
- behringer 2y agoSome people are more guilty than others. This CEO may have committed more murders than that of kings of past centuries.
- s1artibartfast 2y ago[flagged]
- joshmanders 2y agoYou make it sound like "refusing to help" was in the context of a random person begging for help to a stranger. It's more "hey, pay me a percentage of your wages and when you need help with medical bills, we will help you..." then denying the help.
- cpitman 2y agoJust want to caution everyone to not jump to conclusions. Remember when Bob Lee was shot in San Francisco and everyone assumed it was because of how unsafe San Francisco is? And then it turned out to be another tech exec? Beyond the one motive we can think of, this person (like any person) had other things going on in their life. We have no idea what the motive was until the killer is found.
- Kye 2y agoThere isn't a propaganda machine trying to make Manhattan look dangerous, so I don't think anyone thought this was random.
- cpitman 2y agoSure, but there's a lot of speculation that it was a wronged customer. It could have been someone he works with. It could have been someone from his personal life. People who are not Healthcare CEO's also are murdered, there are lots of possible motives. We don't even know that the killer got the right person.
- bdangubic 2y ago> We don't even know that the killer got the right person. The rest I agree with but this part we know, right? CEOs of Fortune 500 companies are not randomly gunned down... It 100% could have been anyone that committed this crime but they 100% got the right person...
- nozzlegear 2y ago> CEOs of Fortune 500 companies are not randomly gunned down... Why not? I don't think random chance really cares about a person's occupation, it's just more unlikely because there are fewer of them.
- vundercind 2y agoThere's an ongoing "all the big liberal cities are scary" vibe in much media that's been internalized by a large proportion of the population. I know multiple people (and have myself experienced this) who've been greeted with warnings and concern from relatives when traveling to major cities... when those cities have violent crime rates far lower than the places they/we live. Like, a fifth as much or lower. It's still "common knowledge" that e.g. Manhattan is way more dangerous than a "safe" red state suburban/exurban county (LOL, very not necessarily true) and that the largest cities must be way more dangerous than small and mid-sized cities (also very not necessarily true).
- bhouston 2y agoThis case aside, I think generally in both the US and Canada it has been very safe for politically influential and high net worth individuals. In Russia, things are different: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suspicious_deaths_of_notable_Russians_in_2022–2024 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suspicious_deaths_of_notable_R...
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- cnst 2y ago[flagged]
- bhouston 2y ago> I think you're forgetting at least Jeffrey Epstein, Seth Rich, the Boeing whistleblowers, and probably many others? Even if we assume all of those are nefarious, that is much fewer people over a much longer period. If you have to add "probably many others", it feels like you are just extrapolating in your favor without evidence.
- cnst 2y agoAren't you just proving the point, though? You automatically assume all conspiracies from one set of countries to be unsubstantiated, yet all the other ones from a different set of countries to suddenly be substantiated and requiring no further proof? And don't even bother to refer to the latter ones as "conspiracies", whereas, in polite company, all the former ones, must explicitly be referred to as "conspiracies". For a lot of these cases, there's really no way to definitively prove either way, so, the fact that with the same set of basic facts, different conclusions are reached, using different words, doesn't instil objectivity to the process.
- talldayo 2y agoTo be fair, "Russian lawlessness" is a concept that predates the entire nation of America, even between Russian authors. People immediately leap to accusations of corruption because the USSR and Russian Federation are both well known for sending agents to kill dissidents living at home or abroad. The modern world has never known what Russia would look like if they embraced global accountability and tried to uphold basic decorum and due process for their convicted criminals. Comparatively, faith in American institutions was only recently shaken by Watergate and the Iran-Contra affair, neither of which were even that bad in a relative sense. If the Clintons were tried and prosecuted for murder then you wouldn't have to label your words as a conspiracy theory, but for now that's exactly what they are. And to be honest, the evidence today doesn't feel any more convincing than the same shtick I heard 15 years ago...
- funfunfunfun 2y ago[flagged]
- francisofascii 2y ago> UnitedHealthcare is a very evil company Because they are an insurance company? Or are they somehow worse than the others?
- i_am_jl 2y ago>Also that would be a great plot for a movie, akin to the Breaking Bad TV series. If you took this idea and worked it into a script with characters and drama you'd get something close to John Q starring Denzel Washington. Not his best work, but a pretty good watch.
- funfunfunfun 2y agoIndeed, or in a Tarantino movie, but in that case the killing would need to happen in a different way. Maybe like, his own employee has her husband's treatment denied, then fueled by rage, does the justice with her own hands with a lot of red in the screen and some feet shots, of course.
- marky1991 2y ago[flagged]
- jmyeet 2y agoI advocate for the fairer distribution of wealth in society. Not only because it's fair but because it's better for everyone. There are many reasons for this including avoiding the alienation of labor and giving people dignity. All it takes is the ultra-wealthy to have slightly less wealth. So why is wealth concentration bad for society apart from that? Because the ultimate form of wealth distribution is war and revolution. It's way the descendants of Rockefeller, the Medicis or Caesar don't own the world. Society eventually snaps and a lot of violence ensues. Eventually you end up with the French Revolution and heads end up on pikes or separated by guillotines. One of the messages of Fight Club is that the rich and powerful cannot insulate themselves from the people they are oppressing. Your gardener, your driver, your chef, your security guard. Any of them is capable of taking matters into their hands and they will only be pushed so far. You saw this play out in Japan with the reaction to Shinzo Abe's assassination a couple of years ago. While world leaders were outraged, the Japanese kinda got it. You can dig deep into this with the Unification Church, its influence on Japanese politics and, if you really want, how the Unification Church is tied to the CIA. United Healthcare is quite literally killing people for profit. Just like the Sacklers and so many others. We've become completely desensitized to this. Private health insurance is completely inefficient (look at how much the US pays per-capita for health care vs any other developed nation and then compare our coverage). We could literally save millions of lives and cut costs by getting rid of these lecherous middlemen. So I don't condone or justify violence like this. It's simply analysis to see that this kind of thing is going to continue to happen as material conditions worsen and wealth inequality rises. In his ~3 year tenure are United Healthcare CEO, Brian Thompson quite literally killed thousands of people yet there's so little outrage over that.
- s1artibartfast 2y ago[flagged]
- Clubber 2y ago>You keep saying killed, but there is a difference between letting people die and killing them. Using dubious legalese to deny a life saving claim that happens to cost say $200,000 that you took premiums for is pretty close. If you pay out of pocket, it might save your life, but you're bankrupt, your children get no inheritance, and you probably lose your house. That's a pretty insidious act for profit IMO. >Voters are widely split on healthcare reform and have no consensus beyond the fact that they want it. I want healthcare reform too, but probably dont agree with you on what that means. I don't that that justifies a consequentialist claim that the other is a killer, let alone reprisal. I think the easiest step would be to drop the Medicaid age from 65 to 60. Drop it 5 years every 5 years or so. The lower it goes, the cheaper that bracket will be. I don't know why any politician hasn't suggested this, but I can guess.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- yyuugg 2y agoI don't think this ceo should be killed. However it's absolutely the case that this ceo has taken actions that resulted in the deaths and suffering of others. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if someone lost a family member due to this ceo and that turned out to be the motive. I'm nervous about the precedent this sets, if that turns out to be the motive.
- detectivedang 2y agoI'd be surprised if it wasn't a hired hit by a jilted ex/mistress or somebody going for assets and a life insurance policy. That's what it usually is with these rich people. Crazy pissed off patients usually shoot up the hospital and broke people can't hire a hitman.
- Clubber 2y ago>I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if someone lost a family member due to this ceo and that turned out to be the motive. I wouldn't be surprised if it was thousands or tens of thousands.
- shadowgovt 2y agoIt reminds me of the assassination of Shinzo Abe. Original assumptions were that it was a political rival... Turned out to be a very simultaneously personal and abstracted "My mother gave away our entire inheritance to the religious group Abe supports and legitimized" grievance.
- AndrewKemendo 2y ago[flagged]
- InsideOutSanta 2y agoThere are around 200 armed militias in the United States. Some of them have a national presence, working command structure, and tens of thousands of members.
- rthrfrd 2y agoI don't think anti-capitalist is a useful label in this context. There doesn't have to be a contradiction in being pro-capitalist and also being pro-eat-the-rich. A situation of extreme inequality that is likely to precipitate an eat-the-rich sentiment is probably not an effective example of capitalism at work.
- slt2021 2y agoanti-oligarchy could be. America has much worse inequality than during the French Revolution, just for reference
- r00fus 2y agoWho needs Al-Qaeda when you have oathkeepers, 3%ers and the like with hundreds if not thousands of members ready to take up arms? We don't need foreign groups, we have homegrown ones.
- throwaway48476 2y agoThe majority of members of those groups are federal informants or agents.
- slt2021 2y agoUS is already captured by oligarchy and special interest groups. What needs to happen is return of power to the common folk, away from filthy rich billionaires and their special interest groups and NGOs
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- Chinjut 2y agoWhy has this been flagged?
- swayvil 2y agobecause it's too real.
- neallindsay 2y agoI would expect spending on executive security to increase a lot.
- nxobject 2y agoThis is unjust. I don’t want to know what sick conspiracy mindset led to this - I wouldn’t be surprised if the murderer’s only motive was terror and a ill-defined, horrifying blanket desire to target “the establishment”. In a just world, sadly, this man would have been slapped with a class action case with a 1000 times the ferocity the ex-CEO of Steward Health is getting, and both he and UnitedHealthcare would be painstakingly charged for the tens of thousands of manslaughter cases he would be liable for, that families of victims would happily testify to, whether due to denied care, or the stress or unsustainable and unjustified medical debt. That would be justice, and that would the be the only way the insurance industry would have been seriously pushed to reform.
- more_corn 2y agohttps://archive.ph/8NrLB https://archive.ph/8NrLB
- monetus 2y agoA grievance will be reported upon soon. If the gunman was trying to improve society, I'm not convinced they did anything but the opposite. - sad in that regard. Good luck to the tragedy in the background, and rip Mr. Thompson.
- lawlessone 2y agoGenuinely surprised this doesn't happen more often
- dmitrygr 2y agoDid UHC deny the CEO ambulance coverage? (they are famous as being the insurer to deny most claims in usa - 32% [1]) [1] https://www.valuepenguin.com/health-insurance-claim-denials-and-appeals https://www.valuepenguin.com/health-insurance-claim-denials-...
- spondylosaurus 2y agoThey're famous for dabbling in Medicare fraud over the years, too. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/16/business/dealbook/unitedhealthcare-improperly-took-money-from-medicare-suit-says.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/16/business/dealbook/unitedh... > Get seniors on your plan > Deny them care to save costs > Bill the US government for nonexistent care anyway > ??? > Profit
- tmaly 2y agoI wonder if this was some response to denying care to someone?
- dmitrygr 2y agoDesperate people will do things like that. I’d be unsurprised. If you feel that you have nothing to lose, nothing will stop you from doing such things. What is fear of prison for someone who just lost a loved one to what they feel is a heartless bureaucracy lead by this guy?
- josefritzishere 2y agoIt's unclear for the moment if this is an angry customer or jilted lover type of killer. Is it personal or is it professional? But as the insurance company with the highest claim rejection rate, they are quite literally killing their customers, manufacturing their own long list of aggrieved suspects.
- D-Coder 2y agoWell, it was someone with a gun, a mask, AND a bicycle. That must cut the list of suspects down quite a bit...
- lawlessone 2y agoA citibike no less
- sergiotapia 2y agoJust saw video of the shooting on X, the guy was cool as a cucumber. Racking a new round after every shot. Not a hint of desperation, fear or anxiety. He didn't even run off after shooting. https://x.com/Tr00peRR/status/1864376034465890417 https://x.com/Tr00peRR/status/1864376034465890417
- thewinnie 2y agoWhy did he reload every shot? Is it self made pistol? My best guess that insurance haven't paid his enough to buy glock17
- sergiotapia 2y agonot a gun dude, but I read that it is common when using "subsonic rounds" for quieter shots.
- jerlam 2y agoAll of this seems to indicate this was a hired professional and not someone merely angry at their health insurance benefits.
- Zigurd 2y agoOr someone highly motivated to make the hit a work of art. Killers are usually not very smart, or they are blinded by rage, and they make mistakes and are sloppy and incomplete about planning.
- throwaway48476 2y ago'hired professionals' are always FBI agents. This guy didn't even do a test firing.
- brokenmachine 2y agoWhat does this mean? How do you know he didn't test before?
- blackeyeblitzar 2y agoNot much is known at this point, but I wonder if this is related to the big hack of change healthcare, a subsidiary. I doubt it but just a thought.
- PaulHoule 2y agoI think a lot of people might believe their life or the life of a loved one was ruined or endangered by a health insurance CEO and such a person might feel justified in such an attack. When you think of the awful stress that CEOs put on people like https://www.reddit.com/r/SEARS/comments/18uwjvg/have_you_interacted_with_eddie_lampert/ https://www.reddit.com/r/SEARS/comments/18uwjvg/have_you_int... and think it's a wonder this doesn't happen more often but then I found out that Lampert had been kidnapped.
- sexyman48 2y agoCEO pay is an outlier partly for their vision/talent, but primarily because they individually take the hit whenever a subordinate, no matter how far down the chain, fucks up publicly.
- PaulHoule 2y agoSometimes it seems the other way with failing up. But yeah, a CEO sometimes has to take a lot of shit. See https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2024/12/2/intel-ceo-pat-gelsinger-forced-out-in-surprise-move https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2024/12/2/intel-ceo-pat-ge... Personally I do not care how much they get paid as much as I care how miserable they can make my life as a customer/vendor/employee.
- sexyman48 2y agoErr, unless he's tapping you to be his next-in-line, a CEO's impact on your happiness is vanishingly small relative to your customer service agent's, your sales rep's, or your immediate boss's.
- pseingatl 2y agoLook at recent cases where UnitedHealthCare denied coverage and the insured died. - - - This was payback.
- more_corn 2y agoI had exactly the same thought (though was reluctant to say it because I have literally zero evidence and hence it is 100% idle speculation)
- xnx 2y agoIt will always be a challenge to allocate limited healthcare resources. It's an unsettled question why the US accepts such an expensive means (private health insurance) of doing so.
- ttt3ts 2y agoIt isn't like US public system, medicare, is great. I still end up buying my folks supplemental. This narrative of pubic vs private misses most of the nuance.
- FactKnower69 2y agothere's so much nuance in an insurance company having billions left over every year after subtracting payouts from premiums! it's sooo complex and nuanced
- t-writescode 2y ago> why the US accepts Because we don't have another option. Your job dictates your insurance, not you, and most jobs explicitly search for insurance companies that don't end up costing them much (but cover enough that people still think they have coverage, maybe). There's stories going around right now about how BlueCrossBlueShield is going to be dictating the amount of time during a surgery that anesthesia will be covered. https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=blue+cross+blue+shield+anesthesia+coverage https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=blue+cross+blue+shield+anes... Of course, these stories are happening after individuals have made their elections for insurance AND after the companies that would be choosing the various insurance companies to pick from would have already selected their projected insurance provider.
- delecti 2y ago> Your job dictates your insurance, not you, and most jobs [...] This is answering the question with a very narrow focus on what any one person can do. Sure, when I filled out my job's open enrollment last month, there was no checkbox labeled "Evil Corporation Insurer (y/n)", but there's no inviolable law of nature that requires the US to be this way.
- lc9er 2y agoSo anyway, did you see Sony may buy the parent company of FromSoftware? That could be a real bummer if they interfere with game design.
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- ofcourseyoudo 2y agoThis is going to be a boom cycle for the Executive Protection industry.
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- causal 2y agoWill be interesting to see how institutions respond. Ideal outcome: Meaningful steps to address the healthcare crisis. Less ideal outcome: Parents whose children were denied coverage are put on a watchlist as potential terror suspects.
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- fsckboy 2y agoThere will always be random or isolated acts of violence. The thing that really scares me about this one is that over on reddit, there is overwhelming widespread jubilation.